Japan

Japan may well be a tech leader, but this week a prominent government figure revealed how it sometimes likes to hold on to old technologies, too.

Tens of millions of cell phone users in Japan were unable to connect for most of the weekend in what’s believed to be the country’s worst-ever service outage.

Peer inside the unique Nakagin Capsule Tower, an iconic Tokyo building which, despite efforts to save it, will be demolished next week.

There may well be aliens lurking in deep space, but they're also here on Earth helping to promote tourism, according to a city in Japan.

An amazing billboard video of an enormous 3D cat has been causing a stir in one of Tokyo's busiest entertainment districts.

A town in Japan is planning to use facial recognition on local brown bears as part of efforts to reduce the number of bear attacks.

Scientists in Japan have opened a capsule recently returned by Hayabusa2 after an incredibly challenging sample-collection mission in deep space.

A terrifying Monster Wolf robot has been installed by a town in Japan as part of efforts to scare off bears.

A newly opened public bathroom in Tokyo, Japan, has transparent walls so that you can gauge how clean it is before deciding whether to use it.

A chain of convenience stores in Japan is testing out VR-controlled robots controlled by employees to stack shelves. It's social distancing, Skynet-style.

An assembly line in a Sony factory in Kisarazu, Japan, which features a total of 32 robots, takes only 30 seconds to assemble a complete PlayStation 4 console.

Onlookers in Japan were left baffled on Wednesday when an odd-looking contraption appeared in the skies over Sendai in the northeast of the country.

The aquarium is asking folks at home to video chat with its eels to give the fish some company and help them maintain familiarity with humans during lockdown.

The Olympic torch relay usually involves lots of people carrying the flame through the host nation's communities. But Japan will do it a little differently.

In the latest example of how drones are transforming the way we work, Tokyo Metro is using a custom-built flying machine to inspect its subway tunnels.

Japan will send a spacecraft to Mars in 20204. The mission will seek to learn more about Mars' two moons, and to bring back rock samples from one of them.

The coronavirus will impact the production of the Nintendo Switch in China affecting pre-orders of the new Animal Crossing-themed model and other hardware.

Nintendo has been awarded more than $450,000 in damages against a company operating a copycat Mario Kart course. The company has since ceased offering Mario costumes for its customers. The payout increased dramatically from the original ruling back in 2018. Nintendo is set to have its own Mario Kart ride this year.

Toyota plans to build an entire city to test out different technologies. Called Woven City, it will house 2,000 people in sustainable buildings, with streets crisscrossed by self-driving cars. Toyota also plans to integrate robots and smart home tech in Woven City, which will be located in Japan.

Smart cities are often seen as hives of future tech, only made possible with high speed connections and autonomous cars. In the Japanese city of Fukuoka, messaging app Line is already operating a smart city -- just in a different way than you may expect. Instead of focusing on the future, it concentrates on helping its citizens right now.

Japan's Hayabusa2 spacecraft is on its way home following a successful 17-month rendezvous with the Ryugu asteroid some 200 million miles from Earth. And there’s a good reason for it coming back as it’s carrying with it the first-ever rock samples collected from the subsurface of an asteroid.

Japanese weather forecaster Weathernews has teamed up with Toyota to utilize its data communication module technology to pinpoint windshield wiper usage and therefore low-level rain that does not appear on weather radar. This technology will help drivers prepare for wet roads.