E-textbooks to open digital can of worms
As the world goes digital, many schools are trying to introduce digital materials into the classroom to encourage studying and meet the needs of students' increasingly diverse needs. In May, the education ministry formed a panel to discuss the use of digital textbooks and whether ...
Views from Yokohama: Is technology making the world better or worse?
Luddites and tech fans are interrogated on the wide streets of Yokohama.
Toshiba to announce next week scope of accounting irregularities probe
Toshiba Corp. will announce early next week the scope of a third-party probe into accounting irregularities which have led the electronics giant to overstate its profits, sources close to the matter said Thursday. The investigation is expected to extend beyond the three divisions inside the ...
Toshiba Corp. said Friday it has set up a third-party committee to probe accounting irregularities regarding its past infrastructure projects, amid growing fears the matter may spiral further and erode trust in the electronics giant. The company said in a statement that the committee is ...
Digital tack taken to revive interest in New Year's cards
The tradition of sending "nengajo," or New Year's postcards, has been in decline as people turn to the Internet, social networking and digital gadgets like smartphones instead of putting pen to paper. Japan Post Co., the postal arm of government-owned Japan Post Holdings Co., is ...
Obama's immigration tweaks leave tech industry wanting more
President Barack Obama plans to make life a little easier for some foreign tech workers, but Silicon Valley representatives are disappointed that his immigration rule changes will not satisfy long-standing demands for more visas and faster green cards. In a speech Thursday, Obama outlined plans ...
New tech brings cinema to the deaf and blind
The lights dimmed inside the theater at the Tokyo International Film Festival and the audience quieted down. As Masayuki Suo's film "Maiko wa Lady (Lady Maiko)" began, the viewers were ready — with glasses-shaped head-mounted displays and earpieces designed to make cinema accessible to ...
StartEd offers a legal leg-up for tech startups
Every so often, Japanese- and English-speaking legal advisers meet with entrepreneurs in Tokyo to dispense free one-on-one legal guidance.
Jonathan Mosen, who has been blind since birth, spent a recent evening snapping photos of packages in the mail, his son's school report and labels on bottles in the fridge. In seconds, he was listening to audio of the printed words the camera had ...
London's young techs find anti-immigrant mood a drag on hiring talent
When Efe Cakarel picked London as a new base for his video streaming company, he was counting on its location, capital markets and infrastructure, but also on the city's reputation as a hub for talented people from Europe and beyond. Four years later, the 38-year-old ...
Internet fraud takes a turn for the strange
Two widely reported Web stories this year have been related to online-services fraud. One concerns online banking, the other account-hacking on a smartphone messenger service. If you use the online services of Japanese banks, you may have noticed that their websites have become decorated with ...
Rise of the machines? Tiny robot horde swarms to form shapes
They look vaguely like miniature hockey pucks skittering along on three pinlike metal legs, but a swarm of small robots called Kilobots at a laboratory at Harvard University is making a little bit of history for automatons everywhere. Researchers who created a battalion of 1,024 ...
