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EDITORIALS
Oct 22, 2016

Lure of defense research funds

The Defense Ministry's program to fund dual-use research opens up serious moral and ethical questions for university researchers.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Companies
Oct 20, 2016

Startup tests egg-beater-type wind turbine that can resist typhoons on Okinawa

With hurricanes threatening Florida and typhoons lashing Japan, a startup company working on the island of Okinawa is testing a wind turbine that could withstand winds that blow the blades off traditional machines.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Tech
Oct 17, 2016

Apple's switch to OLED screens could make or break Japanese suppliers

Pick up a high-end smartphone these days and chances are it will have a crisp, energy-sipping organic LED display — unless it's an iPhone.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Sep 2, 2016

Apple hopes for e-money growth in cash-carrying Japan

Apple Inc.'s plan to allow Japanese customers to use iPhones to pay for their daily commute underscores the potential for digital payments to grow in a nation where people still prefer to hold cash.
BUSINESS
Aug 9, 2016

Japan plans to search for, mine metals deep beneath the ocean

As deep as 1,600 meters under water and 1,500 km from Tokyo, work has begun on the new hunting ground for metals in Japan, a country so devoid of natural resources that most of what it needs has to be imported.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Apr 29, 2016

Why Japan lost Aussie sub bid

The botched bidding process for a contract to build submarines for Australia's navy was an important lesson for Japan.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Apr 19, 2016

Time to burn ¥10,000 bills?

Japan has a technology problem: it's called paper money. Can a digital currency cure the economy's woes?
Japan Times
JAPAN / 5-YEAR MEMORIAL OF GREAT EAST JAPAN EARTHQUAKE
Mar 11, 2016

Seismic isolation systems help mitigate earthquake damage

Seismic isolation is an excellent technology to help make structures more resistant to earthquakes by installing equipment to isolate a building from the ground and keep tremors from reaching the building. Seismic isolation systems reduce shaking by placing rubber, lead or other substances between structures...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Nov 14, 2015

Abe and the media get ahead of themselves on driverless cars

In a new TV commercial for Nissan, American actress Charlotte Kate Fox, who appeared in last year's NHK morning drama series, "Massan," is driving on city streets at night. She pushes a button on the dashboard and slowly takes her hands off the steering wheel. The car continues to move, making turns...
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / Science & Health
Jun 10, 2015

China's big biotech bet starts to pay off

Years of pouring money into its laboratories, wooing scientists home from overseas and urging researchers to publish and patent is starting to give China a competitive edge in biotechnology, a strategic field it sees as ripe for "indigenous innovation."
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Companies
Apr 9, 2015

Apple faces local battles as its prepares global payments push

Apple Inc. has made mobile payments look easy, after a decade of mostly failed experiments by banks, telecom operators and retailers to woo consumers away from cards and cash.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Science & Health / ADVANCES IN PROGRESS
Feb 9, 2015

3-D printers take center stage in Japan's regenerative medicine

As public expectations for regenerative medicine mount, scientists are turning to the vast potential of 3-D printing technologies in their quest to re-create skin, blood vessels, cartilage and other complex human tissue.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / IEC GENERAL MEETING IN TOKYO
Nov 4, 2014

IEC evolves in line with technological advancement

The International Eletctrotechnical Commission has a long history going back more than a century. The IEC was officially founded in June 1906, in London, where its central office was set up. Since then, the IEC has continuously evolved, with its role changing as technology advanced.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jul 21, 2014

SK Hynix says Toshiba wants ¥109 billion in flash memory lawsuit

South Korea's SK Hynix Inc said Monday that rival Toshiba Corp is seeking ¥109.15 billion in damages in a lawsuit filed over the suspected leak of NAND flash memory chip technology.
LIFE / Digital
Jun 6, 2014

Amazon's drone dream sparks race for better sensor

In the quest to build drones that can enable companies such as Amazon to make door-to-door deliveries, engineers are racing to overcome a fundamental challenge: helping unmanned, suitcase-sized aircraft see where they're going.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Tech
Dec 31, 2013

2013 was an amazing year in tech

If you go by the headlines, the iPhone 5S and Google Glass were the big technology stories of 2013, and Twitter's IPO was the event of the year. The coverage of Glass focused mostly on its privacy implications — not its ability to change the world. And iPhone and Twitter were just more of the same....
Japan Times
WORLD
Dec 9, 2013

Major U.S. tech companies call for strict limits on surveillance

Eight of America's largest technology companies have called on President Barack Obama and Congress to impose strict new curbs on surveillance that, if enacted, would dramatically reshape intelligence operations that U.S. officials have portrayed as integral to the war on terrorism.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 28, 2013

India designs low-cost computer to prep poor

The Indian government has designed a 7-inch Android-powered computer tablet called 'Aakash' that American educators are introducing in class to prep poor kids for today's jobs.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Companies
Oct 1, 2013

Full electric future still far off, says Toyota chair

Toyota Chairman Takeshi Uchiyamada rode his pioneering work on the Prius hybrid to the top of the world's biggest car company.
BUSINESS / Tech / ANALYSIS
Aug 24, 2013

Under Ballmer, Microsoft struggled to modernize

In the 13 years that Steve Ballmer has led Microsoft, literature has climbed out of books, songs have freed themselves from CDs and computers have leapt off their desktops into our hands. An exhilarating new world of technology has emerged with little help from a company that once dominated the industry....
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 21, 2013

Is the age of automation taking a toll on jobs?

American colleges aren't worse today, but the skills required for solving unstructured problems and working with new info have become more complex.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT
Jul 12, 2013

Fracking battle lines drawn in England's countryside

For a site symbolizing a future that will either poison our countryside or bring us unlimited amounts of cheap, pollution-free energy, Elswick, in northeast England, is a distinctly underwhelming destination for a visit. The gas-power station, owned by the U.K. drilling company Cuadrilla, lies in the...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jun 7, 2013

Abe plan lifts renewables at utilities' expense

Shinzo Abe's pledge to spur ¥30 trillion of investment in Japan's electricity industry opens the way for a surge in clean energy projects at the expense of traditional utilities.
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital
Jun 5, 2013

Do self-driving cars need to cost so much?

"The best is the enemy of the good," said the 18th-century French writer Voltaire. It's a maxim that has a particular resonance for tech designers, because it highlights the intrinsic tension between ambition and pragmatism that haunts them. Many perfectly viable products have never made it beyond the...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
May 19, 2013

Google's big hitters' most ambitious predictions yet

When, in early 2011, Eric Schmidt stepped aside from his position as Google's CEO to become the company's executive chairman, some of us were reminded of Dean Acheson's famous gibe about postwar Britain — which had "lost an empire but not yet found a role." What would Dr. Schmidt's new role be, and...
Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health
May 4, 2013

Manned Mars trip no longer a dream

The notion of landing astronauts on Mars has long been more fantasy than reality. The planet is, on average, 225 million km from Earth, and its atmosphere is not hospitable to human life.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
May 3, 2013

Apple, Samsung looking to produce smart watches as Sony's time passes

With growth slowing in the $358 billion handset market, Apple Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co. are developing digital watches that allow people to make calls, check map coordinates or monitor their physical activity.

Longform

Koichi Tagawa’s diary entry from Aug. 9, 1945, describes the day of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki.
The horrors of Nagasaki, in first person