Japan is to start an aggressive push to market abroad its mobile technology, especially the nation’s popular ”wallet phone”.
The global roll-out of Apple’s revamped iPhone kicked off on Friday in Asia with countdown celebrations and quick sell-outs.
Drivers in Japan can check on their pets, turn lights off and on and lock their front door, all from inside their cars — with a new car navigation system from Panasonic. The Strada F-Class guides drivers with maps to destinations, but the gadget also links to your home through an internet-linking cellphone.
Mieko Kawakami, a former bar hostess and bookstore clerk, was just another obscure singer until she started a blog. Her poetic, street-wise writing stood out so starkly among internet diaries in Japan — which, like those around the world, tend to be more informative or gossipy than narrative — that she is now Japan’s biggest literary star.
The booming popularity of Nintendo’s Wii console and DS handheld sent the combined sales of game machines and gaming software in Japan to a record high last year, according to research by a Japanese publisher. The results underline the stellar success of Nintendo, the company maker behind Super Mario and Pokemon games.
Nintendo’s ”Wiimote” is getting a cushion cover. The Japanese game maker’s Wii machine has become a global hit among players young and old alike. To help prevent accidents and soften possible blows, Nintendo is shipping for free rubbery silicone covers for the handheld devices.
Sharp showed a 29mm-thick prototype TV on Wednesday, which the Japanese electronics maker said was the thinnest, lightest and lowest energy-consuming liquid crystal display (LCD) in the world. The 25kg display, which has a tuner and other TV features encased in its panel, weighs about half of current LCD panel TVs and consumes about half their power, according to Sharp.
World Cup fever is kicking up already-strong demand for flat-panel televisions as consumers desiring a sharper picture of matches are finding lower prices and marketing pitches honed for soccer fans. At a Yamada electronics store in Tokyo, TVs are awash in blue — the Japanese national team’s jersey colour.
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/ 26 October 2005
Japan’s top three manufacturers have so far rejected offers from Airbus of contract work on the planned A350 jets, citing their order commitments to rival Boeing, Airbus chief executive Gustav Humbert said on Wednesday.
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/ 12 October 2005
A Japanese government committee is mulling a copyright-law revision to charge royalties on digital music players, but the opinion is so divided on the so-called ”iPod tax” that it isn’t likely to be charged, officials said on Wednesday. The panel is made up of academics, consumer-rights activists and other experts.