For Yuri Kageyama's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:
Thousands upon thousands of cans are filled with beer, capped and washed, wrapped into six-packs, and boxed at dizzying speeds — 1,500 a minute, to be exact — on humming conveyor belts that zip and wind in a sprawling factory near Tokyo. Nary a soul ...
How much did Nintendo pay to land that dream marketing opportunity at the Rio Olympics closing ceremony, where Japan's prime minister popped out dressed as the red-hatted plumber Super Mario? Zero. The Japanese video game maker behind "Pokemon" and "Zelda" got the coveted stage that corporate ...
An American sailor has tapped a cloud-based technology for mobile phones to make it easier to have volunteers take turns driving inebriated friends home, an initiative that has curtailed drunken driving among the navy ranks. The effort, tested at the Naval Sea Systems Command in ...
Japanese auto parts maker Takata Corp. is expecting a loss instead of a profit for the fiscal year that ended in March because of ballooning costs from a massive global air-bag recall. Tokyo-based Takata, which is set to give its earnings report Wednesday, said Monday ...
Coping with the vast amounts of groundwater flowing into the broken Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant — which then becomes irradiated and seeps back out — has become such a problem that the country is building a ¥35 billion "ice wall" into the ground ...
To dump or not to dump a little-discussed substance is the question as Tokyo Electric Power Co. and the government grapples with the aftermath of the nuclear catastrophe in Fukushima five years ago. The substance is tritium. The radioactive material is nearly impossible to remove ...
Lawyer Hiroyuki Kawai stands out in Japan, a nation dominated by somber dark suits: When not in a courtroom, he often wears colorful shirts and crystal-covered animal pins. He is a noh dancer, a tenor and, of late, a filmmaker. His ride is a ...
No more fiddling with remote-controller buttons or a mouse. Just look. San Francisco-based startup Fove has developed eye-tracking for virtual reality — that kernel of technology many feel is key for the illusion of becoming immersed in a setting. Glance, and a video-game character talks back. ...
They feel like refugees, although they live in one of the world's richest and most peaceful nations. Five years ago, these people fled their homes, grabbing what they could, as a nearby nuclear plant melted down after being hit by tsunami, spewing radiation. All told, ...
Major Chinese consumer-drone maker DJI has its eyes on the potentially lucrative Japanese market after regulations on drones were relaxed three months ago. DJI Japan General Manager Allen Wu launched the latest model, Phantom 4, Thursday in a fashionable mall in Tokyo. In a demonstration, the ...
