Japan Inc. articles from December 2002

Japan Inc. archives from December 2002

From the editor.
December 1, 2002... HIDEO SAWADA AND MASAHIRO Origuchi used to be hot items with the press. They made for good copy because they were interesting, successful, and didn't fit the mold when it comes to doing business in Japan. Sawada was taking on huge travel...

Forcing universities to face the market.(The pulse: the word on the street from the heart of Tokyo)
December 1, 2002... KOICHI TANAKA'S WINNING OF this year's Nobel Prize in chemistry was a pleasant surprise for Japan. Coupled with Masatoshi Koshiba, who also won the prize in physics, Tanaka suddenly became one of the nation's hottest celebrities. Tanaka's...

McDonald's may bring Krispy Kremes to Japan.(The pulse: the word on the street from the heart of Tokyo)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2002... In brief: The facts are still a bit cloudy, but Salomon Smith Barney analyst Mark Kalinowski has mentioned the possibility of McDonald's Japan partnering with Krispy Kreme Doughnuts of the US, according to wire reports. Kalinowski wrote that...

Honda lands world's first order for fuel-cell passenger cars.(The pulse: the word on the street from the heart of Tokyo)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2002... In brief: Honda Motor announced in October that it had won the first-ever order for passenger cars powered by fuel ceils, the Japanese press reported. The order came from the Los Angeles city government. Honda says it will deliver five...

Kirk Rueter's autograph for [yen] 100--any bidders?(iAuctioNet, Japan's latest online auction)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2002... For those of you asking, "Who's Kirk Rueter," obviously October means little more to you than a month when the leaves turn. But for those of you who are ready to pay that [yen] 100 for a baseball card autographed by a pitcher who threw four...

Omron, Mobilecast announce telematics alliance.(The pulse: the word on the street from the heart of Tokyo)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2002... In brief: Omron and Mobilecast of Tokyo announced that they will team up in the telematics field to produce a server for cars. The server would contain a CDMA2000 1x module from KDDI and provide an array of entertainment and security services,...

Medical robot succeeds in removing brain tumor.(The pulse: the word on the street from the heart of Tokyo)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2002... In Brief: Shinshu University professors announced that they successfully removed brain tumors from a patient by using a medical robot developed by Hitachi. It was believed to be the first surgery of its kind in the world. Surgeons only...

Sony Aibo.(latest generation product improvements for robotic pet)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2002... I'm sure you all know about Aibo, the robotic pet produced by Sony (it's not a dog, a Sony spokesperson says), and have just been waiting patiently for that something extra, that one special feature that will push you over the edge, persuade...

NTT Data tests wireless IM technology in baseball stadium.(The pulse 2: the best of J@pan Inc's newsletters: gadget watch, wireless watch and music media watch)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2002... EXTRACT: NTT Data Corp. conducted a test of its wireless instant messaging (IM) technology using mobile phones among spectators at a baseball stadium. The experiment was held during the professional game between the Yokohama BayStars and the...

Toshiba to unveil Bluetooth mobile storage device.(The pulse 2: the best of J@pan Inc's newsletters: gadget watch, wireless watch and music media watch)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2002... EXTRACT: Toshiba is set to launch a Bluetooth-equipped portable storage device. The Hopbit will offer 5GB of storage, enough for around 1000 MP3 audio tracks and 3000 digital images from a three-megapixel camera. The Bluetooth module will allow...

Sharp 3D display.(The pulse 2: the best of J@pan Inc's newsletters: gadget watch, wirelesswatch and music media watch)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2002... Good lord, what will they think of next? Sharp takes the prize for the most gob-smacking innovation this month, announcing the establishment of a new display consortium and a TV that allows you to view in 3D. Capable of being switched between...

Fujifilm FinePix M603.(The pulse 2: the best of J@pan Inc's newsletters: gadget watch, wireless watch and music media watch)
December 1, 2002... It's hard to tell whether the M603 is basically a tiny digital camcorder with still-image capability or the reverse, since this 3.1 megapixel digital camera takes still shots, obviously, but can also record 640x480-dot AVI movies at 30 frames...

Victor RM-A550V.(voice-memo-capable television remote control unit)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2002... The RM-A550V is a voice-memo-capable television remote control unit. I love this kind of thing, straddling the line between the "possibly truly useful" and "possibly truly a complete and utter waste of space, time and money" gadget boundary....

Under your skin: nanotechnology is the latest weapon in the battle to be beautiful.(Upfront)
December 1, 2002... NANOTECHNOLOGY CONJURES UP IMAGES of Star Trek-like mini-particles zipping through blood and data streams on pre-programmed repair missions. It's the stuff of science journals and hardware designers' wet dreams. Well, keep the wet dreams but...

Ion power: chant the mantra: minus ions good--positive ions bad--minus ions very, very good for business.(minus ion equipment)
December 1, 2002... "RIGHT NOW, IF IT doesn't have the term 'minus ion' attached to the appliance, it's not selling," laughs Hitachi spokeswoman Setsuko Minamikawa. Minus ions, called negative ions in the West, occur naturally in forests and streams, anywhere the...

Galleries to catch your breath in: hanging out with the oyaji in Ginza can be more fun than you think.(Upfront)
December 1, 2002... AMONG THE CAFES, DEPARTMENT stores and shoe shops of Ginza lie a few meditative spaces of photographic calm. Sponsored by the likes of Nikon, Canon, Contax, Leica and Fuji, the free galleries in Ginza are rotated weekly (usually on Wednesdays)...

Technology for the front lines: robotic scientists and engineers come up with novel ways to slow the spread of landmines.(Upfront)
December 1, 2002... LANDMINES KILL SOMEONE EVERY 20 minutes, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross and the United Nations. That's nearly 26,000 people a year. The deadly surprises are scattered over 60 countries, but a few countries--Angola,...

Shopping for the nation: a new online business makes the drive to Costco for you.(Upfront)
December 1, 2002... BRENDON HANNA HAS BEEN making regular pilgrimages to Costco for his growing family since 1999, when the membership Warehouse club opened its first store in Japan outside of Fukuoka. "We would spend the better part of a day and nearly [yen]...

Japan does Burning Man: what are a couple hundred Japanese professionals doing in the middle of the Nevada desert? Having the time of their lives.(Upfront)
December 1, 2002... KAZIO NISHIMA ARRIVED AT Black Rock City in the Nevada desert an hour ago. He has already set up his tent. His friends have secured a Japanese flag to their SUV. An officer hell-bent on enforcing the no-drugs law is checking his tent for...

How gaijin is my Kansai: Alex Stewart talks with the software and IT folk to find out.(foreign software entrepreneurs in the Osaka-Kobe-Kyoto region)
December 1, 2002... THE "SAI" IN KANSAI means "west." In the US, the sense of frontier and newness is in the west, but in Japan, it is largely in the east, in Tokyo. The exception to this rule is the foreigners who sally west to Japan's Kansai. They must have the...

Survivors: two approaches to survival in Japan's unkind economy: meet the fighter and the surfer.(H.I.S. president Hideo Sawada and Goodwill Group CEO Masahiro Origuchi)
December 1, 2002... ANYBODY CAN MAKE A buck in good times. But making money now is no easy feat, especially if you've had to maneuver your business through the bleak conditions of the 1990s. It was Albert Camus who said, "What doesn't kill me makes me stronger,"...

[C] The making of an IP nation: the message emanating from special government panels and the cloistered halls of academia is increasingly similar: Intellectual property rights hold the key to Japan's rebirth.
December 1, 2002... SINCE THE BEGINNING OF the year, momentum has been building behind a revival plan for the Japanese economy. The strategy aims to make a fundamental shift In the nation's industrial character from manufacturing powerhouse knowledge society. In...

Out of the spotlight: Michael E. Stanley puts the focus on public-works projects that actually work.
December 1, 2002... RECENTLY THE ANACHRONISTIC AND Byzantine system of Japanese public works spending has come under justifiably severe criticism. In last month's issue of J@pan Inc, we took a look at the matrix of ecological catastrophes developing as the climax...

China's transition merits caution: after the 'WTO euphoria' wears off, disillusionment awaits.(Research)
December 1, 2002... THE JAPANESE FOREIGN MINISTRY was miffed at a New York Times report in August announcing that foreign correspondents were leaving Tokyo for China, drawn by the promise of a more compelling story: the rise and threat of China versus the near...

Attention please: net advertisers battle for eyeballs.(Internet advertising)
December 1, 2002... The average Japanese Web surfer spent more than 11 hours surfing the Internet from his or her home PC in August, according to Nielsen//NetRatings, which tracks worldwide Internet usage. But that same surfer clicked on advertising banners just...

To the editor.(Letter to the Editor)
December 1, 2002... REGARDING YOUR ARTICLE ON Shuji Nakamura (in The Pulse, November 2002, his situation is not at all a new one for engineers and inventors. In the 1920s, a newly minted chemical engineer from Omaha, Nebraska, named Donald Othmer went to work for...

The History of J@pan*Inc.
December 1, 2002... The term 'Japan Incorporated' was first used in a 1936 Fortune magazine article that said: "The industrial hierarchy of Japan is so compact that you can almost think of its works as the products of a single beautifully integrated and highly...

Ground Zero in retrospect.(survey of Japanese attitudes related to the September 11, 2001 terror attacks)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2002... How did the events of September 11, 2001, affect your way of thinking? The Hakuhodo Institute of Life and Living put this question to 381 Tokyoites between the ages of 18 and 76. Did they now think that a terrorist incident could occur even in...

Bring on the pixels.(digital camera trends)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2002... During 2002, domestic shipments of digital cameras are expected to exceed 6 million units, surpassing the figure for film cameras. One of the factors in the success of digital is that females appear to be driving the market, which manufacturer...

Whiz kids.(youngest presidents of Japanese publicly listed corporations)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2002... Who are the youngest presidents of Japan's publicly listed corporations? Kazuhiko Muraki, prez of Crayfish, a Toshima-ward based Internet hosting service aimed at small- and medium-sized companies, seems to be the youngest, at a mere 25. Here,...

Illegally parked.(statistics on towed cars in Tokyo)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2002... According to Weekly Playboy magazine, over the 10-year period from 1992 to the end of 2001, 2,065,600 cars were ordered towed off the streets of Tokyo by cops from the city's 96 police precincts. The magazine estimates that 12 truck companies...

Young digs.(poll on favored train station that are preferable to live near in the metropolitan Tokyo area)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2002... Rental News, a magazine that lists properties for rent, polled 3,483 single, salaried office workers in their 20s and 30s about which train station they preferred to live near in the metropolitan area. The top choice was in less-than-elegant...

Work skills.(employer survey on desired skills in a global environment)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2002... A survey by the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare asked 3,153 companies employing 100 or more workers what sort of human resources they desired most to help them deal with the era of globalization. Sharing first place, both with 6.8...

Low priority.(Blowfish)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2002... The Japan Productivity Center for Socioeconomic Development surveyed 2,669 publicly listed companies (only 282 responded) regarding outlays for employee mental health. Of these, the largest response--4.8 percent--was less than [yen] 1,000 per...

Buyers and sellers.(Internet users and e-commerce)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2002... The latest survey of 2,714 Net users by IPSe Marketing Inc. determined that 77 percent had shopped via the Net, and 55 percent had participated in Net auctions. Among respondents to the survey, conducted July 10-13, 57.6 percent were females....