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Minami Minegishi, a member of Japan’s ultra popular J-Pop group AKB48, took to YouTube to ask for forgiveness - her head shaved in an act of contrition. So what was her crime? What horrid acts had she committed to justify such an emotional plea to the public: she had a boyfriend. Thats’ right, she had a relationship…..with another human.

In Japan’s wildly popular J-Pop culture scene, singers are held to a disgustingly high standard, especially young women – where even being in a relationship translates to a loss of purity. Sam Byfod over at TheVerge has a great in depth article about Japanese culture, J-Pop, Music and the sad backstory.

Source: The Verge

“The Aokigahara Forest is the most popular site for suicides in Japan. After the novel Kuroi Jukai was published, in which a young lover commits suicide in the forest, people started taking their own lives there at a rate of 50 to 100 deaths a year. The site holds so many bodies that the Yakuza pays homeless people to sneak into the forest and rob the corpses. The authorities sweep for bodies only on an annual basis, as the forest sits at the base of Mt. Fuji and is too dense to patrol more frequently…”

How much does it cost to run an optical cable from Japan to England – across the arctic? Well, it looks like we’ll find out this summer, as an army of ice-breaking ships and cable laying ships embark on the massive arctic project. As it stands now, there will be three different cable run, zig-zagging the Northwest Passage, arctic and northern pacific – all adding up to an estimated cost of $1.5 Billion.

…All three cables are being laid for the same reasons: Redundancy and speed. As it stands, it takes roughly 230 milliseconds for a packet to go from London to Tokyo; the new cables will reduce this by 30% to 170ms. This speed-up will be gained by virtue of a much shorter run: Currently, packets from the UK to Japan either have to traverse Europe, the Middle East, and the Indian Ocean, or the Atlantic, US, and Pacific, both routes racking up around 15,000 miles in the process. It’s only 10,000 miles (16,000km) across the Arctic Ocean, and you don’t have to mess around with any land crossings, either…

Surprisingly, this is a project that has been in the works for some time but the recent massive melt-off of arctic ice (due to global weather conditions or man) has opened a window, from August to October, for the ships to work ice free.  Link it up!

Source: ExtremeTech

Source: Imgur – Source: Wiki

As we come up to the first anniversary of the devastating earthquake and subsequent massive tsunami in Japan, we are seeing unprecedented reconstruction across the effected areas. Japan is rebuilding itself at amazing speed. The devastation was brutal: 300,000 people were left homeless – another 20,000 people were killed and 90% of the population in effected areas had to flee during the March 11th earthquake/tsunami.

“…Workers are currently decontaminating the homes of those who were forced to evacuate by scraping the top two inches of the soil in the area. Towns that were once reduced to just rubble are now being repopulated with buildings and infrastructure at an amazing pace…”

Source: Huffington Post

Short film about a lonely mechanic with a hopelessly romantic imagination. Created for Tokyo based apparel maker, Pherrow’s. The clothing you see the male characters wearing were created by Pherrow’s. Soundtrack now available for download here! The film was shot entirely on a Canon 7D. Lenses: 70-200 2.8 Canon, 24-70 2.8 Canon and a few Nikon lenses, too.

Yahoo! is free of Jerry Yang or is Jerry Yang free of the albatros that has been Yahoo? Regardless, co-founder Jerry Yang has resigned his board position and all responsibilities he has with the company – this does not include stock owned by Yang.

My time at Yahoo!, from its founding to the present, has encompassed some of the most exciting and rewarding experiences of my life. However, the time has come for me to pursue other interests outside of Yahoo! As I leave the company I co-founded nearly 17 years ago, I am enthusiastic about the appointment of Scott Thompson as Chief Executive Officer and his ability, along with the entire Yahoo! leadership team, to guide Yahoo! into an exciting and successful future…

The move is effective immediately and mere days after Scott Thomson took over the C.E.O. position at Yahoo – so what is left for the former “web portal”? While the situation is still developing, talk has involved an overall sale of yahoo to the dumping of Yahoo’s Asian properties, like Yahoo Japan and Alibaba Group. Whatever the future holds for Yahoo, it stands as an example of an internet pioneer that didn’t evolve with the overall course of the net and also didn’t have an understanding of what kind of company it had become.

Source: Yahoo

Source: TheVerge – Image Source: SFExaminer

In its ongoing campaign to recapture the handheld market it once reigned upon, Sony has released its nextgen PSP – the PSVita in Japan. While the US release is still a couple months off, it hard not to wonder that Sony is too lat to the table and with the wrong hardware. Before we talk about approach, here are the Vita’s specs:

- CPU: ARM® Cortex™- A9 core (4 core) - GPU: SGX543MP4+ - Ex. Dim: 182.0 x 18.6 x 83.5mm - Screen: (Touch)5 inches (16:9), 960 x 544 - Rear Touch PadMulti touch pad - Cameras: Front camera, Rear camera - Sensors: Six-axis motion sensing system - (three-axis gyroscope, - three-axis accelerometer) -Three-axis electronic compass - Wireless Comm: (3G) - IEEE 802.11b/g/n - Bluetooth® 2.1+EDR - Location: Built-in GPS - Wi-Fi - 

Essentially, it’s bringing to the party some great specs (at a great price $249) but that doesn’t take away from the fact that it’s a one use device (gaming). It will be directly compared to all the smartphones that will also come out in the spring, some of which will have similar specs and have multiple use functions, not just gaming.

So, is Sony going after the ever shrinking audience that wants just a handheld gaming device with better controls than a smartphone? Hard to believe, since the mobile industry is moving so heavily into smartphones as the dominent one off device. Does Sony not see this? Are they stuck in a time loop and don’t possess the leadership to see where gaming is going?

Sadly, all the diehard gaming companies seem to have fallen under this mindset, even Nintendo. Stop making the DS and releases all your franchise games on Android and iOS – evolve and turn yourself into a gaming company (not hardware).

Source: Sony

Source: Reddit

As I’ve written in a previous article, it seems like there is a bad mixture of false information and lack of information concerning Japan’s nuclear crisis. For those wanting a fresh and in-depth look at the history, engineering, involvement, science and security of nuclear power plants, look no further than MIT’s Nuclear Science & Engineering Department. Their blog has some of the most in depth coverage of the situation in Japan and the best part is that it’s coming from scientists, not beat reporters looking for a story – or in the case of some of the coverage, looking for a story that’s worse than reality. I highly recommend the source link below and please pass it along, as it’s important to not only wish the people of Japan the best but to also understand what is happening.

Source: Mitnse.com

Japan: With so much happening so quickly, it seems that news agencies and their sources are having trouble getting facts right or mis-interpreting what is said.This is partly under-standable, as chaos has spread after the massive earthquake that rocked the region and the devastating tsunami that followed. Michael Graham Richard, over at treehugger.com has put together an incredable chart to clearify the situation at Fukushima 1, as of March 16th, 2011.

Obviously, the situation at the nuclear facility is in consist flux and there are updates by the hour but I thought this a great resource for people wanting to get caught up to where we are now. Simply click on the chart above for a larger view or visit treehugger.com for more detailed info – the article is not to be missed.

Source: Treehugger.com

Google, working with their mapping/imagery partners, are creating informative but highly shocking multimedia pictures of Japan’s most devastated areas. Above/below are slider images (before/after) high resolution shots of some of the damage incurred turning the 8.8 richter earthquake and subsequent tsunami, that hit Japan’s Eastern Coast on March 11, 2011.

“We’re working to provide this data directly to response organizations on the ground to aid their efforts. We hope this new updated satellite imagery is valuable for them as well as everyone else following this situation to help illustrate the extent of the damage.”

To see the multimedia slider images, visit ABC News by clicking here and if you want Google’s News Release page, detailing the emergency image project – click here.

Source: Google.com /  ABC.com

A massive earthquake, measuring 8.9 on the richter scale, rocked Eastern Japan Friday, leaving some areas devastated and generating a 23 foot tsunami, which inundated whole communities. Japan’s knowledge and awareness plans for earthquakes resulted in a relatively low amount of building damage (when compared to the size of the quake) but it was the massive tsunami that took coastal towns and its inhabitants, completely off guard.

Many of Japan’s nuclear power plants, especially in the North, have been shut down over safety concerns and the same has been done for many plants belonging to Honda, Sony, Toyota, as well as other heavy industries. The United States has even flown in an emergency supply of reactor coolant, for the nuclear power plant in Fukushima. The country, has literally been brought to a stand still and international organizations are already planning and delivering aid for many of the hardest hit areas.

Image Source: Maptd.com / Image Source: Theatlantic.com

Washington is trying to get the funding together for a US train system, all the while the rest of the world is racing ahead with complex maglev bullet trains. Recently, Japan’s Central Railway Company announced that it’s planning the contruction of  a 310MPH maglev train that will go from Tokyo to Nagoya (178miles) in just 70 minutes – cutting the current time by 40 minutes.

Maglev is a magnetic levitation system that lifts the train off the track, thus lowering the friction it incurs as it travels along. This lowered friction rate is what allows bullet trains to reach such accelerated speeds – especially over long distances. Japan, Germany, France and recently China have all either built or upgraded their extensive bullet train rail systems – realizing that mass transite is needed for their expanding economies but also as a way to lower their carbon footprints.

Source: Inhabitat.com