Nipponica

Japan's JR East looks to roll out an autonomous train-operating system by 2035 on its Yamanote line, which loops around the heart of Tokyo, with plans to bring similar systems to shinkansen bullet trains around the same time.

The company, officially called East Japan Railway, seeks to fight growing labor shortages by enhancing operational efficiency and optimizing staffing under a business plan unveiled Tuesday.

"Driving jobs will be eliminated, but tasks that need to be performed by humans will only increase," President Yoichi Kise told a news conference the same day.

Now this has a great chance of success. Rail has less variables to deal with compared to free range vehicles (but still a complicated problem). Once Yamanote is perfected, this can be debuted anywhere.

Seven-Eleven Japan Co. on Tuesday introduced worker robots to one of its convenience stores in Tokyo, with the trial part of an automation push necessitated by Japan's worker shortage.

One robot will take over tasks such as stocking bottled drinks and canned alcohol, while others will clean the store's floors and windows.

One way of dealing with a shortage of workers. Might work in low traffic stores but packed ones in tourist heavy areas would probably not allow for enough maneuvering space for a robot. But who knows, Japanese robot innovation has surprised me before.

The Japan Coast Guard's large patrol vessels will start using Space X's Starlink satellite service to enhance their communications capability, Nikkei has learned.

The plan is to have 66 large patrol ships adopt the service in fiscal 2025, which ends March 31, and another 16 vessels the following year. Those ships patrol waters near the Japanese-administered Senkaku Islands, which China claims as the Diaoyu.

Going forward, all four hydrographic survey vessels that conduct seafloor topography surveys will also adopt the service.

Filing this in my ‘Security Self-Owns’ folder. The owner of this company has made several attempts to manipulate nations that use his communications network. Hoping this is only a stopgap until Japan can build its own infrastructure.

The platform, to be launched in fall next year, will be developed mainly by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, as well as the Information-technology Promotion Agency (IPA), which is under METI's jurisdiction. It will consolidate personal information, such as digital technology qualifications, education level and place of residence. The government aims to have 1 million registrants in the first fiscal year of operation.

The platform is also expected to provide educational courses for registered users. Material will be available for a wide range of applied skills, including programming, web design and artificial intelligence.

An interesting take on upskilling done at the national level. As long as personal information is secure and people are in charge of their data, I can see this as a great tool in education and job hunting.

Japan Post Bank will in fiscal 2026 issue to depositors a digital currency that can be used for quick trading of blockchain-based financial products.

By marrying 120 million accounts with cutting-edge technology, the bank will create an environment where money in savings accounts can be easily tapped for trading of digital assets online.

Looking forward to the 100% paper-based crypto transactions for YuchoCoin.

Scheduled to open a hotel at Koiwai Farm in Shizukuishi, Iwate Prefecture, in spring 2026, JR East plans to use flying cars for transfers to and from Morioka Station on the Tohoku Shinkansen line. The company also plans to provide aerial sightseeing tours of Koiwai Farm and Mt. Iwate, intending to establish the service as a new tourism resource.

JR East formed a capital partnership in May with SkyDrive Inc., a startup that develops flying cars. For commercial operations, the company plans to use SkyDrive’s aircraft, which can carry a pilot and two passengers for a total of three people.

Nice to see that the future sky traffic jams are coming to the Inaka too.

Certain chips shipped before 2017 are vulnerable, Sony said, acknowledging the issue after inquiries from Kyodo News. Over 1.8 billion FeliCa chips have been produced so far, powering transit cards as well as employee and student identification cards.

Cybersecurity experts warn attackers could alter transit cards, disrupt electronic payments or forge passes for sensitive facilities, with one analyst describing it as an "extremely serious" problem that undermines trust in infrastructure.

While it is good that the cards that have this flaw are almost a decade old, it is still a big vulnerability. The move to digital cards and (unfortunately) QR codes is pressing forward, but FeliCa is still the core of the Japan transit network.

They allege that the service gathers and utilizes news articles without permission, and are seeking an injunction to stop the alleged copyright infringement as well as 2.2 billion yen ($14.97 million) each in damages. The filing follows a similar lawsuit by The Yomiuri Shimbun Holdings, highlighting how legal action against AI operators, first seen at overseas news outlets, is now spreading to Japan.

The fight back continues.

Even after the full transition to My Number health insurance cards began in December last year, the usage rate has remained low, standing at 30.64% of all health insurance card and certificate uses through online eligibility confirmation as of June this year.

Many elderly individuals have been reluctant to adopt the new cards, as they are often unfamiliar with both facial recognition and the entry of personal ID numbers, one of which is required to use the system.

In addition, medical institutions have frequently reported cases in which My Number health insurance cards became unusable due to expired electronic certificates, according to the national federation of health insurance medical practitioners' associations.

I’ve said for a decade now that the problem with My Number is not with the tech, but instead with educating the public on how to use it and how it will improve their lives. The e-services themselves are quite excellent and are always improving. But if people don’t know how to access them, the whole endeavor is pointless

Japan is set to join Estonia's housing construction project by supplying façade materials for an 18-unit apartment building in the city of Brusyliv, Ukraine, under JICA's new initiative to engage Japan's private sector in Ukraine's reconstruction. The building's façade materials will be procured from NICHIHA Corporation, one of Japan's leading producers of fiber cement material.

The joint JICA-ESTDEV project in Brusyliv will deliver a modern, eco-friendly modular timber-frame apartment building, designed with energy efficiency, Passive House principles and solar readiness at its core.

This is what international leadership looks like. Not funding violence. Not prioritizing politics. It is caring for people.