Tag - tech

 
Menu
Search
 
July 03, 2026
 

Today's print edition

Home Delivery
Subscribe for more access

TECH

An image of an app for insomnia treatment. For Taro Ueno, a psychiatrist and president of Susmed, the idea to develop an app for insomnia came from observing how doctors in Japan overprescribe sleeping pills.
JAPAN / Science & Health
Jan 6, 2026
Japanese startups tout chatbot-powered apps as treatment for medical conditions
These prescription-only apps are designed to help treat a range of conditions, such as hypertension, alcohol addiction and insomnia.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang speaks about autonomous-driving vehicles during a Nvidia keynote address at CES 2026, an annual consumer electronics trade show, in Las Vegas, Nevada, on Monday.
BUSINESS / Tech
Jan 6, 2026
Self-driving and AI take center stage at CES as carmakers dial back EV plans
As automakers have hit the brakes on electric vehicle plans, auto suppliers and start ups are lining up to show off their latest autonomous vehicle hardware and software.
Grok, a chatbot developed by xAI, has faced criticism over the rollout of a tool that allows users to request images of a subject with their clothes removed.
WORLD
Jan 6, 2026
‘Remove her clothes’: Global backlash over Grok sexualized images
The tool on social media platform X prompted swift probes or calls for remedial action from countries including France, India and Malaysia.
A Samsung Electronics sign at the IFA Consumer Electronics and Home Appliances trade fair in Berlin on Sept. 5, 2024. Investors are increasingly asking if we’re living through another financial bubble that’s destined to burst.
BUSINESS / Tech
Jan 5, 2026
Is the AI boom a bubble waiting to pop? Here’s what history says.
Investors are increasingly asking if we’re living through another financial bubble that’s destined to burst.
Betting money through online casinos is illegal in Japan, but a National Police Agency-commissioned report released last year estimates that 3.37 million Japanese have used online casinos.
JAPAN / Society / FOCUS
Jan 5, 2026
App that blocks gambling sites may offer lifeline for addicts in Japan
Anti-gambling advocates praise Gamban, but say that much more needs to be done to curb addictions.
As U.S. tech companies expand global deals with strong backing from the Trump administration, safeguards to prevent human-rights violations remain absent.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 4, 2026
AI must not ignore human rights
If AI companies end up in a race to the bottom, what hope will there be for basic human-rights protections?
X's Grok AI tool created and published images of minors in minimal clothing, in apparent violation of its own acceptable use policy, which prohibits the sexualization of children.
BUSINESS / Tech
Jan 3, 2026
Grok makes sexual images of kids as users test AI guardrails
X’s AI tool created and published images of minors in minimal clothing, in apparent violation of its own acceptable use policy, which prohibits the sexualization of children.
New research shows AI chatbots are becoming more persuasive by overwhelming users with information, regardless of the accuracy, increasing the risk of political misinformation.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 2, 2026
AI Is getting dangerously good at political persuasion
The trick is using a debating tactic known as Gish galloping, a rapid-style speech tactic in which one interlocutor bombards the other with a stream of facts and stats.
Yu Ishikawa, Mercari’s head of cross-border business development, says the platform has an unmatched lineup of unique Japanese items.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jan 2, 2026
Mercari goes global with anime and manga leading the way
It wants to be the go-to marketplace for international customers seeking high-quality Japanese entertainment products.
As digital technologies become essential, governments must strategically invest in infrastructure, expanding its scope to include intangible assets like software and data to support economic growth.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 31, 2025
Building infrastructure for the AI age
Broadband, mobile networks and data centers are now as integral to daily life as roads and power grids.
Having made colossal profits as well as losses on previous investments, founder Masayoshi Son has pivoted SoftBank toward artificial intelligence.
BUSINESS / Companies
Dec 31, 2025
SoftBank lifts OpenAI stake to 11% with $41 billion investment
SoftBank had announced in April its planned investment of up to $40 billion in Open AI, and on Wednesday it said that the second tranche of $22.5 billion was completed.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., the world's largest semiconductor maker, says it has started mass producing 2-nanometer semiconductor chips.
BUSINESS / Tech
Dec 31, 2025
TSMC says it has started mass production of ‘most advanced’ 2nm chips
Taiwan plans to keep making the “most advanced” chips on home soil and remain “indispensable” to the global semiconductor industry, the island’s deputy foreign minister said.
Japanese memory chipmaker Kioxia Holdings counts Apple and Microsoft among its clients and is now worth about $36 billion.
BUSINESS / Companies
Dec 30, 2025
AI memory demand propels Kioxia to world’s best-performing stock
Kioxia’s shares have risen around 540% year-to-date, outperforming all other members of the MSCI World Index and making it the top stock in Japan’s Topix benchmark for 2025.
SoftBank Group aims to capitalize on soaring demand for the computing capacity that underpins artificial intelligence applications.
BUSINESS / Companies
Dec 30, 2025
SoftBank buys data center investment firm DigitalBridge
SoftBank’s billionaire founder Masayoshi Son is aiming to capitalize on soaring demand for digital infrastructure, driven by the artificial intelligence boom.
U.S. President Donald Trump with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Busan, South Korea, on Oct. 30. Beneath a series of diplomatic victories this year, Xi still has plenty of worries at home — from structural economic vulnerabilities to a personnel purge that’s reached deep into the military and party elite.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics / FOCUS
Dec 29, 2025
Xi’s triumphant year staring down Trump belies troubles in China
China was peerless in confronting Donald Trump’s renewed trade war, but beneath such victories, he has plenty of worries at home, such as structural economic vulnerabilities.
Intercontinental missiles of a new type are paraded through Tiananmen Square in Beijing on Sept. 3.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 28, 2025
China and America must get serious about AI risk
As AI capabilities advance, they could be used for cyberattacks on infrastructure, creating bioweapons, shaping disinformation campaigns, targeting lethal drones and more.
Christmas has been corrupted by nonhuman entities: Algorithms that we flatteringly call artificial intelligence have desecrated the season’s music and holiday ritual. 
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 26, 2025
The AI war on Christmas
My guess is that someone prompted an AI model to generate winter and Christmas songs that avoided “controversial” subjects such as divine and human love, resulting in mush.
A prototype of a Rapidus 300mm wafer displayed at the Semicon Japan exhibition. The industry ministry has earmarked ¥150 billion for state-backed chip venture Rapidus, bringing the cumulative government investment in the venture to ¥250 billion.
BUSINESS / Economy
Dec 26, 2025
Japan to quadruple spending support for chips and AI in budget
The jump in chips and AI spending comes at as Japan is trying to strengthen its capacities in frontier technology, and the U.S. and China race ahead.
Japan’s efforts to halt rural depopulation and revive its countryside require a broader focus on quality of life, productivity and realistic population goals.
EDITORIALS
Dec 26, 2025
Facts, not fantasy, must guide regional revitalization policy
By 2022, more than half of all municipalities in Japan were designated as “depopulated areas.”
U.S. approval of Nvidia’s advanced AI chip exports to China risks accelerating the PLA’s military AI capabilities and eroding America’s technological edge at a critical moment in the U.S.-China strategic rivalry.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 26, 2025
Will Nvidia turbocharge China’s AI military?
The deal could give China access to Nvidia’s second-most powerful AI processor, which is roughly six times more capable than the H20 chips previously available to it.
Japan triples departure tax in push to combat overtourism
Tourists in Yanaka Ginza, Tokyo, on Wednesday. Japan tripled its International Tourist Tax (departure tax) to ¥3,000 from ¥1,000 on Wednesday for all travelers leaving Japan, regardless of nationality.
‘My dream is broken’: Japan visa rules push out foreign residents
A man orders from a kebab shop in the Okubo district in Tokyo.
More facilities in Japan placing sanitary bins in men’s restrooms
A sanitary bin with an awareness sticker placed in a men's restroom in the Nagasaki Municipal Government building
Inside Japan’s rigid adoption system, a British family finds a way
James Benstead, his wife, Jesse, and their three children. Their adopted son is in the rear stroller.
Why is the yen so weak and what can Japan do about it?
Japan spent ¥11.7 trillion ($73 billion) between late April and late May to prop up the weak yen.
Six of the best: rikishi of note in each sumo division
Kazuma (right) faces off against future <i>yokozuna</i> Onosato during the All Japan Amateur Sumo Championships at the Ryogoku Kokugikan in Tokyo in December 2020.
Some startups see opportunity in an aging Japan
Yasmin Baba, CTO of Amilis, wins the Grand Prize at the Pitch2Tokyo Grand Final on Feb. 19.
Japan’s fertility system offers few safe paths for same-sex couples
A Tokyo Pride parade participant holds a sign that says "we want to be a married couple, not a couple."
Life inside Japan’s largest prison for women
Western-style rooms spanning the size of four tatami mats with hardwood floors, a toilet and soft mattresses on bed frames are designated for foreign nationals and those with health conditions at Tochigi Prison.
Inside Japan’s rigid adoption system, a British family finds a way
James Benstead, his wife, Jesse, and their three children. Their adopted son is in the rear stroller.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

The Terasaka Rice Terraces are seen with Mount Buko in the background.
What Yokoze can teach Japan about rural revival
By Alex K.T. Martin

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

New Logistics Consortium baton to accelerate trucking efficiency
New Logistics Consortium baton to accelerate trucking efficiency

SPECIAL SUPPLEMENTS note

Read more

SUPPLEMENTS BINDER