It's watching, and knows a crime is about to take place before it happens. Vaak, a Japanese startup, has developed artificial intelligence software that hunts for potential shoplifters, using footage from security cameras for fidgeting, restlessness and other potentially suspicious body language. While AI is usually ...

Noriko Mori, 47, paid about ¥700,000 ($6,300) to a cram school to help her daughter prepare for a school entrance exam in Tokyo. Her daughter was six, and the entrance exam was for an elementary school. "It was expensive," Mori said. But "she passed the ...

A brand-new store opened in Tokyo's Harajuku fashion district on Friday, walls lined with clothes, shoes and handbags — and with a twist: shoppers will walk away empty-handed. The GU Style Studio store — opened by Fast Retailing Co., Asia's largest clothier and the operator ...

Philip Morris International Inc. expects regulators to gradually become more open to alternatives to cigarettes even after more than 27 governments have prohibited next-generation smokeless devices. "Eventually, countries will reverse gear," Chief Executive Officer Andre Calantzopoulos said in an interview in Tokyo. "I don't think ...