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WORLD
Jun 12, 2013

U.S. tech giants urge NSA transparency

Technology companies stung by the controversy over the National Security Agency's sweeping Internet surveillance program are calling on U.S. officials to ease the secrecy surrounding national security investigations and lift long-standing gag orders covering the nature and extent of information collected about Internet users.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Companies
Jun 9, 2013

Dark sides of Toyota's drive to be No. 1

Like most corporate giants, Toyota isn't all squeaky clean. Yet in their book 'Toyota no Shotai' ('The True Colors of Toyota') published in Japanese in 2006, Hajime Yokota and Makoto Sataka catalog the Japanese media's timidity when it comes to covering the nation's top advertiser.
WORLD
May 30, 2013

U.S. Army mulls hybrid-engine model for next mainstay tank

Next year, the U.S. Army is expected to choose a larger tank to replace its Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle, which has been in service since 1981. If the army accepts one contractor's proposal, its armored brigades could be relying heavily on a tank with a hybrid engine for several decades.
BUSINESS / Tech
May 22, 2013

Microsoft hits reset button in unveiling Xbox One console

Microsoft unveils the Xbox One, an entertainment console that wants to be the one system households will need for games, television, movies, sports and other entertainment.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
May 20, 2013

What the Bloomberg terminal scandal reveals about the media and its money-making ways

The chatter across the world of financial journalism over the last few days has been the story of Bloomberg reporters accessing information about subscribers of the firm's financial data service that those customers thought should remain secret. The episode contains some important lessons for how the...
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Companies / ANALYSIS
Apr 26, 2013

Why are investors punishing Apple?

By almost any measure, Apple Inc. had an awfully good start to the year.
LIFE / Digital
Apr 24, 2013

Why big IT projects go wrong

In 1975, a computer scientist named Fred Brooks published one of the seminal texts in the literature of computing. It had the intriguing title of "The Mythical Man-Month" and it consisted simply of a set of essays on the art of managing large software projects. Between its covers is distilled more wisdom...
BUSINESS
Apr 11, 2013

Tepco boosts coal capacity to cut need for costly oil

Tokyo Electric Power Co. may cut its oil purchases by more than one-third as it boosts its reliance on coal plants to reduce an energy bill that's ballooned since the Fukushima nuclear crisis started.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Mar 20, 2013

Japan Steel mulls overseas ventures

Japan Steel Works Ltd., a nuclear parts supplier for customers from Areva SA to Hitachi Ltd., is considering tieups in Southeast Asia and India after the Fukushima disaster squeezed demand at home and in the U.S.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT
Mar 5, 2013

Natural gas leaks may hasten global warming

Two guys in a black car cruise the streets of Washington's residential neighborhoods. The only signs of what they are up to are a gray plastic tube hanging out of the trunk and the fact that they get out of the car frequently to place a black box on manhole covers and study its readings.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Feb 11, 2013

U.S. top court to weigh biotech patent limits

Farmer Hugh Bowman hardly looks the part of a revolutionary who stands in the way of promising new biotech discoveries and threatens Monsanto's pursuit of new products it says will "feed the world."
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LABOR PAINS
Jan 22, 2013

AKB48: Unionize and take back your lost love lives

They started performing on stages in Tokyo's Akihabara electronics district, and today their ubiquity is unrivaled. The current flavors of the month pepper the TV schedules and covers of weekly magazines all year round. In Tokyo, you can't swing a carrot without hitting a giant poster of one or a bunch...
COMMENTARY / Japan / SENTAKU MAGAZINE
Jan 14, 2013

Our menacing infrastructure

"Expressway tunnels as well as other infrastructure throughout Japan are nearing the crisis stage," warns a university professor who is a member of an advisory body for the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jan 8, 2013

Young Livesense chief needlessly lonely at top

It is a rarity for a young person to turn a startup into a corporate success story in Japan, but the nation's future growth may in fact depend on such youthful entrepreneurs.
COMMUNITY / Issues / LABOR PAINS
Nov 20, 2012

Disciplinary measures must pass the 'objective, rational' test

"Discipline" (chōkai) — a miserable word if there ever was one. Being scolded as a child is part of growing up, but for us adults, being disciplined can be a particularly humiliating experience. But how much more humiliated would we feel if the grounds for the discipline were arbitrary, unfair or...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Nov 20, 2012

Fujitsu to expand services sales as hardware slumps

Fujitsu Ltd. plans to increase sales in computer services to make up for declining hardware demand.
EDITORIALS
Oct 23, 2012

Japan Post aims to boost business

The Japan Post group was reorganized on Oct. 1 under the revised postal privatization law that was enacted in the last Diet session. The main aim of the revision is to boost business by increasing convenience for customers. In a difficult business environment, the Japan Post group must strive to improve...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Oct 16, 2012

Softbank shares dive as Son the 'gambler' bets on Sprint

Softbank Corp.'s Masayoshi Son has a history of picking winners. Investors say his latest choice may not be a repeat performance.
JAPAN / IMF-WORLD BANK IN TOKYO
Oct 12, 2012

Kajima develops technologies to cope with disasters

As a way to demonstrate its commitment to the growing corporate and social requirements for business continuity plans (BCP), Kajima Corp., Japan's leading general contractor, conducted a large-scale anti-disaster drill on Aug. 30. It was conducted on the assumption that a magnitude 7.3 earthquake with...
ENVIRONMENT / OLD NIC'S NOTEBOOK
Oct 7, 2012

Minamata: a saga of suffering and hope

The last job I had that paid me a real salary was with the Canadian government's Environmental Protection Service in the mid 1970s.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Oct 4, 2012

Sony's Hirai says efforts to revive TV business are ahead of schedule

Sony Corp. earnings are "moving in the right direction" as it accelerates a plan to turn around its unprofitable TV business, Chief Executive Officer Kazuo Hirai said.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Sep 13, 2012

Nintendo recovery may hinge on Wii U sales

Nintendo Co. President Satoru Iwata is convinced the future of gaming still centers on handheld and TV-based machines. He'll get his answer by Christmas, in the number of new Wii U consoles that get bought.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHO'S WHO
Sep 11, 2012

Hotelier sees disaster bring out best in Japanese

As a veteran of the tourism and hotel industries in Japan for more than two decades, Tony Virili says he will "never forget" what took place at one of his firm's franchise hotels in Sendai on March 11, 2011.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Aug 29, 2012

Nuke crisis tested oldest sake brewer

Over its 850 plus years, sake maker Sudohonke Inc. has endured wars, famines, earthquakes, plagues, droughts, storms and everything in between. But the nuclear crisis that started last year at the Fukushima No. 1 power plant was an unparalleled catastrophe that pushed it to the brink.
COMMUNITY / Issues / HAVE YOUR SAY
Jul 31, 2012

Debate rages over value of JET program, assistant language teachers

Some readers' responses to letters published in this column on July 10 ("Readers lament the ever-shrinking eikaiwa salary") regarding Patrick Budmar's July 3 Zeit Gist article, "The curious case of the eroding eikaiwa salary":

Longform

Growing families are being priced out of Tokyo’s condo market, forced to choose between downtown convenience and suburban space.
Is living in central Tokyo still affordable?