Nipponica

The Hokkaido Spaceport in the town of Taiki, located on Japan's northern main island, has rocketed to global prominence after it hosted the first launch of a foreign vessel earlier this summer.

The port has now received inquiries about possible launches from 13 or 14 companies from around the world.

"Until recently, our main challenge was to raise awareness," said Yoshinori Odagiri, CEO of Space Cotan, which operates Hokkaido Spaceport (HOSPO). "Now we've reached the stage where people are coming to us to collaborate."

When you have the major infrastructure like a launch site already built, industry will build around it. Should be bright days ahead for south Hokkaido.

Octopus mobile app users can now make payments at millions of merchants across Japan in a move that will bring convenience to many Hongkongers planning to visit the country.

This is using the PayPay system to register payments. It’s kinda crazy that PayPay is becoming a quasi-open network for payments in the country but I’m all for it if they continue to integrate foreign systems.

Toyota Motor Corp. on Thursday officially launched Woven City, a cutting-edge demonstration site where participants including companies from a range of industries will work together to develop new products and services.

The site in Susono, Shizuoka Prefecture, will host experiments on auto-related technologies such as autonomous driving and other diverse themes including food, educational methods and air conditioning.

Toyota is among the 20 companies and individual “inventors” participating in the project. Major air conditioner manufacturer Daikin Industries, Ltd. will conduct experiments to create “pollen-free spaces,” and coffee product maker UCC Japan Co. will use cameras to analyze the movements of cafe users to investigate the effect of coffee on people’s creativity and productivity. Toyota has high hopes that harnessing the technologies and knowledge of each participating company will help lead to the development of new products and services.

Been following this for a long time. This is essentially a Japanese EPCOT with a heavy focus on the automotive industry. The key to success is if ten years from now, there is still innovation going on here. Otherwise it will just be a boondoggle for 2025 tech.

The change, approved by an education ministry working group, will give local education boards the options of adopting only digital textbooks, using them alongside paper ones -- an option already available -- or sticking with paper textbooks only.

The Central Council for Education has said that the move will lead to wider textbook choices, facilitate learning that accommodates the increasingly digital nature of society and generate new, creative teaching methods.

However, some experts have expressed concern that the use of digital textbooks may increase the burden on teachers and textbook publishers and cause impaired eyesight and other health issues among students.

There will be pushback for some good reasons but this is clearly the future. I do worry though about the ability to change history in all of a country’s textbooks on a whim. The potential for abuse is huge and needs to be addressed.

Kyushu is where Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., the world's top contract chipmaker, opened its first Japanese plant. The island sees Taiwan's Hsinchu Science Park, which brings together TSMC and other companies and universities in the semiconductor sector, as a model for building a cluster for technology research, development and manufacturing.

The vision is for Kyushu to not only manufacture semiconductor devices, but also use them to create new industries.

Yet finding a single site the size of Hsinchu Science Park's 1,471 hectares is not realistic for Kyushu. Instead, the Kyushu Economic Federation is promoting the idea of a network of science parks with locations across the region.

This is the ongoing problem for a mountainous island nation but one that major urban areas are attempting to solve with land reclamation. The question is whether they can create land fast enough to sate the appetite of industry.

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.