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August 28, 2025
 

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TECH

Chinese Premier Li Qiang addresses the opening ceremony of the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai on July 26, where he emphasized “the deep integration of AI with the real economy” and its relevance to daily applications.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 27, 2025
Al and our brave new world of ‘weaponized interdependence’
In the U.S.-China race for AI dominance, failure is not an option.
Suyun Ham, an engineering professor at UTA, reviews data from a recent inspection with two other researchers. Ham likens his technology to a “portable MRI,” which can detect cracks and other hidden dangers in a bridge.
ENVIRONMENT
Aug 26, 2025
Are bridges near you safe? This MRI-like scan may prevent disaster
An engineering professor from the University of Texas at Arlington is experimenting with a novel approach to inspecting bridges for heat damage.
Nikkei and the Asahi Shimbun have sued Perplexity AI over alleged copyright infringement.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Aug 26, 2025
Nikkei and Asahi Shimbun sue Perplexity AI over alleged copyright violations
The newspapers are seeking an injunction and ¥2.2 billion each in damages from Perplexity, they said in a joint statement. The suit was filed at the Tokyo District Court.
Daiki Hama, lecturer at Tama University in Tokyo, shows his creation of a virtual Siberian internment camp and a virtual reality headset in April.
JAPAN
Aug 26, 2025
Japanese lecturer digitally re-creates post-WWII Siberian detention camp
The virtual camp has been used for hands-on events for children at a museum and training sessions for student storytellers at the Maizuru Repatriation Memorial Museum.
The Tokyo Electron booth at the Semicon Japan exhibition in Tokyo in December. Tokyo Electron supplier Marumae is seeking out deals to consolidate the chip tool components sector.
BUSINESS / Companies
Aug 26, 2025
Japan’s niche chip gear makers left out of Nvidia boom, one CEO says
Small companies lack the scale to demand better prices and lower costs, resulting in profit margins of less than 10%, the head of Tokyo Electron supplier Marumae said.
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi speaks next to U.S. Vice President JD Vance and Terry Cole, Administrator of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), during the signing of executive orders by U.S. President Donald Trump in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington on Monday.
BUSINESS / Tech
Aug 26, 2025
U.S. weighing sanctions on EU officials implementing Digital Services Act
The law aims to make the online environment safer, in part by compelling tech giants to tackle illegal content such as hate speech and child sexual abuse material.
To critics, the White House move to invest in chipmaker Intel threatens the U.S. business world's nimbleness.
BUSINESS / Markets
Aug 26, 2025
Trump wants more deals such as Intel's, worrying business community
The approach upends a decades-old view of the U.S. economy, in which the government only took corporate stakes in rare emergencies.
As generative AI like ChatGPT becomes more popular, evidence is growing that it may harm mental health by encouraging dependency, weakening critical thinking and even contributing to delusional episodes.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Aug 25, 2025
ChatGPT’s mental health costs are adding up
From brain rot to induced psychosis, the psychological cost of generative AI is growing and flying under the radar.
Traffic along a highway in New Delhi. India, the world's third largest emitter of carbon dioxide, will be able to access Japanese decarbonization technologies at low cost under a joint crediting mechanism.
JAPAN / Science & Health
Aug 25, 2025
Japan and India to use joint crediting mechanism in emission-cutting plan
The yet-to-be-announced plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in India using Japanese technologies will allow Japan to count part of the reductions as its own.
Under a new agreement, the U.S. will receive 433.3 million shares of common stock — representing 9.9% of the fully diluted common shares in Intel — according to a statement from the company.
BUSINESS
Aug 23, 2025
U.S. takes nearly 10% Intel stake, clinching unorthodox deal
Under the agreement, the U.S. will receive 433.3 million shares of common stock — representing 9.9% of the fully diluted common shares in the firm.
The Toyoake Municipal Government in Aichi Prefecture is planning to enact an ordinance to urge all smartphone users in the city to limit screen time to two hours a day outside work or school.
JAPAN / Society
Aug 22, 2025
Japanese city proposes two-hour daily limit for smartphone use
Toyoake's cap will not be binding and there will be no penalties incurred for higher usage, according to a draft ordinance.
A catch-all term for tendonitis and arthritis caused by excessive smartphone use, 'sumaho yubi' may be difficult to treat for gadget-crazy Japan.
LIFE / Lifestyle
Aug 22, 2025
Fingers sore from too much phone time? You might have ‘sumaho yubi.’
One doctor says the symptoms of smartphone-induced tendonitis and arthritis are on the rise for those in the 20s, 30s and 40s.
A lot of Japanese workers join online group texts to communicate with their coworkers, but at what point do those chats threaten a healthy work-life balance?
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Aug 22, 2025
Expressing annoyance with work group chats in Japanese
Some employees value the convenience; others feel trapped by after-hours texts and social expectations embedded in office messaging culture.
Chatbots are pivoting to the ad model and optimizing for eyeballs, just like social media did. And AI knows more about us than Google or Facebook ever did.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 21, 2025
Ads ruined social media. Now they’re coming to AI.
Imagine a person telling their AI they’re feeling depressed, and the system recommending some affordable holiday destinations or medication to address the problem.
Acting Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jim Kilby visits BlackSea Technology facilities to view a drone test in Baltimore, Maryland, in June.
WORLD
Aug 21, 2025
The U.S. Navy is building a drone fleet to take on China. It's not going well.
A recent naval test designed to showcase the Pentagon’s top autonomous drone boats ended in failure due to software glitches and human error.
U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick on June 5. Soruces say Lutnick has been pushing the idea of the federal government taking equity stakes in computer chip manufacturers that receive CHIPS Act funding, and that Trump likes the idea.
BUSINESS / Tech
Aug 20, 2025
Washington eyeing government stakes in chipmakers given CHIPS Act funds: sources
U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick is said to be exploring how the U.S. can receive equity stakes in firms such as Micron, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. and Samsung.
SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son and U.S. President Donald Trump. Son has promised to invest $100 billion in the United States.
BUSINESS / Companies
Aug 19, 2025
SoftBank buying about 2% of Intel for $2 billion
CEO Masayoshi Son earlier pledged to invest a total of $100 billion in the United States.
SoftBank is scouting a number of potential data center sites to serve as a flagship for Stargate, weighing their access to water, power and telecom networks.
BUSINESS
Aug 18, 2025
Foxconn to operate SoftBank’s Stargate AI server site in Ohio
SoftBank will supply manufacturing gear to the factory, and a joint venture between the two companies will make AI data center-related equipment.
A new Facebook data center is under construction in Eagle Mountain, Utah, in May 2019. Manufacturers and builders are reaping windfalls from the AI-driven data center surge.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 18, 2025
The AI building boom is bound to bust
For now, the boom has room to run. The introduction of artificial intelligence into the workplace and society will match the rollout of electricity and the internet.
Female students are given a tour of U.S. chip giant Nvidia's office in Tokyo in July.
BUSINESS / Companies
Aug 18, 2025
Firms host female high school students to tout science and technology
Through company tours, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government hopes to encourage female students to pick science and technology when pursuing higher education.
Philippine bid to acquire used Japanese warships gains steam
Tokyo is looking to transfer Abukuma-class vessels to the Philippines as part of broader efforts to boost the defense capabilities of like-minded neighbors amid growing Chinese military assertiveness in the region.
Japan Post to stop accepting some parcels for shipment to the U.S.
Japan Post's UGX will still be available for many rejected packages.
Japan aims to tighten rules for business manager visas from October
The number of foreign residents with business management residency status had reached a record 41,615 as of the end of 2024.
Tokyo releases AI-generated video of Mount Fuji erupting
A screenshot from an AI-generated video showing what could happen to Tokyo if Mount Fuji erupted
Character-crazed Japan has little appetite for Labubu
A pop-up advertisement for the newly opened Chiikawa Park in Tokyo's Ikebukuro neighborhood demonstrates how the country is chockful of cute characters — to the detriment of trends like Labubu.
Koshien’s dark summer forces reckoning for high school baseball
Koryo High School players greet their cheering section after beating Hokkaido’s Asahikawa Shiho in the first round of Summer Koshien on Aug. 7. The school withdrew three days later as a bullying scandal enveloped the team.
Is Kishida plotting a return of the king? Or would he rather stay a kingmaker?
Former Prime Minister Fumio Kishida chairs a plenary session at the Ninth Tokyo International Conference on African Development in Yokohama on Aug. 21.
Japanese prefectures break with labor ministry on minimum wage
The ministry of labor has suggested a 6% minimum wage increase, but most prefectures reporting so far are opting to go slightly higher.
Philippines quietly deepening ‘unofficial’ defense ties with Taiwan
Filipino soldiers take part in a flag-raising ceremony on Mavulis Island during a visit by the Philippines' Armed Forces chief of staff, in Batanes, the Philippines, in June 2023. Batanes, a group of idyllic islands at the country’s northernmost tip, sits about 160 kilometers from Taiwan.
Are 'coolcations' the answer for Japan's heat-weary tourists?
Hikers on a trail in Hakuba, Nagano Prefecture. As extreme heat continues to grip Japan, a tectonic shift may be underway in the nation’s summer tourism scene as more people gravitate toward cooler destinations.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

Tetsuzo Shiraishi, speaking at The Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage, uses a thermos to explain how he experienced the U.S. firebombing of March 1945, when he was just 7 years old.
From ashes to high-rises: A survivor’s account of Tokyo’s postwar past
By Alex K.T. Martin

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