Archive for July, 2011

Tracking the Location of Mobile Phone Users

A news report about how data from mobile phones is being used to analyze the movement of people after a major disaster:

According to the report, NTT Docomo’s mobile phones have a “hidden feature” that sends location information to the company every hour. This allows Docomo to track the location of its customers.

Here is a graphic that shows how a large number of Docomo customers were stranded in Tokyo at 3:00AM on March 12th, after the earthquake had forced all major train lines to halt service:

Combined with data about each customer’s home address, Docomo can figure out which evacuation routes would be most crowded. This valuable information could be used to help authorities distribute emergency supplies or deploy extra buses to help people return home.

Docomo says that the data is sorted in a way that protects the exact identity of every customer.

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Japanese Actor Fired After Complaining About Korean Television Dramas

The showbiz career of Japanese actor Sousuke Takaoka is in shambles after he posted an angry rant on Twitter about his feelings about seeing so many Korean television dramas aired on Japanese TV.

Apparently he can’t watch Fuji TV (channel anymore because it airs too many South Korean dramas. It’s like the network has become a Korean TV channel. He wants to see Japanese TV channels airing Japanese dramas. He turns off the TV whenever its showing something Korean.

Takaoka is married to actress Aoi Miyazaki. In one of the tweets after his rant, he claimed that his wife shared his views. However, after the story blew up in the media, he posted a tweet announcing that his wife had ordered him to write that she does not share his views. As one of Japan’s most popular actresses, Miyazaki has a lot more to lose than her husband. It is rumored that their marriage could now be in jeopardy.

Takaoka has since been fired by his talent agency. He seems to have accepted the fact that his acting career is finished.

After the firing, he set up a new personal blog. In his first post (translated into English by Tokyo Hive), Takaoka confessed that he had attempted suicide several years ago. He claims that he had been driven into despair after the South Korean media coverage of his role in the movie “Pacchigi!” included fabricated quotes that made it sound like he hated Japan:

Some time later, the things I said at the campaign for “Pacchigi!” in Korea were published differently from the truth. When I returned to Japan, the media and internet labeled me as ‘Anti-Japanese’. It was at that time that my hate for the media took root within me.

What were the “anti-Japanese” things he claims he didn’t actually say? Apparently a South Korean newspaper (the Chosun Ilbo) had included a question about the Takeshima/Dokdo dispute in a interview about the “Pacchigi!” movie. Takaoka was quoted as saying, that he didn’t particularly like Japan, thought Japanese treatment of Korea has been unfair/cowardly, and that he wanted the Japanese government to give its people the truth. (個人的には、日本という国はあまり好きではない。韓国に対して、日本は卑劣なように思える. 日本政府は正しい情報を国民に伝えるよう願う)

His blog post also contained the accusation that Korean TV dramas were part of a conspiracy to keep the masses from realizing the horrible truth about the radiation from Fukushima:

Reports about the March 11th incident were only good in the beginning. Then they became hypocritical.

They turned their eyes away from the radiation problem, and put restraints on things that were inconvenient to them.

What these people were doing was just as it was before.

There were many reports that weren’t delivered to the citizens. Instead, they aired irrelevant foreign dramas, and on the morning news, they reported biased information.

I became suspicious of this country.

With this flow in my mindset, I made those recent remarks.

I couldn’t tolerate it anymore.

The things that built up inside me gushed out.

Although his mainstream entertainment career seems to be finished, his vocal denunciation of the mainstream media, hatred of Korean dramas, and support of Fukushima conspiracy theories has made him extremely popular on the internet. Perhaps he’s looking to make a new career for himself in the nationalist or conspiracy theorist niche markets?

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Self Defense Forces Finish Tohoku Disaster Relief Mission

Japan’s Self-Defense Forces are finishing up their disaster relief work in Tohoku. Here are a few videos of grateful disaster survivors thanking the departing service men and women for their hard work:

And here’s a video that includes a list of all the units that participated, as well as a photo slideshow of the SDF disaster relief work:

I think it would be fair to say that there has been enormous public appreciation of the SDF’s post-tsunami disaster relief work. (The same cannot be said for many politicians, bureaucrats, and power company executives.)

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Opposition Lawmakers Reduce Cabinet Minister to Tears

Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Banri Kaieda breaks down into tears after opposition lawmakers demand that he resign:

The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry has been criticized for its handling of the nuclear crisis. The Ministy is now in deep shit after it came to light that its Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency had been encouraging power companies to engage in shady practices that might steer public opinion towards support of nuclear energy:

Chubu Electric Power Co said it had been asked by the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) in 2007 to ensure that a sufficient number of favorable views was represented at a symposium in Shizuoka prefecture, south of Tokyo.

The ministry surveyed the six of Japan’s nine power companies to have held public forums in the past five years.

While Chubu eventually decided not to plant questions at the forum, it said it complied with the watchdog’s request to pad the event with its own staff and others posing as participants.

“I deeply regret the misleading actions which could be interpreted as trying to influence public debate on nuclear power at a government-sponsored event,” Chubu President Akihisa Mizuno said.

The revelation comes after Kyushu Electric Power Company in southern Japan admitted that a manager asked employees of its affiliates to send email messages in favor of nuclear power to a TV program covering a public forum.

Trade and energy minister Banri Kaieda, whose ministry oversees NISA, would only say the government will “thoroughly look into past actions,” drawing ire from some citizens’ groups.

It’s only natural that the power companies would want to mobilize employees and pro-nuclear people to participate in such public events, as anti-nuclear organizations would be doing likewise. Public symposiums, town hall meetings, and call-in television shows are often just for very opinionated people to express their views: normal people, who has better things to do with their time, almost never participate. However, the national government’s nuclear safety agency has no place in such activities.

Members of the opposition LDP (whose party was in charge of the country back in 2007), have gone on the attack against Kaieda. The video clip of Kaieda crying was from a Diet session on Friday:

“As head of METI, I feel very sorry if there has been manipulation by the government for a certain opinion to be expressed,” Kaieda said.

Kaieda has faced increasing pressure as he has tried to navigate between growing hostility over the use of nuclear power and the need to avoid crippling power shortages.

At one point in parliament, he was visibly upset, with tears in his eyes, when an opposition lawmaker said he should resign.

It is not normal for a cabinet minister to cry in public when faced with harsh criticism. Kaieda may or may not be to blame for some of the recent problems, but it looks like he’s under so much stress that it could be having an effect on his job performance.

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Original Ultra Seven Mask Stolen

The original Ultraman mask that actor Koji Moritsugu wore in the 1960′s “Ultra Seven” TV series has been stolen:

Some time during the afternoon of July 25th, the mask disappeared from its display case in a restaurant owned by Moritsugu. He has made a public appeal for its return.

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Jet Hitter Batting Machine

Diginfo shows us the newest generation of the Jet Hitter, a batting machine that makes a baseball float in midair:

“People have used a soft toss batting tee or a batting tee to practice baseball, but since the ball comes at a 45 degree angle when soft toss batting, batters get into the habit of pulling the ball when they bat. Yet they do not get the feeling of really hitting when they use a batting tee. We worked with Meiji University and came up with this idea after we experimented a lot based on the concept, “What if the ball is floating?” This allows a person to practice by themselves, hit at a wide angle, and another major feature is that the ball wobbles a little, so it trains the batter to concentrate, so overall the system has been highly appreciated.”

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