Japan Inc. articles from August 2004

Japan Inc. archives from August 2004

Yet another ad.(Buzz)
August 1, 2004... THINK everything's an advertisement these days? In early June, Tokyo Metro's Ginza subway tunnel lit up for 15 seconds with the sights of a Suntory soft drink commercial. Appearing as a mini-movie glimpsed through the train windows, the Suntory...

Mining the Middle Kingdom.(Buzz)
August 1, 2004... DARTMOUTH COLLEGE'S TUCK SCHOOL of Business hosted its sixth annual World Business Forum at Keidanren Hall in downtown Tokyo last month, and the topic on the table was--what else?--the China challenge. The daylong event featured five Dartmouth...

Baker redux.(Buzz)
August 1, 2004... WE strolled down to the Tokyo high court last month to watch the opening day of the appeal by Nick Baker (JI, November 2003). The Briton was sentenced last year to a long stretch in jail for a drugs smuggling charge he strenuously denied....

Canon FV M20 KIT.(G-Spot)
August 1, 2004... The FV M20 KIT is an updated version of the FV M100 KIT that debuted in March of this year. The 2.2-megapixel video camera has a 14X zoom lens that offers higher resolution and better visual quality. It has a round grip, which lets users hold...

Olympus Ferrari digital model 2004.(G-Spot)
August 1, 2004... Camera maker Olympus and automaker Ferrari S.p.A. collaborated on the design of this red and sporty-looking digital camera. Olympus accepts orders only for two weeks, and plans to sell only 10,000 units worldwide, including 1,000 in Japan. This...

Sony ICD-B20.(G-Spot)
August 1, 2004... The ICD-B20 is a bit smaller than a mobile phone and records 16 hours and 10 minutes of sound. Its user-friendly interface sports large buttons and a big LCD. It uses two AAAA batteries, which allow the ICD-B20 to record 15.5 hours. It measures...

Sharp UX-F34CL and UX-F34CW.(G-Spot)
August 1, 2004... These two models, dubbed Fappy, are photocopy and fax machines that have Home Sensor functions, which alert users when doors and windows are open. (Users need separately-sold sensors to install at entrance doors and windows.) Users can forward...

Toshiba dynabook VX/2W 15LDSTW, dynabook VX/2W 15LDSW.(G-Spot)
August 1, 2004... These two models are the first notebook PCs that contain High-Visual-Quality Engines, or combined PC software and hardware technologies. They have a 15.4-inch clear superView LCD, which increases brightness by 20 percent over the latest model....

Canon PowerShot S60.(G-Spot)
August 1, 2004... The PowerShot S60 is the newest model in Canon's PowerShot S series. It contains a newly developed 3.6X zoom lens and has a wider-angle view and a more powerful zoom function than the current PowerShot S50. According to Canon, the UA lens has...

Rise of the auditors: how auditing has transformed advertising.(Upfront)
August 1, 2004... At the turn of the last century, the Victorian entrepreneur Lord Leverhulme famously remarked that he knew half of his advertising budget was wasted. But he did not know which half. ********** SINCE THOSE DISTANT days, Leverhulme's...

China enters the fast lane: China will export auto parts. Can Japan keep its lead?(Upfront)
August 1, 2004... HOW will Japan be affected as China plans to shift its focus in the auto industry to the export of auto parts? Chinese government attempts to rationalize the over-productive auto sector have largely failed. Beijing is now hoping to shift the...

Is Japan losing its cool? A new report shows Korean and Chinese rivals gaining fast.(Upfront)
August 1, 2004... IS Japan losing its cool? A short while ago that question would have seemed absurd. The appetite for Japanese popular culture in Asia was boundless. Japanese singers, animation, design, cinema and literature were a thrilling new wave of...

Can Koizumi privatize Japan? The next wave of reforms challenges the socialist state.(Upfront)
August 1, 2004... JAPAN'S Parliament passed a set of bills providing for the privatization of four public highway corporations. Privatization of the heavily indebted highway operators is one of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's flagship reform pledges. But as...

Navigating the new media: why today's advertisers need to be super-savvy.(Upfront)
August 1, 2004... TELEVISION has been at the heart of major advertising campaigns for over 40 years. And since its inception, no better way has been found to convey simple, motivating messages to the multitudes. ********** THE GROWTH OF BRANDS and the...

Securing knowledge assets: how safe is your knowledge?(InDepth)
August 1, 2004... MOST organizations are naive in their attempts to secure their most valuable resource: knowledge. It is an accepted fact that knowledge resources (assets and processes) are the most salient competitive weapons an organization possesses. Lose...

The next Izanagi Keiki? Japan's economic recovery looks built to last.(InvestorInnsight)
August 1, 2004... THE current working assumption is that Japan's economy is about to peak, and that a cyclical downturn will begin forming in 2005--even before the Bank of Japan (BOJ) has become confident enough to abandon the zero interest rate policy it has...

An unlikely frontier.(Look!)
August 1, 2004... IN THIS COUNTRY of islands, there are a few bits of land that stand apart. One of these is Minamitorishima, or "Marcus Island" on some English-language maps. It seems a leftover fragment of an exotic archipelago set down by mistake in the...

Asahi Danke's UniSlab: one construction firm rises above the rest.(Feature)(Cover Story)
August 1, 2004... As canny small cap investors in the Japanese stock market know, some of the best deals are to be had in seemingly mundane industries-especially if the company being considered for investment is headed by a thinker and leader who is intent on...

Spinning Japan: one resident's solution to the tourism campaign.(BlowFish)
August 1, 2004... ONE OF THE JAPANESE GOVERNMENT'S latest endeavors is to increase the number of tourists in Japan to 10 million per year by the year 2010 (see JI cover story, September 2003). But the problem with the advertising campaign designed to bring in...