The craze that started in Japan – where else – is now starting to take hold in the west. Last year it was Paris, now London has its very own cat café, a place where feline lovers can have a cup of tea while getting their cat fix.
Last weekend, Shigenori Goto became the latest fisherman to mistakenly haul up a very rare giant squid in his fishing nets.
Trust a Japanese game show to turn the beautiful game into some sort of arcade-ninja-ball-blaster-nightmare. Shinji Kagawa (we all know him, right?) and Hiroshi Kiyotake (not so much) were asked to score a goal on a full-field football pitch against a team of 29 in-field children, and three goalkeeper children. Easy. 55 kids? That’s harder.
It’s just what you’ve been waiting for! Or is it? Either way, DIY plastic surgery is a big thing now. Especially in Asia.
Japanese tyre manufacturer, Autoway Tyres decided to ditch the “sex sells” approach, and instead tried to scare their customers into submission. Their new ad is being called the scariest ad of all time – not least of all because it actually comes with a health warning and a liability disclaimer.
60 years ago, two children were born in the same hospital. One of them had rich parents – the other had poor parents. In a cruel twist of fate, the children were swapped by the hospital staff.
One day it’s just open sea – the next day there’s an island. Filmed just off the coast of Japan, an erupting volcano has just formed an entirely new island that is about 650 meters across.
Yves Rossy and his jet-pack are by no means a new story. But flight after flight, he continues to capture the world’s imagination with his ability to fly at over 300km/h with apparatus that is controlled in the palm of his hand.
Trust the Japanese to invent something like this. It’s been a long time coming, ever since the world was introduced to the idea of synthetic smells with the brief,but interesting spell of ‘scratch-n-sniff’stickers. Now,instead of making smells come out of stickers, they’re making smells come out of your phone. That’s right, they’ve made a smartphone accessory that can make your room smell like coffee. Or Bacon. Or Curry. Whatever revs your motor.
You can all go home now, an unemployed Japanese man has demonstrated – via the robot that he casually built in his basement – that you are not actually pursuing the best possible outcome to your life. Presenting: Robot Number 17 performing on the Horizontal Bar.
It seems as if Japan is losing its sex drive – which wouldn’t be a bad thing considering they have 126 million people crammed into an area the size of California, but still, the fact that millions of people under 40 aren’t even dating is cause for alarm.
The Japanese town of Taiji became synonymous with brutal dolphin slaying after the Oscar-winning, tear-jerking, doccie, ‘The Cove,’ was released. Sadly, regardless of the international recognition and fame the documentary received, dolphin hunting at the cove still takes place annually between September and April, and its about to get a whole lot darker.
You get pranks, and then you get pranks. Japan seems to know what’s up – they get it. The water buckets on top of doors and the electro-shock handshakes are so last century. This century is all about giant velociraptors chasing people down corridors. Yeah, that’s what’s up.
While tensions mount between Japan and china over disputed island in the East China sea, Japan has unveiled its largest warship since World War II.
The Wolverine is a standalone film, not because they’ve decided to pursue a Japanese thread to the popular comic book character, but because other films featuring Wolverine are too embarrassed to stand next to it. While peppered with iffy CGI and mixed reviews, Gavin Hood’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine, is actually a better film than the […]
The multinational corporation Google is renowned for the offices everyone wants to work in, or at least see at some point of their lives. Each office designed for the company is done so uniquely with regards to its corresponding location. Google makes sure that the architects have come up with an interior that represents the country’s history and culture. Today […]
A team of lonely Japanese engineering students have developed what they call a “fulfillment coat”. The coat gives the wearer a cuddle from behind, and whispers gentle loving words into their ears.
Early on Tuesday Japan, deployed missile-defence systems at three of their sites around Tokyo. The deployment follows North Korea’s threat to launch nuclear missiles, said Yoshihide Suga, Chief Cabinet Secretary of Japan.
Nami is a ghost town. Having played host to a nuclear power plant, the town became the icon of suffering in the wake of the 2011 Japanese Tsunami, which destroyed much of Japan’s North Eastern coastline. Shortly thereafter, the nuclear power plant melted down, having sustained critical damage in the wave. Google Street View has […]
(File Photo: March 2011 Tsunami) Japan’s northeast coast has been struck by a 7,3 magnitude undersea earthquake, and reports are that a one metre high wave has now swept ashore. The same stretch of coastline was devastated by a tsunami in March 2011. Thousands of people perished in the wave. Japan’s national broadcaster, NHK, repeatedly […]
French photographer Thomas Jorion specialises in capturing urban ruins and condemned buildings. His latest picture set tells the sad story of the Izu Peninsula – an abandoned holiday resort in Japan. It is one of many such resorts abandoned 40 years ago and left to the mercy of the elements.
Malema will not appear in court today. Miners continue strike despite threats. Apple IPhone 5 Misses Estimates as 5 Million Units Sold. Mxit cuts deal to buy Motribe.
A new study based on lessons learned from last year’s Great East Japan Earthquake indicates that if another major earthquake strikes Japan it could be one of the most fatal earthquakes in history.
A Japanese parliamentary panel has said in a report that the crisis at the Fukushima nuclear plant was “a profoundly man-made disaster”, and that the disaster “could and should have been foreseen and prevented”. The report also blamed cultural conventions and a reluctance to question authority.
SONY Corporation has declared an annual loss of 457 billion yen ($5,7 billion) in 2011, its fourth straight year of hemorrhaging money, and the worst in its 66-year corporate history. In spite of which, the company – which appointed a new president, Kazuo Hirai last month – is predicting return to profit by the end of 2012.
The town of Taiji in Japan, made infamous by award-winning documentary “The Cove”, plans to repair its reputation by building a sea life park in the self-same cove where annually hundreds of dolphins and whales are herded, captured and slaughtered by local fishermen. More on this seaside slaughter after the jump. Images might disturb some readers.
Any article discussing some fun new tech in Japan is liable to be instantly out of date, because those guys have everything. Voice synthesizers, Olympic robots, eco-friendly Christmas lights – whatever. But this is new, and probably practical enough to port overseas: vending machines that sell Wi-Fi accessible within a 50m radius.
True to the pledge it made back in July to digitally archive images of the parts of Japan affected by the March earthquake and tsunami, Google has uploaded imagery of post-earthquake Fukushima to Street View. They’ve also set up a ‘Build the Memory’ website which compares before-and-after shots of the affected towns.
It’s the Year of Setsuden in Japan, which Google tells me means “saving electricity'”; this means that the lavish Christmas illuminations that Tokyo usually sets up are a little hard to justify. Minna no Illumi has found a pretty neat solution to the problem, though, with an entirely biodiesel-powered display.
A Japanese government official has risen to a challenge set by journalists to prove that water collected from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant was safe to drink. Albeit with some trepidation. MP Yasuhiro Sonoda downed a glass of water during a televised news conference and seems to have survived, although his shaky hands certainly betrayed his nerves.