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Toshiba and NEC have let it be known that they’ve done something cool with magnetoresistive random access memory (MRAM)technology in that they’ve got the world’s smallest 16-megabit chip with a read/write speed of 200 megabytes per second, which they say is also a world speed record. Cycle time is 34ns. A pat on the back, perhaps?

The latest list of the worst nations clogging our inboxes with spam is out and it’s no surprise that the U.S. tops the chart as usual. Of course, the problem is gradually shifting as internet use spreads, with China and France climbing the list.

Ebay China has long made a virtue of the fact that it charges users a fee for its auction services, even going so far as to poke fun at its rivals who are so “desperate” they have to offer something for nothing.

The rapid growth in China’s online population is not entirely surprising, but the penetration of broadband connections may be. Of the 110 million+ riders over there on the information superhighway (thought we’d dust off that dusty old phrase), well over half are chugging along broadband-stylee.

Can a flying shrimp really be fatal? That’s the $10-million question being posed by a few disgruntled New York customers of Japanese restaurant chain Benihana.

For all its might, Google still hasn’t conquered the entire web — in China, rich entrepreneurs place it a pathetic second favorite in the search engine stakes. Seems like big bad Baidu is the one to go for if you’re loaded and Chinese.

When companies such as Apple trumpet record sales for their products, it’s the big cheeses like Steve J who garner most plaudits, and rightly so of course. However, it’s often far more interesting to look at the often anonymous companies that put in the hard labor of actually making the goodies, including everyone’s favorite music player, and most of them are on our doorstep here in Asia.

Not really, although a few stats cheats have had their memories erased and their blogs banished to the wastelands by Alexa, which is surely just as bad.

PC World, one of our sister publications in the U.S., has just unveiled its 2006 PC World Innovations Awards for the best products of the past year.

The CEA is predicting that consumer electronics sales may grow 8% over last year to hit $135.4 billion, fueled by a 35% rise in the digital TV market.

To mark the end of 2005, our colleagues over at PC World have put together a great piece lining up the top 50 tech gadgets of the last half century.

As 2005 draws to a close here in Tokyo in about five minutes, we’ll take the opportunity to say thanks for dropping by to all our readers. We hope it’s been as much fun for you as it has for us. You know we try to be a bit different from run-of-the-mill gadget sites and we promise to carry on bringing you both the best and the strangest goodies from Japan.

Let’s face it: it’s a tough time to be a brewer in Japan. With the shochu craze showing no signs of abating, beer companies have to get with the times.

Coming from a region that has by far the highest broadband penetration in the world, it’s interesting to see how DSL and related technologies are faring in other countries. A new report shows a huge jump of almost 40 million new high-speed surfers globally last year, which is encouraging for e-commerce and future web technologies.

News coming out of our China office suggests that the powers that be there have blocked access to Blogger yet again. The latest interdiction comes just two months after Blogger first became openly accessible from China.

Due to popular demand (hey, we’re good listeners if nothing else), we’re introducing a mid-month round-up of the best products that have either gone on sale or been announced in the last few weeks.

Baidu, the leading Chinese search engine yesterday revealed its list of most-searched keywords.

An interesting report by the OECD has just revealed that China is now the world’s largest exporter of IT products, such as digital cameras and laptops. The previous leader, the U.S., now sources more than a quarter of its own IT imports from China.

As 2005 draws to a close, we thought we’d take a look back at some of the quirkier pearls of wisdom that the big bosses of global IT have cast before us this year. Read on for the scoop on why even the queen of England hates Sony and why Linus Torvalds considers himself an egomaniac.

Speaking of Chinese bloggers, The New York Times has an appealing piece on the impact of online freedom of expression (for now) in China. Its cover girl is 25-year-old Shanghai resident Mu Mu, who happens to like posting pics of herself in a bikini.

Seems the Chinese are up to some serious blogging this year — the latest research has revealed that the total number of blogs has shot up by more than 100% since the beginning of the year. As with most stats of this nature, there’s no indication of how active the newcomers are, but the figures suggest something big’s afoot.

China’s rapidly growing ranks of internet users seem to be in the headlines every other day, whether it’s through their being denied access to Skype or being told how long they can play online games. Now, a survey has reported the somewhat nebulous claim that over 13% of Chinese young people are addicted to their online habits.

Christoph Niemann’s work doesn’t have a great deal to do with Japan but it sure is excellent.

Hands up who knew that some IM usernames in China are so desirable folk are willing to pay through the nose for them? Seems one guy knew all too well and has, in fact, been hacking passwords and selling illegally acquired online identities for several years. Fortunately for Joe Public in the Middle Kingdom, said felon is now behind bars.

(Via IDG News Service)

Geeks Galore, Batman! Akihabara is looking to move beyond its status as center of the otaku universe to become a tourist destination for ordinary civilians. Powerful, powerful forces — including Hitachi and NTT Communications — are apparently working to make it so.

While we just had the marketing fiesta that was “Skype Day” here in Japan, things aren’t going so swimmingly over in China. Verso Technologies from Atlanta is angling for a deal to supply a filter to block that country’s internet users from using Skype for voice calls. Seems the motivation is to protect the revenues of telcos like China Telecom and that the potential to block other P2P apps is there too.

(Via IDG News Service)

Meanwhile in China, it seems the remaining US citizen convicted of selling pirated DVD movies back in April has been deported by the authorities there two years before the scheduled end of his sentence.

(Via IDG News Service)

Our very own Tsubasa Kato has posted a quick ‘n dirty How-To over at his own site covering the arcane mysteries of getting podzilla to display Japanese characters on an iPod running Linux.

(Via Stingraze.net)