Asia
Panasonic, Itron tie up to develop smart meters for Japanese market
November 19, 2012 10:48 am | by The Associated Press | News | CommentsU.S. smart meter maker Itron Inc. has tied up with Panasonic Corp. to develop smart meters for the Japanese market with third-generation mobile communications capability. With the smart meters to be developed by the Liberty Lake, Washington-based manufacturer, Panasonic will take part in a tender...
Baidu Japan offers app to replay recordings on Android devices
November 19, 2012 10:42 am | by The Associated Press | News | CommentsBaidu Japan Inc. said it has released a Japanese-language application that replays voice recordings on devices running on the Android operating system. The new Simeji ver. 5.3 app can replay recordings of up to 15 seconds via e-mail and social networking services such as Twitter and Facebook, according to the Japanese arm of Baidu Inc...
Leica to release Paul Smith-designed camera
November 19, 2012 9:35 am | by The Associated Press | News | CommentsLeica Camera Japan Co. said it will release on Friday a limited edition version of its Leica X2 compact digital camera designed by British designer Paul Smith. The Japanese subsidiary of Leica Camera AG said 1,500 units of the Leica X2 Edition Paul Smith will be sold worldwide...
China to launch new manned spaceship in 2013: Xinhua
November 12, 2012 9:03 am | by Reuters | News | CommentsChina plans to launch its Shenzhou 10 spacecraft in early June 2013, one of the senior officials in charge of the manned space program said on Saturday, the official Xinhua news agency reported.The launch marks another step forward in Beijing's ambitions for a bigger presence
Google says search engine, other services cut off in China as ruling party picks new leaders
November 12, 2012 9:01 am | by The Associated Press | News | CommentsGoogle says its search engine and other Internet services have been cut off from much of China just as the country's ruling party picks new leaders. Data posted on Google's website shows its services in China became largely inaccessible beginning around 1 a.m. PST Friday. That would be about 5 p.m. Friday in Beijing.
Marketing services with facial recognition technology
November 9, 2012 12:48 pm | by The Associated Press | News | CommentsNEC Corp. said Wednesday it has started providing new services for shop operators to help them analyze customer trends using its facial recognition technology. With the services, retailers will be able to analyze the shopping behavior of different age groups, for example, as the facial images captured by cameras installed at outlets...
Edano cautious about offering more support to TEPCO
November 9, 2012 12:36 pm | by The Associated Press | News | CommentsIndustry minister Yukio Edano on Thursday took a cautious stance on additional financial support by the Japanese government for Tokyo Electric Power Co. to help the utility compensate people affected by the nuclear crisis at its Fukushima Daiichi plant and clean up the mess left by the disaster.
Marubeni to set up major solar plant in central Japan
November 9, 2012 12:28 pm | by The Associated Press | News | CommentsMarubeni Corp. has been awarded a contract to build and operate a large solar power plant on reclaimed land straddling the border of Mie and Aichi prefectures, prefecture officials said Friday. Construction is expected to begin next year on a 78-hectare plot of land across the Mie city of Kuwana and town of Kisozaki and the Aichi city of Yatomi.
Samsung launching larger-size smartphone in Japan
November 8, 2012 10:50 am | by Kyodo, The Associated Press | News | CommentsThe Japanese unit of Samsung Electronics Co. of South Korea said Thursday it will launch a larger-size smartphone in Japan on Nov. 16, a move that will accelerate competition in the market ahead of the year-end shopping season.
TEPCO to choose thermal power suppliers
November 5, 2012 11:22 am | by The Associated Press | News | CommentsTokyo Electric Power Co. said Monday it will issue a tender to choose suppliers of electricity equivalent to 2.6 million kilowatts of thermal power to ensure stable supply in the future. The utility, known as TEPCO, will close the tender in late May next year and announce the results in late July, it said.
Decision on Japan nuke plant fault line postponed
November 5, 2012 9:57 am | by The Associated Press | News | CommentsExperts have postponed a decision on whether a fault line underneath Japan's only operating nuclear plant is active and the facility should be closed. A five-member team commissioned by the Nuclear Regulation Agency inspected the Ohi plant in western Japan last week to check a suspected fault line.
Japan nuclear plant checked for fault line
November 2, 2012 10:02 am | by The Associated Press | News | CommentsJapanese nuclear regulators inspected ground structures at the country's only operating nuclear plant to examine if an existing fault line is active. The inspection Friday determines whether the Ohi plant in western Japan should close. Its No. 3 and No. 4 reactors went back online in July...
Sony reduces loss on sales recovery, restructuring
November 1, 2012 5:04 pm | by Yuri Kageyama, AP Business Writer | News | CommentsSony Corp. reported Thursday a smaller flow of red ink for the fiscal second quarter on a sales recovery and restructuring efforts and stuck to its full year forecast for a return to profit from its worst loss in company history the previous year.
Sakura Internet selects Mellanox InfiniBand for new public cloud infrastructure
October 31, 2012 12:05 pm | by The Associated Press | News | CommentsMellanox® Technologies, Ltd. (NASDAQ: MLNX) (TASE: MLNX), a leading supplier of high-performance, end-to-end interconnect solutions for data center servers and storage systems, today announced that leading Japanese Internet provider Sakura Internet has selected Mellanox InfiniBand technology for its new cloud hosting infrastructure.
Panasonic earnings update
October 31, 2012 10:43 am | by The Associated Press | News | CommentsPanasonic Corp. said Wednesday it expects to book a group net loss of 765 billion yen for the current business year through March, incurring a hefty loss for the second straight year due to massive restructuring costs amid a continued slump in its mainstay electronics operation.
Fujitsu announces new ARM cortex-based bridge SoC
October 31, 2012 10:26 am | by The Associated Press | News | CommentsFujitsu Semiconductor America today introduced an Interface Bridge SoC that incorporates 10 different interfaces, more than any other similar single device. Designed for advanced Wi-Fi television tuner applications, the new MB86E631 combines a dual-core ARM@ CortexT-A9 processor and multiple interfaces, including...
Hitachi to buy Horizon Nuclear
October 30, 2012 3:57 pm | News | CommentsJapan's Hitachi Ltd. has agreed to buy British atomic power company Horizon Nuclear Power Ltd. from its German owners for 696 million British pounds ($1.12 billion). The companies announced the deal Tuesday, ending months of uncertainty after the 50-50 owners of Horizon...
In Vietnam, U.S. relies on pirate site to network
October 29, 2012 10:53 am | by CHRIS BRUMMITT, Associated Press | News | CommentsIt's a wildly popular website laden with unlicensed songs and Hollywood movies, a prime exhibit of the digital piracy that is strangling the music industry in Asia and eroding legitimate online sales around the world. But a few clicks inside the free-to-download bonanza that has pushed Vietnam's Zing...
High court hears closely watched copyright case
October 29, 2012 10:14 am | by Mark Sherman, Associated Press | News | CommentsCostco, eBay, Google and the nation's top art museums are backing a Thai graduate student against book publishers, the movie and music industries and other manufacturers in a Supreme Court battle over copyright protections with important implications for consumers and multibillion dollar annual sales online and in discount stores.
China ministry probes Qihoo browser over blogger complaints
October 26, 2012 2:40 pm | News | CommentsChinese authorities are investigating the country's top anti-virus software firm Qihoo 360 Technology after a prominent blogger criticized its web browser, alleging improper practices such as mining of user data, Qihoo said in a posting on its official microblog account.
Taiwan's HTC reports 79 percent drop
October 26, 2012 4:26 am | by The Associated Press | News | CommentsTaiwan smartphone maker HTC Corp. on Friday reported a 79 percent drop in third quarter profit as intensifying competition from Apple Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co. hurt sales. HTC said its profit totaled 3.9 billion New Taiwan dollars ($99 million) on revenue of NT$70 billion in the three...
Fishing for answers off Fukushima
October 25, 2012 5:19 pm | by EurekAlert! | News | CommentsJapan's "triple disaster," as it has become known, began on March 11, 2011, and remains unprecedented in its scope and complexity. To understand the lingering effects and potential public health implications of that chain of events, scientists are turning to a diverse and widespread sentinel in the world's ocean: fish...
Son-Tinh Moving Into South China Sea
October 25, 2012 4:10 pm | by NASA | News | CommentsTropical Storm Son-tinh soaked the Philippines and is now moving into the South China Sea. NASA's Aqua satellite captured a visible image of the storm as the bulk western half of the storm had already moved over water. On Oct. 25, 2012 at 0525 UTC (1:25 a.m. EDT) the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer...
NASA satellite shows Son-tinh over Philippines
October 25, 2012 10:31 am | by EurekAlert! | News | CommentsThe latest tropical storm in the western North Pacific Ocean has already spread its clouds and showers over the Philippines, as seen in NASA satellite imagery. NASA's Aqua satellite captured an image as it flew over Tropical Storm Son-tinh today, Oct. 24.
ZOLL establishes Japanese subsidiary
October 24, 2012 12:19 pm | by The Associated Press | News | CommentsZOLL Medical Corporation, a manufacturer of medical devices and related software solutions and a wholly owned U.S. subsidiary of Asahi Kasei, has established Asahi Kasei ZOLL Medical Corporation (AZM) as its Japanese subsidiary effective November 5. AZM will advance the expansion and development...
