Tag - tech

 
 

TECH

Traffic along a highway in New Delhi. India, the world's third largest emitter of carbon dioxide, will be able to access Japanese decarbonization technologies at low cost under a joint crediting mechanism.
JAPAN / Science & Health
Aug 25, 2025
Japan and India to use joint crediting mechanism in emission-cutting plan
The yet-to-be-announced plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in India using Japanese technologies will allow Japan to count part of the reductions as its own.
Under a new agreement, the U.S. will receive 433.3 million shares of common stock — representing 9.9% of the fully diluted common shares in Intel — according to a statement from the company.
BUSINESS
Aug 23, 2025
U.S. takes nearly 10% Intel stake, clinching unorthodox deal
Under the agreement, the U.S. will receive 433.3 million shares of common stock — representing 9.9% of the fully diluted common shares in the firm.
The Toyoake Municipal Government in Aichi Prefecture is planning to enact an ordinance to urge all smartphone users in the city to limit screen time to two hours a day outside work or school.
JAPAN / Society
Aug 22, 2025
Japanese city proposes two-hour daily limit for smartphone use
Toyoake’s cap will not be binding and there will be no penalties incurred for higher usage, according to a draft ordinance.
A catch-all term for tendonitis and arthritis caused by excessive smartphone use, 'sumaho yubi' may be difficult to treat for gadget-crazy Japan.
LIFE / Lifestyle
Aug 22, 2025
Fingers sore from too much phone time? You might have ‘sumaho yubi.’
One doctor says the symptoms of smartphone-induced tendonitis and arthritis are on the rise for those in the 20s, 30s and 40s.
A lot of Japanese workers join online group texts to communicate with their coworkers, but at what point do those chats threaten a healthy work-life balance?
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Aug 22, 2025
Expressing annoyance with work group chats in Japanese
Some employees value the convenience; others feel trapped by after-hours texts and social expectations embedded in office messaging culture.
Chatbots are pivoting to the ad model and optimizing for eyeballs, just like social media did. And AI knows more about us than Google or Facebook ever did.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 21, 2025
Ads ruined social media. Now they’re coming to AI.
Imagine a person telling their AI they’re feeling depressed, and the system recommending some affordable holiday destinations or medication to address the problem.
Acting Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jim Kilby visits BlackSea Technology facilities to view a drone test in Baltimore, Maryland, in June.
WORLD
Aug 21, 2025
The U.S. Navy is building a drone fleet to take on China. It’s not going well.
A recent naval test designed to showcase the Pentagon’s top autonomous drone boats ended in failure due to software glitches and human error.
U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick on June 5. Soruces say Lutnick has been pushing the idea of the federal government taking equity stakes in computer chip manufacturers that receive CHIPS Act funding, and that Trump likes the idea.
BUSINESS / Tech
Aug 20, 2025
Washington eyeing government stakes in chipmakers given CHIPS Act funds: sources
U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick is said to be exploring how the U.S. can receive equity stakes in firms such as Micron, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. and Samsung.
SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son and U.S. President Donald Trump. Son has promised to invest $100 billion in the United States.
BUSINESS / Companies
Aug 19, 2025
SoftBank buying about 2% of Intel for $2 billion
CEO Masayoshi Son earlier pledged to invest a total of $100 billion in the United States.
SoftBank is scouting a number of potential data center sites to serve as a flagship for Stargate, weighing their access to water, power and telecom networks.
BUSINESS
Aug 18, 2025
Foxconn to operate SoftBank’s Stargate AI server site in Ohio
SoftBank will supply manufacturing gear to the factory, and a joint venture between the two companies will make AI data center-related equipment.
A new Facebook data center is under construction in Eagle Mountain, Utah, in May 2019. Manufacturers and builders are reaping windfalls from the AI-driven data center surge.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 18, 2025
The AI building boom is bound to bust
For now, the boom has room to run. The introduction of artificial intelligence into the workplace and society will match the rollout of electricity and the internet.
Female students are given a tour of U.S. chip giant Nvidia's office in Tokyo in July.
BUSINESS / Companies
Aug 18, 2025
Firms host female high school students to tout science and technology
Through company tours, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government hopes to encourage female students to pick science and technology when pursuing higher education.
Former Apple CEO Steve Jobs speaks in 2007 at an iPod event in San Francisco. Top tech executives are engaged in a fierce battle for the best people, with employees holding all the cards and the days of collusion long gone. 
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 17, 2025
The AI talent war is the stuff of Steve Jobs’ nightmares
Today, as some of the same players become locked in AI talent wars, we’re starting to get a sense of what Jobs was so afraid of.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg makes a keynote speech at the company's headquarters in Menlo Park, California, in September last year.
BUSINESS / Companies
Aug 15, 2025
Meta AI rules let bots hold ‘sensual’ chats with kids and offer false info
Meta’s standards don’t necessarily reflect “ideal or even preferable” generative AI outputs, an internal document states. But they have permitted provocative behavior by the bots.
A miner holds a sack of ore as it comes out a the mine shaft at the Rubaya coltan mine, near the town of Rubaya, which is controlled by M23 rebels, in eastern Congo on March 24.
WORLD
Aug 14, 2025
Inside the mine that feeds the tech world — and funds Congo’s rebels
The Congolese town of Rubaya produces around 15% of the world’s coltan, which is shipped thousands of kilometers away to Asia where it’s processed into tantalum.
AI-related products, such as networking and data-center power equipment, will account for half of Delta Thailand’s sales by the end of the year.
BUSINESS / Tech
Aug 14, 2025
Thailand’s Delta sees AI boom boosting sales for coming years
The maker of components for data centers and electric vehicles is boosting investment to fuel its expansion, CEO Victor Cheng said.
A worker at Stetman LLC repairs a damaged Starlink terminal in an undisclosed location in Ukraine on July 14.
WORLD
Aug 13, 2025
Starlink techies keep Musk’s network running, even in a war
Despite his on-and-off feud with Trump and the subsequent exile from the White House, Musk remains a central figure in the war.
SoftBank Group has emerged as the unnamed buyer of Foxconn Technology Group’s electric vehicle plant in Ohio and plans to incorporate the facility into its $500 billion Stargate data center project with OpenAI and Oracle.
BUSINESS / Companies
Aug 12, 2025
SoftBank shares surge on AI hope and sign of Stargate progress
The firm’s emergence as the unnamed buyer of Foxconn’s electric vehicle plant in Ohio is spurring optimism that it may be able to kick-start its stalled endeavor.
Andrew Bosworth, Meta’s chief technology officer; Bob McGrew, an adviser at Thinking Machines Lab and OpenAI’s former chief research officer; Shyam Sankar, Palantir’s chief technology officer; and Kevin Weil, OpenAI’s chief product officer at a military ceremony in Arlington, Va., in June 2025. The four current and former executives were pronounced lieutenant colonels in a new unit, Detachment 201, which will advise the Army on new technologies for potential combat.
BUSINESS / Tech
Aug 11, 2025
Silicon Valley is in its ‘hard tech’ era
Instead of the tap-to-pay apps of a decade ago like Clinkle and Bump, young companies are now making unmanned aerial drones stocked with AI-guided Barracuda cruise missiles.
The logo of Nvidia is seen during the annual Computex computer exhibition in Taipei on May 30, 2017.
BUSINESS / Tech
Aug 11, 2025
Nvidia and AMD to pay U.S. 15% of China chip revenue, says report
The Trump administration had frozen the sale of some advanced chips to China earlier this year as trade tensions spiked between the world’s two largest economies.

Longform

The Terasaka Rice Terraces are seen with Mount Buko in the background.
What Yokoze can teach Japan about rural revival