Category: Economy

Fresh & hot from Japan, from 6 to 10 February, 2016

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Please enjoy fresh & hot news from Japan with comments by Europe-Japan Dynamics.

6 Feb. Children caught by the Internet for a long time tend to be irritated, while the confidence in studying decreasing

Those children who spend hours over the Internet via smart phones, etc. tend to be irritated all the time while their level of confidence in studying decreasing —  found by a survey by Kinki block of Association of Parents and Teachers (PTA) and researchers. A researcher involved said, “The situation is too serious to ignore. The adults must be well aware of the net-dependency of children.”

Comments: it is serious and the same may be true to the adults, including ourselves.

7 Feb.　Memory is up after ten minutes’ exercise? Maybe thanks to activation of the brain function

Soon after having an exercise for ten minutes of the level of jogging, one’s short-term memory improves, according to a report of a study undertaken by a team of Tsukuba University, Japan, and the University of California, the US. The team found that results were better for those who had dome some exercise then whose who rested, in an experiment of the correctness of memory of an object seen in advance. The study team says that the function of the brain might be activated by the exercise.

Comments: Good news for joggers and those who regularly do some exercise.

8 Feb. Heart rate measurable just by wearing it, the experiment start a Tank-top model 

Fujita Health University, Toray, NTT, NTT DOCOMO announced that they will start a demonstration experiment of “hitoe”, the cloth by  which one could measure a heart rate merely by wearing it like the underwear. The cloth will be used to monitor a heart rate and various activities of a patient in a hospital. It is intended to allow efficient rehabilitation exercise to enable the early recovery, and also to utilize the cloth in the remote monitoring service after leaving the hospital. An expected timing of market release is after three years.

Comments: Innovation take place where formerly completely different sectors and technologies meet. Thus another proof that diversity gives rise to innovation.

hitoe_toray

9 Feb. Where is an empty toilet room? You find it over the net, no need to hurry in vain

Arriving at the office in the morning to find all the toilet rooms occupied! Dash to another floor to food them occupied again — To resolve such a problem development of the systems  which allows us to check  toilet rooms by  PCs is making progress. A by-product of such system is that the collected data may be used for health check. This may signal the arrival of “The IoT (Internet of Toilet)”.

Comments: Use of the data collected from the usage status of toilets is potentially interesting, though if and how much a company may collect employee’s health data is debatable.

10 Feb. Over ten thousand applications for the refugee status in Japan in 2016, while only 28 were admitted

The number of applications for the recognition of refugee status in Japan was 10,901 in 2016 (3,315 increase compared to the previous year) , exceeding  10,000  for the first time, according to the preliminary figure released by the Ministry of Justice. On the other hand, only 28 people were recognized as refugees  (one increase as compared to the number in 2015). In addition, the Ministry admitted the resident status to 97 people  (increase by 18 year-on-year) because of “humanitarian consideration”. The government continues a severe attitude for recognition of refugee status.

Comments: Severeness of the Japanese Government to the allocations of the refugee status has been one of the areas where Japan is behind the rich countries.

  • All the news items are picked up from “Asahi Digital”, and summarized and translated by Europe-Japan Dynamics. The articles are not an official translation by the Asahi Newspaper.

Fresh & Hot from Japan, 12 to 16 December 2016

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12 Dec. Inquiries and doorstepping investigations in the cyber space by a special force of Fukuoka Prefectural Police

Eradicate cyber crimes! — a special force of Fukuoka Prefectural Police, whose members are special investigators who had studied the computer science, “Cyber security special team (F-CST )”  started operating. The team deals with the investigation to go back and forth between the cyber space and real world, and started seeing the results.

Comments: Police needs competence of hackers to investigate cyber crimes.

13 Dec.  Automatic driving bus in campus, field experiment by a group of public and private organizations including Kyushu University

Four private and public organizations including Kyushu University announced that they would start a field experiment of the automatic driving bus from next January, and showed a demonstration run in Ito campus of Kyushu University  (Nishi-ku, Fukuoka-shi). The Road Traffic Act does not allow the unmanned driving in the public road, but premises in the campus is all right as it is not the public road.  The group of organizations plans to progressively  test the bus in the environment near to the public road and improve safety and convenience. It is aimed to put the automatic driving bus into practice as a means of transportation in campuses in the latter half of 2018.

Comments: The automatic driving cars may start being used for specific purposes in the private premises, such as Universities, factories, hospitals, etc.

14 Dec. Please read it before you use!, “Toilet paper to read” getting popular

It is too good to just use — “Toilet paper to read” by Hayashi Paper (President Hiroyuki Hayashi) of Hina, Fuji-shi, Shizuoka produces is popular. From a quiz to a novel and disaster prevention information, here are more than 30 products of this kind. The company is receiving a number of requests for an original toilet paper from public institutions and companies inside and outside the prefecture.

Comments: It is a great value-added of toilet paper!

xmas-toilet-paper

15 Dec. Fuji Film acquired Wako Pure Chemical Industries from Takeda Pharmaceutical to strengthen its medical business

Fuji Film Holdings Corp. purchased Wako Pure Chemical Industries  Ltd. (Osaka-shi), a subsidiary of Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited specialized in reagent for studies for approximately 154,700 million yen. Fuji Film intends to acquire techniques necessary for research and development of the regenerative medicine and thus to strengthen its medical business.

Comments: With decreasing demand for films, Fuji Film is undergoing a strategic shift to the medical business using its core competence on chemicals.

16 Dec. Christmas tree of high-quality melons, “If you hit the right number, please get one”

“The melon tree” which used the high-quality cantaloupes is displayed in the Nishijima gardening housing complex of Hataeda, Nankoku-shi, Kochi until 24th and heaps up a Christmas season.

Comments: Japanese are good at using Christmas for marketing of high quality melons!

melon-tree_comm

  • All the news items are picked up from “Asahi Digital”, and summarized and translated by Europe-Japan Dynamics. The articles are not an official translation by the Asahi Newspaper.

Fresh & Hot from Japan, 14 to 18 November 2016

Please enjoy fresh & hot news from Japan with comments by Europe-Japan Dynamics.

14 Nov. Farms of mandarin oranges are switching to avocado in Matsuyama-shi

Matsuyama-shi, a major production site of mandarin oranges of Ehime Prefectur, is promoting cultivation of avocado, in response to the warming climate. Abandoned farm land of mandarin oranges is used for this project. The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries posts the project in its web site as a main example of an adaptation plan to the global warming.

Comments: The global warming necessitate farmers to change crops.

15 Nov. Over 80% of hit rate, diagnosis of disease of eye ground by AI to enable early detection

Nagoya City University and an information system company, Cresco Ltd., developed a video diagnosis system using the artificial intelligence (AI) to quickly detect disease of the eye ground. The system diagnoses a disease with probability of more than 80%. The development team intends to use the system for medical examination such as medical checkup.

Comments: It’s fantastic!

16 Nov.  Cabinet Office testing autonomous cruising over the Tomei and the Metropolitan Expressways in the next autumn

The Cabinet Office office has announced that Government begins a large-scale proof demonstration test the autonomous cruising on more than 300 km of expressways, including the Metropolitan expressway, the Tomei Expressway, and the Joban Expressway from the next autumn. The Government will ask Toyota Motor Corporation and Honda, Nissan Motor Company, etc. for participation and aim at performance improvements  by focusing mainly on the issues that may be overcome through cooperative development by the participating automobile companies, such as maps to be installed in an automatic cruising car and a system that prevents malfunction.

Comments: Autonomous cruising may not be a dream any more.

17 Nov.  Public transportation companies are experimenting instant translation system, aiming at Tokyo Olympic Games

An increasing number of public transportation companies are experimenting the state-of-the-art translation systems, that instantly translate the spoken language into foreign languages and put them in voice. The public and private sectors are working together anticipating and increasing number of foreign visitors towards Tokyo Olympic Games. The systems would enable automatic translation of simple conversation often used during the travel.

Comments: Tokyo Olympic Games push forward opening the cultural gate of Japan to international communities.

18 Nov. “Will work for TPP to come into effect early” said Minister of Foreign Affairs Kishida at APEC Leaders’ Summit

Minister of Foreign Affairs Fumio Kishida stated at the 2016 APEC Leaders’ Summit being held in Lima, Peru, “It was important for all the countries work to create an environment for Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) to come into effect early.” By this, he demonstrated the Japanese policy to push forward TPP, despite opposition by Mr. Trump, the President-elect go the US.

Comments: Why does the Japanese Government insists on TPP, despite withdrawal of the US, who originally proposed TPP and the largest economy among the economic of the Pacific Rim?

  • All the news items are picked up from “Asahi Digital”, and summarized and translated by Europe-Japan Dynamics. The articles are not an official translation by the Asahi Newspaper.