The operator of 7-Eleven convenience stores in Japan said Thursday possibly some 900 customers using its mobile payment service have lost a total of 55 million yen ($510,000) due to unauthorized access to their accounts. The problem surfaced soon after the operator, Seven & i … | Continue reading
Rie Kawano is very open about why Cognitee Inc., the company she founded in 2013 and where she is chief executive officer, struggled in the early days. Cognitee develops software powered by artificial intelligence (AI) to analyze the logical structure of communications, from text … | Continue reading
Fast Retailing Co., operator of the Uniqlo casual clothing chain, said Wednesday it will switch from plastic to paper shopping bags from September and also start charging for them, joining worldwide efforts to tackle one of the most pressing environmental issues. Under the plan, … | Continue reading
Sony Corp marked Monday the start of a two-month long event in Tokyo celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Walkman, with interactive exhibits showcasing various models of the iconic portable music player. The highlight of the event, dubbed "#009 Walkman in the Park," … | Continue reading
Companies with female directors outperform those with only men at the top, according to a study of more than 1,000 Asian firms, as calls grow for more diversity in the region's boardrooms. Firms whose boards were at least 30% female generated more income from their assets than th … | Continue reading
Fujitsu Ltd has launched a service supporting sports and cultural events using Ontenna, a device that lets users sense sound with their bodies. The company said it is providing a free trial version of Ontenna for schools for the deaf. The trial is being conducted in 30 schools, … | Continue reading
After several high-profile incidents in recent years highlighted Japan's problems with sexism, a Japanese women's studies pioneer has been presented a special recognition from Finland, a leading country in promoting gender equality. Chizuko Ueno, a sociologist and a prominent fem … | Continue reading
The University of Tokyo has discovered a self-repairing electrode material that forms a stable structure by storing electricity. The material is expected to increase the life of rechargeable batteries because it repeatedly repairs itself each time the battery is charged and, ther … | Continue reading
Riding-type grass cutters have begun to be used widely in O&M (operation and management) of solar power plants. They are used at many solar power plants throughout Japan. Riding grass cutters that are different from conventional ones began to be used recently for removal of g … | Continue reading
Chips, soda and frozen pizzas tend to be full of salt, sugar and fat, but now scientists are trying to understand if there's something else about such processed foods that might be bad for us. Already, the spread of cheap, packaged foods has been linked to rising obesity rates ar … | Continue reading
The Diet on Friday passed a bill stipulating for the first time the responsibility of the central and municipal governments for promoting Japanese-language education for foreign residents after Japan opened up to more overseas workers this April. Japanese municipalities hosting l … | Continue reading
The average working hours of junior high school teachers in Japan were the longest among 48 countries and regions surveyed by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Lower secondary teachers in Japan worked 56 hours per week on average, compared with an average … | Continue reading
The Diet on Wednesday enacted a revised law banning parents and other guardians from physically punishing children following several fatal cases of abuse dealt out in the name of discipline. Another law was also amended to strengthen the ability of child welfare centers to " … | Continue reading
"Classic chemotherapywas awful... but with this treatment, I feel hope," says French pensioner Jacques Braud, who is undergoing treatment for stomach cancer with a new form of therapy dispersed by aerosol. Several hours before going into theater, Braud is waiting in his … | Continue reading
The chief salesman for Airbus says his company already has the technology to fly passenger planes without pilots at all — and is working on winning over regulators and travelers to the idea. Christian Scherer also said in an interview with The Associated Press that Airbus hopes t … | Continue reading
Huawei's American chip suppliers, including Qualcomm and Intel, are quietly pressing the U.S. government to ease its ban on sales to the Chinese tech giant, even as Huawei itself avoids typical government lobbying, people familiar with the situation said. Executives from top U.S. … | Continue reading
Japan's booming animation industry is in crisis -- with low pay, long hours and a huge shortage of artists -- just as its global popularity has never been higher. Three of the 10 feature films in the running for top prize at the world's most important animation festival in Annecy … | Continue reading
Japan wants to make reducing the glut of plastic waste in the oceans a priority at the Group of 20 summit it is hosting this month as governments around the world crack down on such pollution. Images of plastic debris-strewn beaches and dead animals with stomachs full of plastic … | Continue reading
A record 3,129 people were stranded on Japanese mountains last year amid a continued boom in activities such as climbing and walking, a police report revealed Thursday. That represented a rise of 18 from the previous year, while the number of accidents increased 78 to 2,661, the … | Continue reading
A woman in her 50s sued the Japanese government Thursday, demanding the state delete her DNA data collected by police as she claimed it is unconstitutional to store such personal data after the end of an investigation. In the suit filed with the Nagoya District Court, the woman s … | Continue reading
The government plans to impose new regulations on mobile phone operators to cut cancellation fees by 90 percent to 1,000 yen or less to make it easier for users to switch companies and spur competition, officials said Tuesday. The move is expected to lead the country's major mobi … | Continue reading
Japan has joined Britain in pledging to become carbon neutral later this century, as the world races to prevent catastrophic climate change, but critics blasted Tokyo's plan as unambitious. While Britain on Wednesday outlined plans for fast-track legislation that would reduce car … | Continue reading
Japan will restart commercial whaling on July 1 in Kushiro, Hokkaido, following a three-decade hiatus after the government announced its withdrawal from the International Whaling Commission in December, a local fishery source said. A fleet of five vessels belonging to six whaling … | Continue reading
Toyota Motor Corp aims to get half of its global sales from electrified vehicles by 2025, five years ahead of schedule, and will tap Chinese battery makers to meet the accelerated global shift to electricity-powered cars. The change illustrates the breakneck growth in the electri … | Continue reading
The "largely forgotten" story of the first two Japanese people to come to England is soon to be told by a British author based in Japan who is currently putting the finishing touches to an epic tale. Thomas Lockley has spent the last few years researching the fascinatin … | Continue reading
A Japanese woman Wednesday sued three Tokyo medical schools she says rejected her because of her gender and age, in a case her lawyer said was the "tip of the iceberg". Last year it emerged that medical universities had routinely altered the admissions test scores of ap … | Continue reading
The Japanese government has decided to take more steps to enable people to use national identification cards in place of health insurance certificates at almost all hospitals by March 2023. The government plans to release a road map containing a set of new programs possibly in Au … | Continue reading
Industrial activity is a double-edged sword. It has created modern society, but it also threatens it. Climate change has been a concern for decades and poses one of the greatest risks to our future. Of particular worry is the increasing amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmos … | Continue reading
Coca-Cola (Japan) Co said Wednesday it will start selling a beverage product next week using plastic bottles made entirely from recycled plastics. The move comes as beverage companies around the world are increasingly moving toward more sustainable packaging in a bid to protect t … | Continue reading
SoftBank Corp said on Monday it will launch a service this year that would use satellite navigation data and the telco's mobile base stations to help power self-driving buses, drones and farm machinery. The service, which will begin trials in Japan next month before expanding nat … | Continue reading
NEC Corp will expand the application of its cutting-edge AI technologies, "NEC the WISE" , to cancer drug development that focuses on advanced immunotherapy as part of enhancing its healthcare business. As a start, clinical trials for individualized neoantigen vaccines … | Continue reading
A group of men jam their feet into high-heeled shoes and walk back and forth, some falteringly, others with unlikely confidence. Some women watch on, gauging the men's reactions while sympathizing with each other's stories about wearing the torture devices masquerading as fashion … | Continue reading