Japan Computer Industry Scan articles from February 2002

Japan Computer Industry Scan archives from February 2002

Nintendo reduces price of Game Boy, to sell GameCube in Europe.
February 4, 2002... OSAKA, Jan. 28 Kyodo Nintendo Co. said Monday it will reduce the price of its Game Boy Advance handset console worldwide from Saturday and begin selling its GameCube home video game console in Europe from May 3. The company hopes...

FOCUS: Online music-swapping sites on the increase in Japan.
February 4, 2002... TOKYO, Jan. 29 Kyodo Online music-swapping sites, which have been plaguing the U.S. music industry, are beginning to spread in Japan, prompting the music industry here to prepare lawsuits against its service providers. ''Compact disks...

Fujitsu group posts 106 bil. yen net loss in 3rd qtr.
February 4, 2002... TOKYO, Jan. 29 Kyodo Fujitsu Ltd. reported Tuesday a consolidated net loss of 106.1 billion yen for the October-December period, larger than the 69 billion yen loss the group saw a year earlier, as sales declined on worldwide corporate...

Provisional deposition filed to suspend online music-swapping.(from MMO Japan Ltd.)
February 4, 2002... TOKYO, Jan. 29 Kyodo Record companies filed a provisional deposition with the Tokyo District Court on Tuesday seeking to have MMO Japan Ltd., which provides an online music-swapping service, suspend the sending and receiving of music...

Hitachi to slash 4,000 more jobs.(in Japan and abroad)(Brief Article)
February 4, 2002... TOKYO, Jan. 30 Kyodo Hitachi Ltd. plans to cut 4,000 more jobs in the group companies by the end of June with the introduction of a new early retirement program in February, company officials said Wednesday. Under its current...

2001 PC shipments post 1ast fall since 1998.(Brief Article)
February 4, 2002... TOKYO, Jan. 30 Kyodo Shipments of personal computers (PCs) by makers operating in Japan slipped 7.1% to 12.30 million units in 2001 for the first year-on-year fall since 1998, the MultiMedia Research Institute said Wednesday. The...

Sony, Dentsu to launch joint broadband businesses.
February 4, 2002... TOKYO, Jan. 30 Kyodo (EDS: ADDING SONY, DENTSU HEADS' COMMENTS) Sony Corp. and Dentsu Inc., Japan's largest advertising agency, said Wednesday they have agreed to jointly engage in ''new communications businesses for the broadband...

Worm set to crash Chinese computer users' party.(Brief Article)
February 4, 2002... BEIJING, Jan. 30 Kyodo Chinese computer users may get more than they bargain for when they take a peek at party photographs over the Internet -- a destructive worm. Antivirus experts are warning that a worm dubbed ''my party'' could...

METI revises ordinance to prevent junk e-mail.(Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry)(Brief Article)
February 4, 2002... TOKYO, Feb. 1 Kyodo The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) put a revised ordinance into effect Friday to block the transmission of junk e-mail to personal computers and mobile phones. The revised ordinance requires mail...

Toppan to begin 1st mass production of 'e-paper' film.
February 11, 2002... TOKYO, Feb. 4 Kyodo Toppan Printing Co. said Monday it will begin mass-producing a key component for paper-like displays known as ''electronic paper'' as early as this fall, becoming the world's first company to do so. Toppan said...

Domestic PC shipments in 2001 fall for 1st time in 3 years.
February 11, 2002... TOKYO, Feb. 5 Kyodo Domestic personal computer (PC) shipments in 2001 fell 2% from the previous year to 11.28 million units, marking the first fall in three years, the Japan Electronics & Information Technology Industries Association...

Mitsui, Microsoft to promote 'Net experts' system.(Brief Article)
February 11, 2002... TOKYO, Feb. 5 Kyodo Mitsui & Co. and Microsoft Co., the Japan arm of Microsoft Corp., said Tuesday they will jointly promote a system aimed at training experts who can help connect computers with broadband networks. Under the...

Japan ranks 21st among 75 in IT development: survey.(Brief Article)
February 11, 2002... TOKYO, Feb. 6 Kyodo Japan ranks 21st among 75 major countries and regions in terms of its citizens' ability to make use of information and technology (IT) resources, according to a report by a Harvard University research institute. ...

Mitsubishi Electric develops new wearable display.
February 11, 2002... OSAKA, Feb. 6 Kyodo Mitsubishi Electric Corp. said Wednesday it has developed a head-mounted, wearable liquid crystal display (LCD) that people can use without blocking their field of vision, a departure from goggle-type displays...

Interlink to launch free-call service to Tokyo in April.
February 11, 2002... TOKYO, Feb. 6 Kyodo Internet access service provider Interlink said Wednesday it will launch a new Internet phone service in April, offering no charges on calls to Tokyo from anywhere in Japan. The service, named Zoot Phone, will be...

Illegal online sales in Japan more than double in 2001.
February 11, 2002... TOKYO, Feb. 7 Kyodo The number of high-tech crimes nationwide in 2001 involving illegal sales on the Internet increased 2.4-fold over the past year, the National Police Agency (NPA) said Thursday. One-third of the illegal online...

FOCUS: Japan recording industry battles online music trade.
February 11, 2002... TOKYO, Feb. 7 Kyodo A battle between online music-swapping service providers and the music industry in Japan is intensifying, with the industry alleging that free-of-charge sharing of digital copies of music is illegal and vowing to crack...

Softbank to sell part of U.S. arm's equities to pay debts.
February 11, 2002... TOKYO, Feb. 7 Kyodo Softbank Corp. said Thursday its U.S. subsidiary has decided to sell part of its 42% equity stake in UT Starcom Inc., one of its U.S. affiliates, to help cut Softbank's interest-bearing group debts. The proceeds...

FTC warns Fujitsu over bids for e-gov't at unfair prices.
February 11, 2002... TOKYO, Feb. 7 Kyodo The Fair Trade Commission (FTC) said Thursday it has issued a warning to Fujitsu Ltd. over a series of bids it made last year for government information systems at unfairly low prices. The fair trade watchdog...

Nihon L'Oreal to begin selling Lancome products via Net.(Brief Article)
February 11, 2002... TOKYO, Feb. 7 Kyodo Nihon L'Oreal K.K., a Japan unit of the L'Oreal group of France, said Thursday it plans to begin selling its ''Lancome'' cosmetic brand products via the Internet in April so working women and those living outside...

McDonald's Japan to launch e-commerce sales.
February 11, 2002... TOKYO, Feb. 7 Kyodo McDonald's Co. (Japan) Ltd. said Thursday it will begin selling a wide variety of products to consumers using mobile phones and computers from as early as this summer. The company said it will sell goods such as...

Ruling bloc to coordinate spam bill submission.
February 11, 2002... TOKYO, Feb. 8 Kyodo Ruling parties, not the government, will coordinate submission of a bill to regulate junk e-mail, Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Takeo Hiranuma said Friday. The comments were aimed at ending a squabble over...

Fujitsu, Accenture team up to provide IT-based solutions.
February 18, 2002... TOKYO, Feb. 12 Kyodo (EDS: ADDING INFO ON SALES PROJECTIONS) Fujitsu Ltd. and Accenture Corp., the Japan unit of Accenture Ltd. of the United States, said Tuesday they will jointly provide information technology-based ''solutions''...

Gov't group calls for high-speed Net access via satellite.
February 18, 2002... TOKYO, Feb. 13 Kyodo A telecom ministry study group on Wednesday called for the establishment as early as possible of a system to provide citizens with high-speed Internet access with use of a communications satellite. Communication...

Satellite maker employee spies on rival via NASDA data.
February 18, 2002... TOKYO, Feb. 14 Kyodo (EDS: ADDING DETAILS) An employee of a major satellite maker illegally accessed a National Space Development Agency of Japan (NASDA) computer system and spied on classified data about a rival company's...

METI to correct output data due to duplications in PCs.(Brief Article)
February 18, 2002... TOKYO, Feb. 14 Kyodo The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said Thursday it will correct data on Japan's industrial production as it has found duplications in personal computer (PC) figures. METI said it counted output and...

Fujitsu units to distribute S. Korean movies via broadband.
February 18, 2002... TOKYO, Feb. 14 Kyodo AlphaOmega Soft Corp., an affiliate of computer giant Fujitsu Ltd., said Thursday it began the same day distributing South Korean movie content via the broadband line to personal computer users by teaming up with...

Domestic PC shipments fall 7.8% in 2001.
February 18, 2002... TOKYO, Feb. 15 Kyodo Domestic shipments of personal computers (PCs) dropped 7.8% in 2001 from the year before to 12.84 million units as the economic slump led companies to cut back on capital spending, particularly in the latter half of...

Japan's e-commerce market expands 58% in 2001.(Statistical Data Included)
February 25, 2002... TOKYO, Feb. 18 Kyodo Japan's electronic commerce market expanded 58.4% in value in 2001 to 35.51 trillion yen, in stark contrast to the slump in the rest of the economy, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) said Monday....

Gigabit link for schools, condos to study impact on lifestyle.
February 25, 2002... TOKYO, Feb. 18 Kyodo A group of scholars and private-sector researchers said Monday they will link schools and condominiums in Tokyo by ultra high-speed communication lines for a year's research from March into the impact of the network...

METI to revise laws to protect Net, high-tech firms.
February 25, 2002... TOKYO, Feb. 18 Kyodo (EDS: UPDATING WITH INFO ON PATENT ATTORNEYS, CLARIFYING PART ON TRADEMARKS) The government plans to revise laws to enhance protection of intellectual property rights held by Internet and other high-tech...

Noevir to begin online sales of cosmetics in April.(Brief Article)
February 25, 2002... TOKYO, Feb. 20 Kyodo Cosmetics maker Noevir Co. said Wednesday it will start selling products over the Internet in April. The company, which has so far engaged in door-to-door sales of cosmetics, decided to launch online sales in...

Hitachi launches Internet-filtering service for schools.(Brief Article)
February 25, 2002... TOKYO, Feb. 20 Kyodo Hitachi Ltd. launched a content-filtering service for schools Wednesday so as to block access to Web sites judged bad for schoolchildren, becoming the first Japanese firm to provide such a service for schools. ...

Ruling coalition drafts bill to regulate nuisance e-mail.
February 25, 2002... TOKYO, Feb. 21 Kyodo The ruling coalition has drafted a bill to regulate unsolicited e-mail advertisements, known as spam, coalition officials said Thursday. The bill aims to require the sender to inform recipients that the messages...

Panels call for recycling system for home PCs.
February 25, 2002... TOKYO, Feb. 21 Kyodo The advisory panels of industry and environment ministers basically agreed Thursday at a joint meeting to establish a recycling system for personal computers (PCs) used at homes separate from that for PCs at...

Microsoft launches Xbox in Japan.(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
February 25, 2002... TOKYO, Feb. 22 Kyodo Microsoft Corp. launched its Xbox console in Japan on Friday as it readies to wage battle in the tough Japanese video game market. Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates participated in a sales event at a store in Tokyo's...

Microsoft's Xbox video console goes on sale in Japan.
February 25, 2002... TOKYO, Feb. 22 Kyodo (EDS: ADDING DEVELOPMENTS AT SALES COUNTDOWN EVENT) Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox video game console went on sale in Japan on Friday as Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates spearheaded a countdown event on the first day of...

Casio expects larger group net loss for FY 2001.
February 25, 2002... TOKYO, Feb. 22 Kyodo Casio Computer Co. said Friday it expects a consolidated net loss of 25 billion yen in fiscal 2001, a sharp increase from its earlier forecast loss of 3.7 billion yen. Despite cost-cutting efforts, the major...