Archive for June, 2008

Kobe Port Tower mascot needs a nickname

The Kobe Shimbun reports that Kobe Port Tower‘s mascot needs a nickname. The character’s official name, Kobe Port Tower-kun, is terribly uncreative, so the Kobe Port Promotion Association is turning to the general public for nickname suggestions.

Anybody got some good ideas?

[hat tip to Ken Y-N of What Japan Thinks]

Fighting terror…inconsistently

Yesterday while making my way from the boonies into Osaka City proper via good ol’ Keihan Honsen, I was about to dispose of my emptied cup o’ coffee upon disembarking at Yodoyabashi station, only to be thwarted by freedom-fighting plastic covers on the dust bins:

However, upon entering the gates to transfer to the connecting Osaka City Subway mere meters away, a cleaning lady happily accepted my empty cup and tossed it into the trash for me.

The cell phone of the future comes ever closer…

A few months since Japan Probe published the story about the latest additions to our cell phones, NTT Docomo is at it again.

This time their goal is to make controlling our cell phones as easy as possible, alleviating the incredibly difficult process we currently use of pushing buttons with our fingers. Instead, we will be able to control them with body actions, such as rolling our eyes or jerking our eyes to the right or left to either fast forward or rewind if we are wearing the special wired glasses.

They also demonstrated some other wearable technologies, e.g. a wearable cell phone that transfers sound via vibrations through our finger bones and when we put our finger in our ear we can hear the sound again, as well as wristwatches that can identify the movement of our hands and use them to control electronic devices in the house.

How far can they go with these wearable technologies? What do you think we will be able to do with this technology in the future? And, do you think that this technology has any other practical application?

Akihabara knife attack survivor shows his wounds

A taxi driver injured during the Akihabara knife rampage shows his wound to the press:

He had been driving his taxi near the crossing where the incident took place and had rushed out to provide aid to injured people, becoming a stabbing victim himself in the process. The taxi diver has since been released from the hospital and can walk around, but the knife wound is not yet fully healed and still causes him a great deal of pain.

Poll: Japanese do not want North Korea removed from terror sponsorship list

A translation of the results from a poll currently being conducted on Yahoo! Japan:

It may be an unscientific online poll, but I’d say it’s a pretty good indicator of the fact that a majority of Japanese people care about the abductee issue and don’t want North Korea to be rewarded until the problem is resolved.

[hat tip to Darin]

Japan Photo of the Week: Toyako

If you are looking to escape the heat and humidity of Japan, Hokkaido is the place to be in the summer. There are many places worth visiting and summer time is the perfect time for a lot of these places. One place that will be publicized this year is the hot spring resorts of Toyako, where this years G8 Summit will be held July 7th-9th.

This photos was taken just after sunset and just before the daily “festival” that they have during the summer. If you make the trip to Hokkaido, it would not be a waste of time to check out Lake Toya. For more photos check out the Japan Photo Guide or the gallery.

This photograph was taken by Evan Pike.