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We know it’s the season for colds and flu to stop the spread of goodwill to all men, but I was more than a little shocked by the lengths one tech company is going to in order to halt the march of the germs.

The macaque monkey who’s been eluding police capture since August this year could use some holiday cheer. It’s cold in Tokyo now, much different from that hot summer morning when the cute wild ape jumped the wickets and…

Vehicle engine-idling systems are beginning to appear in the auto industry aftermarket equipment sector in Japan as environmental issues move to center-stage.

A Tokyo area bank has begun installing devices that jam cell phone signals in order to prevent elderly citizens from becoming victims of phone fraud. Swindlers have been targeting seniors, telling them to go to the bank and all the while stay…

Households are putting in orders now for the traditional nengajo New Year’s postcards. The 2009 Year of the Ox cards are available in thousands of pre-printed designs, or card illustrations can be downloaded…

A thin mat that creates electricity from footsteps has been installed at Tokyo’s Shibuya train station to harness the kinetic energy they expend as they pass through ticket gates twice a day.

You know that new camera from Takara Tomy that features a little Zink printer that pops 2x3in photos out one end?

Generally speaking, taking your laptop on a flight is a hassle, particularly if you’re in cattle class. Not only do you have to specially screen it through the x-ray machine, but all it does is take up space in the overhead compartment while you sit idly in your seat, wishing you could get some work done or at least watch the movies you picked.

A new fixed-line phone from Sanyo uses an internet connection to receive and announce earthquake warnings.

From today Japanese TV drama fans get a new way to sample the pabulum churned out by big media here in the form of something called ‘Pair Movies.’

Now that it’s winter, police continue to use their resources investigating reports of loose monkeys in the city, with sightings regularly reported on Japan TV news programs.

Hey kids, see this sweet candy? You probably want some, right? Here you go…no, can’t have it! Put it back behind the counter. It’s dangerous. And don’t let grandma buy it either.

During the week, this man sits at a desk in a company in Tokyo. On weekends he wrestles. But he is not a-pro wrestler. Not a semi-pro wrestler. No, there is a new category – according to this man - that is ….

Can you guess what these little plastic eggs are for?

It’s exactly three months since a wild monkey decided to make his home in central Tokyo, so to mark the almost-anniversary our pals at Lets Japan have put together a scarily detailed dossier on the simian’s schedule over that period.

After ten years of litigation, the Japan supreme court ruled in favor of a man who challenged an allegation that he fondled a woman on a Tokyo train. The man fought the police charges in 1999…

Female attendants on JR Tokai line trains are being issued personal protection cayenne pepper spray devices.

How many monkeys are there in Tokyo? According to a TV station on monkey-watch, there may be more than the original one mad-monkey of last summer. The tale of the monkey in the city began Aug. 20, 2008 ….

They say any fool can be a blogger and, judging by the standard of my usual garbage, who’s to argue? Still, I bet no one ever guessed Japan’s latest online star would be a humble pot plant.

There are more than a few books out there whose origins lie in the new-fangled cellphone novel, but a new Japanese tome is the first we’ve come across to grow out of an online forum.

Anyone learning Japanese who also happens to spent a lot of time wasting away in front of a computer will definitely get a kick out of a bunch of new Nihongo courses on iKnow from Cerego Japan.

Vegans should probably look away now – researchers at a Japanese agricultural institute are so concerned about global warming putting livestock off their food they’re testing ways to make them eat better.

So, there we were on a jetfoil in Tokyo Bay the other day, cruising back from a DWT jaunt to Kozu-shima when we spotted this rather attractive monolith in the ocean just to the southeast of Haneda airport.

Summer is the time of year when evenings are often filled with the fizz and crackle of winged insects obliterating themselves on outdoor lights, but did you know that it’s the ultraviolet part of the spectrum they really dig?

Worrying news from the Nikkei this morning as the august organ reports that Japan has made concrete plans to exploit methane hydrate deposits on the ocean floor 1km down in a wide area off its coast.

As fish supplies dwindle and competition among commercial fishing boats intensifies, a group of Japanese trawlermen have turned to the internet to give themselves an edge.

Picture. Thousand words. Etc…

Although much has been made of Sony’s recent resurgence under Sir Howard Stringer, the Tokyo monster may be surprised to learn that it has been toppled as the public’s favourite producer of quality electronics.

When it comes to consumer electronics, Japan is generally an excellent weathervane for forecasting the picture in the West a few months ahead. With that in mind, the latest electronics sales figures suggest a balmy Fall lies ahead.

We’ve all heard about Sony’s strategy meeting in Tokyo yesterday (read my report here, if you’re bored), but even more interesting than the news that everything’s going to be connected in Sony’s Brave New World and movies will be streaming left and right were a couple of demo videos unleashed on the underwhelmed journos assembled at the event.

In yet another one of those tech surveys that says close to nothing while appearing to contain something of substance, a Japanese probe has found that – shock! – some people here are interested in buying an iPhone.

Earlier this month, when we looked at the future of mobile technologies from an academic’s perspective, one of the predictions that stood out was that phone companies looking to encourage mobile micropayments using their handsets would be well advised to team up with a solid financial institution first.

Everybody knows the 3G iPhone will hit Japan later this year on the crap-tastic Softbank network, but I don’t believe anyone else was able to get NTT DoCoMo to admit it had been in the race too.

In this age of environmental awareness, a couple of high-tech Japanese companies have turned the clock back over a hundred years to reduce energy consumption using 19th-century lighting techniques.

Japan has long enjoyed the reputation of being home to some remarkable craftsmen in fields as diverse as ceramics and woodblock prints, but today’s mail brought the first piece of art I’ve ever seen that’s designed to be bashed around by kids at meal times.

Everyone knows that smoking causes the skin to age unnaturally and lines to appear around the eyes prematurely, but who could have guessed that smokers would one day be thankful for their tobacco-induced wrinkles?

We’ve had a bunch of emails over the last few days asking about that little Flash widget down there at the bottom of the right sidebar (take a look waay down there), usually from readers asking what the heck all that Japanese stuff is.

Over the last few years, residents of busy metropolises like London and Hong Kong have grown used to the convenience – not to mention lower prices in London’s case – of transport networks that accept electronic payments. Handy pieces of plastic, like the Oyster Card, with chips onboard are clearly a part of life for many people, but the same RFID technology has a far greater reach in Japan, where it has taken the next step and migrated to mobile phones as well.

A seemingly insignificant press release from a Japanese company we’ve never even heard of has suddenly set tongues wagging about everyone’s favorite rumor – the fabled 3G iPhone.

It’s easy to believe the tales of internet censorship we hear regularly from China, but not so its ostensibly democratic neighbor in Japan. That perception may change of Japanese regulations shake up the online world as proposed.