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BUSINESS / Tech
Oct 12, 2013

Google plans to put users' photos, comments in online ads

Google has made a fortune selling ads. Now it is trying to put its hundreds of millions of users to work as company pitchmen, using the profiles, pictures and recommendations of ordinary people to endorse products and services across the Web.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 10, 2013

TIFF is your chance to catch up with Japanese film

The Tokyo International Film Festival, now in its 26th edition, has had its share of detractors, dissing it for everything from competition lineups of major festival castoffs (no longer true since TIFF stopped insisting on world premieres) to a Special Screening section that is essentially a PR showcase...
COMMUNITY / Voices / COMMUNITY CHEST
Oct 7, 2013

Fukushima, suicide and nihongo fluency: readers' mails

A grab bag of readers' mail in response to recent Community articles.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Oct 5, 2013

Lahiri manages to finely balance the personal and political in second novel

The immigrant experience is always fertile ground for fiction, and Jhumpa Lahiri — born in London to Bengali parents and raised in Rhode Island — has built her literary career exploring this territory as it relates to characters of Indian origin in America, with all the attendant questions of identity,...
Reader Mail
Oct 5, 2013

The kanji cultures pack a punch

Economics must truly be the dismal science based on what professor Dipak Basu wrote in his Sept. 26 letter, "Questionable link to innovation." Did this economist really suggest that Japan's education system would be greatly improved if Japan abolished the Chinese kanji character system — which he says...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 2, 2013

Kohfukuji Temple: under divine protection

Tucked away behind the main museums in Ueno, the Tokyo University Art Museum may not be on most people's radar, but it is definitely one of the city's top museums in terms of curatorial quality.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 1, 2013

Kids with disabilities facing abuse in West Africa

Hundreds of thousands of children with disabilities are subjected to horrific violations of their human rights on a daily basis in West Africa.
WORLD
Sep 29, 2013

NSA gathers data on U.S. citizens' social connections: report

The National Security Agency began mining Americans' email and phone data in 2010 to map out their social connections and locations, according to The New York Times.
EDITORIALS
Sep 29, 2013

Worries over fate of Japan hands

n a sign that China's leadership is trying to strengthen its control of speech to increase its ideological grip, the government has detained a Chinese professor who teaches in Chiba.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 29, 2013

Best, brightest and least productive?

Financial traders and speculators help to allocate society's resources to the most promising businesses. But these people's activities also impose costs on the rest of us.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Sep 26, 2013

Suede plays it anew with 'Bloodsports' album

Ten years ago, Suede was in the process of fizzling out to a backdrop of apathy. For a band whose initial brilliance inadvertently help kick-start Britpop in the 1990s, it all seemed unedifying.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 26, 2013

'Heaven's Gate'

The 1970s are fondly remembered now as an insanely creative and risk-taking era for American cinema, and there's one infamous film that is generally blamed for bringing it all to a crashing halt: "Heaven's Gate." Director Michael Cimino had cleaned up at the Oscars with "The Deer Hunter," and seemed...
Japan Times
WORLD
Sep 26, 2013

Warlord behind Kenya attack has global ambitions

The alleged Somali mastermind of the assault on a posh mall that killed scores and jolted Kenya is a man of contradictions.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 24, 2013

Brazilians demand long-term change in slums

Brazilian demonstraters want the government to invest in public transportation, better schools and hospitals instead of hosting mega-events such as the 2014 World Cup.
Japan Times
WORLD
Sep 24, 2013

Americans, Briton 'among Nairobi mall attackers'

Kenya's foreign minister says 'two or three Americans' and 'one Brit' were among the al-Qaida-linked militants who took part in the deadly terrorist attack on an upscale Nairobi shopping mall.
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital
Sep 19, 2013

Sony, Microsoft to square off at Tokyo Game Show

In Japan, the Tokyo Game Show (TGS) is gaming's main event. This year, heavyweights Sony and Microsoft are set to square off at Chiba's Makuhari Messe convention center with brand new consoles in tow. Who will come out on top?
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Sep 18, 2013

Nihonga: without the hand over the eye

At its essential level, art is a battle between the eye and the hand; the first representing sensory input, the second artistic habit and convention. When the hand outweighs the eye, art can become over-stylized, clichéd, and eventually dead. Asian art has been particularly prone to this; with young...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Sep 18, 2013

'Sengai and the World of Zen'

During his life as a monk, Sengai Gibon (1750-1837) was admired for not only his artistic ability but also his modesty and simplistic way of life. Despite his social status, he chose to don an everyday black robe instead of one of distinguished purple silk, and his beliefs were reflected in what is now...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Sep 18, 2013

Various artists "Tanukineiri Drink Sampler"

It's getting harder to listen to netlabel-released albums in one sitting recently. Electronic-music compilation series "Fogpak" recently put out a collection featuring 48 different artists (should we call the Guinness people?). Now Tanukineiri Records has popped out "Tanukineiri Drink Sampler" — 90...
Japan Times
BUSINESS / INNOVATIVE CITY FORUM
Sep 17, 2013

Beyond the Residence — Imagining a House for the Nostalgic Future

(Publicity)
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Sep 14, 2013

Rescuing gadgets from the golden age of 'Made in Japan'

Piles of old electronic gadgetry, most of it out of order, clutter Junichi Matsuzaki's "studio" on the first floor of an aging public apartment building in Adachi Ward in northeastern Tokyo. To visitors the outdated technology may look like junk, but to the 53-year-old self-proclaimed consumer electronics...
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 14, 2013

The desperate search for online privacy is over

Privacy in the traditional sense is most certainly dead. But the killer isn't the NSA. It's the Internet itself — or, more to the point, our entire reliance on it
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Sep 11, 2013

Seiji Ozawa makes a triumphant return to Saito Kinen Festival Matsumoto

There's nothing like a comeback story. This summer, Japan saw a return to the stage by Seiji Ozawa, one of the country's most celebrated musicians.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Sep 7, 2013

Tracing the path of history in northern Nagasaki

The horn blast from the incoming ferry echoes clearly through the top-floor hall of Hirado Castle. From the donjon's vantage point, my husband and I can clearly see the large passenger ship as it enters the sheltered bay of Hirado's port, marking the end of its route between this small city on Nagasaki...
Japan Times
WORLD
Sep 6, 2013

Syria bio-weapon threat worries neighbors

Last month's alleged chemical attack near Damascus has refocused attention on Syria's 30-year-old biological weapons research and raised concerns about whether its regime could activate an effort to make a weapon.

Longform

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