Japan Inc. articles from July 2003

Japan Inc. archives from July 2003

From the editor.(Editorial)
July 1, 2003... THERE IS A CHANCE that you're reading this issue of J@pan Inc by candlelight. Tepco, the troubled company that has illuminated the night sky of Tokyo for 50 years, has warned that Japan's capital could face blackouts this summer. It's a...

To the editor.(Letter to the Editor)
July 1, 2003... Dear Mr. Kelts, As an avid reader of J@pan Inc over the past two years, I was very surprised by the article by Stuart Braun about the popularity and growth of the club scene in Japan. It was a very accurate and refreshing addition to your...

Robots that can follow the bouncing ball.(The pulse: the word on the street from the heart of Tokyo)
July 1, 2003... ROBOTS ARE INEXPENSIVE AND efficient when working in a very controlled environment. They can work on a factory assembly line and grasp an object within a three-dimensional box-like workspace. Tell a robot to pick up the silicon chip located at...

75 years of Americana in Tokyo.(Upfront)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2003... The Tokyo American Club kicked off its four-month-long 75th Anniversary celebration at the end of May with a massive party at its Minato-ku facility --just a stone's throw from Minoru Mori's massive Roppongi Hills complex. Clearly, much has...

Will Resona spark a buyout spree?(Upfront)
July 1, 2003... FALLOUT FROM THE [yen] 2 trillion bailout of Resona in late May produced many days of turmoil on Tokyo markets as investors ran scared of a financial meltdown. Bank stocks across the board suffered one of their worst one-day falls in...

Elecom Shelspia II.(The pulse 2: the best of J@pan Inc's newsletters)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2003... If you're a businessman out to impress, forget all about your shiny metal meishi (business card) holders from Muji and feast your eyes on the Shelspia II hard cases for your mini flash Ram cards from Elecom. Holding from two to six cards, the...

Sony PSX.(The pulse 2: the best of J@pan Inc's newsletters)
July 1, 2003... Last month's glitzy launch of Sony's PSX home entertainment machine posed a good deal more questions than it answered. The whole event needs to be put in its proper context. What we have seen of this device could indeed usher in a new era...

Ask corporation CitiDisk DV.(The pulse 2: the best of J@pan Inc's newsletters)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2003... The CitiDisk is a portable storage widget that will take a DV stream directly from a digital camcorder and lay it down on the hard disk using an IEEE 1394 (firewire) connection. A clever idea when you consider how fiddly the process is now....

Tepco's blackout bluster: is Tokyo electric crying wolf?(Upfront)
July 1, 2003... LIKE THE GREAT WALL of China and the Grand Canyon, the sprawling city of Tokyo by night is one of those phenomena clearly visible from the moon. As you gaze across the surface of the globe, Japan's capital shines, literally, like a beacon--the...

A capsule camera to save stomachs: the Norika3 endoscope is tiny and painless--and can see your insides.(Upfront)
July 1, 2003... WHAT IS AN IDEAL endoscope supposed to look like? It has been more than half a century since the world's first gastric endoscope was introduced by Olympus Optical Co. Finally there has been improvement: A wireless, compact and disposable...

One for the road: diminution and durability are the keys to a fuel cell future.(Upfront)
July 1, 2003... FOR ALL WE HEAR of the rapid pace of technological development, many users in the real world consider the following truths to be self-evident: Your notebook computer never has enough juice to finish a job on the go, and commercial fuel cells...

Korea bets on a digital future: J@pan Inc heads to Seoul for Korea's biggest IT exhibition.(Upfront)
July 1, 2003... THEY COULD HARDLY HAVE picked a worse moment to hold an IT convention in Korea: The SARS scare was starting to spread, there was a growing threat of nuclear animosity between North and South and the IT industry, as well as the world economy,...

Hokkaido's outdoor entrepreneur: Australian adventurer Ross Findlay heats up Hokkaido.(Upfront)
July 1, 2003... IN NISEKO, HOKKAIDO, ROSS Findlay has become the go-to guy for vacationers seeking something other than golf. Findlay's thriving adventure guide service is a reminder that Japan is about much more than neon-lit cities, and the greatest...

Mitsui mines for Nanotech gold: Japan seeks to lead the way in nanotube production.(Upfront)
July 1, 2003... BIG THINGS COME IN small packages, and if major trading house Mitsui and Co. is successful, it will find untold treasures in atom-size packages via the burgeoning field of nanotechnology. Mitsui's wholly owned subsidiary, Carbon Nanotech...

Post-Saddam Iraq: not much for Japan: war coverage exposes dysfunctional Japanese attitudes.(Opinion)
July 1, 2003... THE SECOND GULF WAR is now sliding into the past tense. What will follow--the largest, most intense postwar reconstruction since World War II--is still in its fledgling stages. But "reconstruction" is surely too narrow in meaning for what is...

Kyoto's MK Taxi tries to transform Japan: a Korean entrepreneur seeks progress in a xenophobic nation.(Kansai)
July 1, 2003... THE KOREAN PENINSULA WAS colonized by Japan from 1910 to 1945. Many Koreans chose to come to Japan to seek higher standards of living and employment. During World War II, over 1.2 million Korean males were forcibly shipped to Japan to work as...

IPv6: Asia's agent of change: Northeast Asia leads the way in giving everything including the kitchen sink.
July 1, 2003... ON THE INTERNET, as on a city street, location is everything. In a world of data where an address is the only proof of being, getting a location is the foremost concern; lose that and existence stops. Internet Protocol (IP) is the way the...

The Sakhalin oil boom Part 1: from poverty to prospects: the tiny Russian island needs foreign investment--and Japan needs the oil.
July 1, 2003... LONG BEFORE "SHOCK AND awe" became a proprietary brand for pyrotechnics over recalcitrant Arab states, decades even before 9-11, the risks inherent in Japan's near total dependence on Mideast oil were painfully manifest. A chronology of modern...

The Sakhalin oil boom part 2: prejudice versus profit: Sakhalin's enormous potential could help save energy-strapped Japan. But can Japan deal with the Russians?
July 1, 2003... ZIPPING INTO MY RUBBERY survival suit in case the Russian Mil-M80 helicopter I'm about to board crashes into the frigid waters of the northeastern Pacific, I can't help but think of the two oil rig workers who'd just been joking about imminent...

Niigata: Japan's North Asia hub: language difficulties, intense competition and productivity, political instability and poor infrastructure have all made finding a suitable base to service the markets of North Asia a daunting challenge for foreign companies.(Sponsored Section)
July 1, 2003... FOR FOREIGN BUSINESSES IN North Asia, the conventional compromise for establishing a locus of operations has been Tokyo or Seoul, despite the exorbitant costs of setting up in either location. However, there is another choice, and one that...

Japan's mobile internet roars back: after the rest of the world wrote them off, Japanese mobile companies are back in the driver's seat.(Wireless Japan: special advertising section)(Advertisement)
July 1, 2003... LESS THAN A DOZEN months ago, media pundits and analysts everywhere were gleefully predicting the pending irrelevance of Japan's mobile Internet industry. The country's largest wireless carrier, NTT DoCoMo, had just announced a multi-hundred...

Global success: why Homare Takenaka believes the Global Service Center concept is ideally suited for success.(Sponsored Section)
July 1, 2003... IT'S AN IDEA WHOSE time has come. The one-stop service center for foreign companies in Japan, the Global Service Center (GSC) has been created by 14 companies and organizations who have agreed to work together. There have been various efforts...

Selling to seniors: the "grey panthers" duke it out with the rip-off artists in Japan's new growth market.(Investor insight: a special section for professional investors focused on Japan)
July 1, 2003... JUST FOR A MOMENT, let's optimistically assume that Japan is able to avoid a depression or a financial crisis. It then will have to face a population crunch. Somewhere around 2006, Japan's population will peak and begin to decline. By the year...

Mirror, mirror on the wall.(Blowfish)
July 1, 2003... EVER STOP TO WONDER about all those mirrors at train stations? Vanity can overcome every one of us at one time or another--even a blowfish sometimes wants to look his best for the sleek-finned ladies. But the Japanese appear to have made...