Japan Inc. articles from March 2004

Japan Inc. archives from March 2004

From the editor.
March 1, 2004... Despite this country's manufacturing prowess, Japan has rarely been celebrated for ingenuity--a fact that tends to obscure the nation's Promethean penchant for innovation. But that may be changing. A friend from Harvard who visited...

Crystal ball for 2004.
March 1, 2004... Here are our choice prognostications for the remainder of 2004. Hold us to them next December 31: [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] * Japanese banks that will fail in 2004: 3 * Amount of MoF intervention in currency markets in 2004: $400...

Killer apps from DoCoMo and KDDI.(The Word on the Street from the Heart of Tokyo)
March 1, 2004... MOBILE PAYMENTS ARE BELIEVED to be the next killer application for the mobile Internet. KDDI and DoCoMo began rolling out their new services at the start of this year, and both companies have been aggressively evaluating customer responses to...

2004 trend-watchers take note.(The Word on the Street from the Heart of Tokyo)
March 1, 2004... AS RECENTLY REPORTED AND published by the Telecommunications Carriers Association: The Japanese market added 500,000 new subscribers in December of last year, reaching a grand total of about 80 million mobile subscribers. The carriers that...

Intervention junkies--addiction without end?(The Word on the Street from the Heart of Tokyo)
March 1, 2004... JAPAN'S MINISTRY OF FINANCE has lost more than 70 billion dollars in the past financial year trying to bet against currency speculators. Cabinet Office insiders admitted in January that the currency losses have spiralled out of control, after a...

Apple iPod mini.(The Pulse)
March 1, 2004... * Gadget fans are very fickle creatures--or maybe that's just me. Most of us go crazy with desire over the latest gadget one day, only to forget it the next and move on to the Next Big Shiny Thing as soon as some clever consumer electronics...

Sony HMD1G.(The Pulse)
March 1, 2004... * MD champion Sony has just announced a trio of brand new MD Walkmans that are compatible with the new "HiMD" standard (also announced recently by Sony at the International CES 2004 exhibition, held in Vegas this January). * This...

San Disk Cruzer Micro MP3 Companion.(The Pulse)
March 1, 2004... * Hailing from California-based memory and peripheral manufacturer SanDisk, the Cruzer Micro MP3 Companion is a cuddly friend for the SanDisk Cruzer Micro, which we know you're already planning to buy. Actually, it's not all that cuddly,...

Sharp DV-RW200.(The Pulse)
March 1, 2004... * Seems every great piece of kit these days costs about [yen]100,000, so if you have that kind of spare cash lying around, and you've been thinking about getting all your old VCR tapes transferred onto DVD but can't be bothered with buying a...

Sharp PW-9300.(The Pulse)
March 1, 2004... * You might not have any interest in learning Japanese, but if you do, an electronic dictionary is an absolute godsend. Personally, I find it hard to get excited about an electronic dictionary--in the world of gadgetholics, it's the...

Sony HMD1G.(The Pulse)
March 1, 2004... * Sony has released a funky new Airboard and, even though I'm quite sure you're too busy to even care what this bit means, it's compatible with IEEE 802.11a, g and b flavors of wireless protocols. Even more startlingly, the model name actually...

Japan's restaurant giants are California dreaming: but service and standards may be worlds apart.(Upfront)
March 1, 2004... LOS ANGELES IS THE starting point for the international expansion plans of two of Japan's most recent restaurant success stories. Reins International Co. and Global-Dining Inc., both of which grew to prominence during Japan's recession, are...

A design for (slow) life: she's called Japan's Martha Stewart, but Harumi Kurihara is her own homemaker.(Upfront)
March 1, 2004... JAPAN'S MOST FAMOUS HOUSEWIFE, 56-year-old Harumi Kurihara, is at once a cookbook writer, restaurateur and TV chef. When we first meet, she hands me a slice of chocolate cake on one of her own "Harumi, K" plates while wearing one of the over...

Tokyo real estate: revival or risk? Will booming development in central Tokyo sink Odaiba--and everyone else?(Upfront)
March 1, 2004... DESPITE ONGOING RECESSIONARY ECONOMICS, 2003 was a busy year for Tokyo construction firms. New office buildings seemed to pop up in the capital as fast as mushrooms on a long-neglected lawn. Roppongi Hills, Shiodome and Marunouchi all saw new...

The stock market reads through strong-yen worries: Japan is better prepared for the ramifications of the weak dollar.(Upfront)
March 1, 2004... THE PATTERN OF NET buying and selling during the first few months of this year is essentially the same as that seen for most of last year: Buying among foreign investors has accelerated again, while there has been an equally large amount of net...

Inspired by imports: Tokyo Designer's Week marries commerce to art in cutting edge expositions.(Upfront)
March 1, 2004... TOKYO DESIGNER'S WEEK (TDW) started modestly in 1997 as a way to wed aesthetic aspirations to functional need--and there is no better place than Japan for the nuptials. As one festival organizer told me: "Look around you. Japanese life is full...

The man who tried to save Osaka: Kansai's largest city is urban and ugly--but it didn't have to be this way.(Upfront)
March 1, 2004... EVEN BY JAPANESE STANDARDS, Osaka is not an attractive city. To be sure, Kansai's two other major conurbations, Kyoto and Kobe, have their fair share of ugliness. But Kyoto has a storied beauty best appreciated at the micro level, while Kobe...

A season's special curse.(Look)
March 1, 2004... TOKYO'S RAINBOW BRIDGE SOARS high over the entrance to the inner harbor and connects the medusa-like snarl of the city's downtown expressways with the long eastward arc of the Wangan (bayshore) Expressway. After a day of meetings and errands in...

The techno maestro's amazing machine: Kohei Minato and the Japan Magnetic Fan Company; A maverick inventor's breakthrough electric motor uses permanent magnets to make power--and has investors salivating.(Feature)
March 1, 2004... WHEN WE FIRST GOT the call from an excited colleague that he'd just seen the most amazing invention--a magnetic motor that consumed almost no electricity--we were so skeptical that we declined an invitation to go see it. If the technology was...

Magnets in motion.(How It Works)
March 1, 2004... MINATO'S MAGNETIC MOTOR IS quite different from the four fundamental types of motors manufactured today. The most modern designs, be they AC or DC, servo or stepper, all fundamentally employ the same principle of electromagnetic force of...

Foreign films: 100MeterFilms makes movies in Japan about Japanese characters. But the filmmakers themselves are foreign.(Feature)
March 1, 2004... THE FEATURE FILM FIREFLY Dreams (2001) is by most measures a thoroughly Japanese affair, with its all-Japanese cast including an octogenarian "name" actress, locations in urban and rural Japan and a classic coming-of-age tale that...

Third-party tango: how to kick the keiretsu habit and hone in on value; the use of third-party organizations to support a company's non-core capacities is on the rise--and here's how to do it right.(Feature)
March 1, 2004... THE CLOCK STRUCK 9:30 A.M. It was time for another project huddle--except this time the huddle involved approximately 300 people, 85 of whom were consultants. I was unsure what disturbed me more--the consulting firm's judgment to bring such a...

Monkeying around.(RlowFish)
March 1, 2004... EXCUSE MY ALLITERATION FOR a moment, but it's a proven point that Japanese crave cuddling cute cartoon characters. A recent survey of people in their 50s and 60s appearing in the Asahi Shimbun finds an overwhelming 96 percent have a favorite....