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Currently a Japan-only project, Yahoo Videocast launched here today with a strong emphasis on allowing users to upload and watch videos from their mobile phones.

Multicore CPUs are already ten-a-penny, but who woulda thunk they’d soon be appearing in cellphones, cars and HD TV players and that they could hold the key to eliminating computer viruses?

In one of the most innovative and open-minded approaches to intellectual property we’ve seen in a long time, Toshiba is helping Japanese comic-book artists bring their work to the rest of the world through some pretty clever technology.

Standard domestic internet connections in Japan have long been fast enough to deliver a lot more than most people use, with average ADSL download speeds maxing out at around 50Mbps and fiber connections typically twice that.

This time next year, US cellphone users could be following in the footsteps of residents of Japan by ending up on the receiving end of personalized advertising delivered direct to their handsets.

It’s not often that a wireless technology from the 1980s makes the headlines, but that’s exactly what’s happening to the hardware behind Japan’s first-ever cellphone network.

Sony’s attempt to create a video-sharing website to rival YouTube took a step forward this week when it announced that its eyeVio service was opening its doors to companies wishing to place video advertising.

When Google bought YouTube in all its video-sharing goodness last year it was only a matter of time before its own Google Video site would see some major changes. So, the company’s recent announcement that it was no longer renting or selling videos for a fee was no surprise.

When we reported last year on the rapid spread in Japan of novels designed to be read on cellphones we could hardly have guessed that they would be outselling print publications within a few months, but that’s exactly what has happened in the first half of 2007.

Unless you’ve been – in internet terms at least – hiding under a rock the last few months, you’ll be well aware of the amazing growth of Facebook, the social-networking site (SNS) that reaches people who never thought they’d fall for an SNS.

As Google continues its bid for domination of the internet, particularly in the expanding mobile arena, we hear word from Japan of the US company offering a customized version of its Gmail email service to phone users there.

As if Apple’s iPhone didn’t already have enough geek appeal, a Japanese company has announced a deal to bring manga comics to the tedious wonderphone later this year.

Internet searches for more obscure topics can sometimes feel like the old needle-and-haystack conundrum - if what you want is out there at all, finding it can be a stretch, even for Google. Images and video present an even greater challenge - unless they’re tagged or labeled accurately, it’s often a matter of wading through thousands of possible matches.

As if the mobile phones with 3.6Mbps internet connections that are relatively common in Japan weren’t enough, NTT DoCoMo has announced that it is working on technology to up that almost tenfold by 2009.

It may have an unwieldy name but the Slate DT FeliCa from a consortium of firms in Japan could just be the key to getting the vast swathes of analogue holdouts online and into the brave new world of the internet.

Long ago, in the mists of time before email, a device called a facsimile machine once roamed the offices of the land before dying a swift death on a cold Thursday afternoon in early 1997. Except in Japan, that is, where domestic and office faxes alike are still evolving into something entirely new.

We’ve already seen a Japanese system that uses mobile phones to give advance warning of the earthquakes that plague the seismically hyperactive archipelago, so it was inevitable that something similar would arrive for domestic use.

Confirming the promise we saw in Sony’s GPS-shunning PlaceEngine application recently, comes the news that Japanese mapping giant Edia will use it in its next round of navigation software.

Following in the footsteps of Google is generally not a terribly bad idea, but when it comes to doing business in China, photo-sharing website Flickr is probably seeing things a little differently right now.

We all know Sony for its games hardware, TVs, cameras and other audio-visual products, but it’s not such common knowledge that the company has a bleeding-edge research laboratory dedicated to exploring the technology of tomorrow just for the heck of it.

Google has caved in to pressure from the South Korean government and agreed to implement a system that will censor certain search terms unless the user can prove he or she is not a minor.

The National Association of Broadcasters trade show currently taking place in Las Vegas saw an announcement [reg required] yesterday that could change the face of internet video…

Cellphones in Japan are so much better than yours — heck, they even allow you to ruin your eyesight by squinting at FULL NOVELS on those tiny screens.