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November 22, 2024
 

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John Naughton
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital
Jan 9, 2014
A lost year for new technology? Look beyond 2013's gadgets
Writing the other day in Quartz, an admirable sister publication of The Atlantic magazine, the experienced technology watcher Christopher Mims struck a gloomy note. Under the headline "2013 was a lost year for tech," he lamented that "all in, 2013 was an embarrassment for the entire tech industry and...
LIFE / Lifestyle
Jan 2, 2014
Google's drive into robotics should concern us all
Over the past year, Google has bought eight robotics companies. Its most recent acquisition is an outfit called Boston Dynamics, which makes the nearest thing to a mechanical mule that you are ever likely to see. It's called Big Dog and it walks, runs, climbs and carries heavy loads. It's the size of...
LIFE / Digital
Dec 24, 2013
Even our Facebook 'grunts' could be monetized
As Mark Twain observed: "A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." And that was a long time before the Web. Which brings us to a meme that was propagating last week though social media. Its essence was an assertion that Facebook monitored — and stored — not...
LIFE / Digital
Dec 17, 2013
Why do governments make such a mess of IT?
This is a tale of two cities — Washington and London — and of the governments that rule from them. What links the pair is the puzzling failure of said governments to manage two vital IT projects. In both cases, the projects are critically important for the political credibility of their respective...
LIFE / Digital
Dec 10, 2013
Startups now have it easy thanks to 'incubators.'
One of my favourite books is John Kenneth Galbraith's "The Great Crash, 1929," which, with John Maynard Keynes' "The Economic Consequences of the Peace," is a great example of how an expert can write elegantly about something that is intrinsically complex. Galbraith wrote the (short) book as a diversion...
LIFE / Digital
Dec 3, 2013
Why the NSA has landed us all in another nice mess
Fans of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy will fondly remember Oliver's complaint to Stanley: "Well, here's another nice mess you've gotten me into!" In a future remake, Hardy will be played by Barack Obama, suitably enhanced with a toothbrush moustache, while Keith Alexander, currently head of the U.S. National...
LIFE / Digital
Nov 26, 2013
What's Twitter's real value?
A national economy is an unimaginably complex system. And yet we compress all its complexity into a single measure, and then focus obsessively on that. If you want a metaphor for this, think of King Kong spending most of his time staring at a pinhead, worrying about whether it is moving or not. That...
LIFE / Digital
Nov 19, 2013
Church of Apple tests the faith of its flock
Someone once said that one of the advantages of religion is that it offers security in return for obedience. This point was not lost on the late Steve Jobs, the cofounder, savior and high priest of Apple. And it led Italian semiotician, philosopher and novelist Umberto Eco, in an essay published in the...
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital
Nov 12, 2013
The NSA's war on terror is more than just a 'neat' hacking game
Tinker, tailor, soldier, spy. And then there's Edward Snowden, who was a spy and then became something else. Nobody is neutral about him. The other day I heard a senior military officer describe him unambiguously as "a thief." In Washington he seems to be universally regarded as a traitor. Many people...
LIFE / Digital
Nov 5, 2013
Why the Obamacare website was doomed
One of the most dispiriting spectacles of the last month has been the botched launch of HealthCare.gov, the website created to implement President Barack Obama's landmark healthcare reforms. Obamacare had a desperately turbulent passage through Congress and survived various wrecking attempts by the Tea...
LIFE / Digital
Oct 29, 2013
Remember past smells with the Madeleine
Next month sees the 100th anniversary of the publication of "Swann's Way," the first volume of Marcel Proust's masterpiece "Remembrance of Things Past" (or, if you prefer D.J. Enright's translation, "In Search of Lost Time"). So stand by for what one expert calls a Proustathon.
LIFE
Oct 22, 2013
Apathy is the real enemy in NSA affair
One of the most disturbing aspects of the public response to Edward Snowden's revelations about the scale of governmental surveillance is how little public disquiet there appears to be about it. A recent YouGov poll, for example, asked respondents whether the British security services have too many or...
LIFE / Digital
Oct 15, 2013
The back door to your PCs, smartphones that can't close
At a remarkable conference held at the Aspen Institute in 2011, Gen. Michael Hayden, a former head of both the National Security Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency, said something very interesting. In a discussion of how to secure the "critical infrastructure" of the United States, he described...
LIFE / Digital
Oct 8, 2013
Big data has made privacy obsolete
Watching the legal system deal with the Internet is like watching somebody trying to drive a car by looking only in the rear-view mirror. The results are amusing and predictable but not really interesting. On the other hand, watching the efforts of regulators — whether British ones such as Ofcom, or...
LIFE / Digital
Oct 1, 2013
Apple has a secret weapon in iOS7, iPhone5s
When Steve Jobs was still with us, many commentators — yours truly included — used to complain about the "reality distortion field" that surrounded Apple's charismatic leader. Those in attendance when Jobs launched the devices and services (iPod, iTunes, OS X, iMac, MacBook, iPhone and iPad) that...
LIFE / Digital
Sep 24, 2013
Is China after our inventions?
Some things never change. For as long as I can remember, people in the west have been paranoid about the Orient — and about China in particular. I grew up in an ultra-devout Catholic household in rural Ireland and I remember my mother being terrified by what people then called "the yellow peril," by...
LIFE / Digital
Sep 17, 2013
After the Snowden leaks, why trust a U.S. cloud?
"It's an ill bird," runs the adage, "that fouls its own nest." Cue the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA), which, we now know, has been busily doing this for quite a while. As the revelations by Edward Snowden tumbled out, the scale of the fouling slowly began to dawn on us.
LIFE / Digital
Sep 10, 2013
Coase idea explains Internet economics
When the news broke last week that Ronald Coase, the economist and Nobel laureate, had died at the age of 102, what came immediately to mind was Keynes' observation that "practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct...
LIFE / Digital
Sep 3, 2013
Web giants pumping us for data
Should you be looking for an example of hucksterish cynicism, then the mantra that "data is the new oil" is as good as they come. Although its first recorded uttering goes as far back as 2006, in recent times it has achieved the status of an approved corporate cliche, though nowadays "data" is generally...
LIFE / Digital
Aug 27, 2013
Banish trolls but the Net needs anonymity
So the proprietor of the Huffington Post has decided to ban anonymous commenting from the site, starting in mid-September. Speaking to reporters after a conference in Boston, Massachusetts, Arianna Huffington said: "Trolls are just getting more and more aggressive and uglier and I just came from London...
Two of America’s biggest debt holders are dumping Treasurys
The U.S. Treasury building in Washington. Investors in Japan and China sold a pile of U.S. debt in the last quarter, just before the U.S. presidential election.
Russia launched intercontinental ballistic missile during attack on Ukraine, Kyiv says
A Yars intercontinental ballistic missile is launched during a test from the Plesetsk cosmodrome in Northern Arkhangelsk region of Russia, in this still image captured from video released on Oct. 29.
Ishiba aggravates his own political failures with diplomatic faux pas
Prime Minster Shigeru Ishiba is greeted at the APEC summit in Lima by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Friday. The Japanese leader was criticized for remaining seated while meeting several world leaders at the event.
Japan's 3.31 million visitors in October set monthly record
Kiyomizu Temple in Kyoto in December 2023. Famous autumn leaf colors contributed to increased tourism demand last month from many markets across Asia, Europe and North America, the Japan National Tourism Organization has said.
Japan ranks last in romance satisfaction for second straight year
In a survey of 31 countries, Japan ranked last in terms of those who felt loved, with just 51% of respondents saying so.
Japan, U.K. and Italy discuss inviting more countries to joint fighter project
A new concept model of a next-generation fighter jet to be jointly developed by Japan, Britain and Italy is on display in Farnborough, Hampshire, in July.
Haruki Murakami's 'The City and Its Uncertain Walls' gives deep deja vu
For “The City and Its Uncertain Walls,” translated into English by Philip Gabriel, Haruki Murakami confronts the ghosts who won't leave him alone.
Japanese expats in Asia find community through rugby
The Taiwan Fivewoods celebrate their victory at the 2023 Asian Japanese Rugby Cup in December of last year.
In Fukushima, a weekend of prose, poetry and translation
Aomori-based writer JJ Carter presented on tabletop gaming as creative inspiration for building characters and narratives.
For Dr. Nakamats, aging is just experience in action
Though he didn't win the recent gubernatorial election in Tokyo, the 96-year-old Dr. Nakamats' run was seen as inspirational in Japan's aging society.

Podcast

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

Longform

Construction takes place on the Takanawa Gateway Convention Center in Tokyo, slated to open in 2025.
A boom for business tourism in Japan?
By Kathryn Wortley

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

mission sustainability vol.12 : Kose Corp.Kose takes pride in creating beauty in the world
mission sustainability vol.12 : Kose Corp.Kose takes pride in creating beauty in the world

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