Tag - tech

 
Menu
Search
 
July 10, 2026
 

Today's print edition

Home Delivery
Subscribe for more access

TECH

Though China remains a one-party state that disappears dissidents and censors ideas, it has vaulted past Japan, Germany and France to become the world’s 10th-most innovative economy.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 9, 2025
How China achieved innovation without freedom
Smart authoritarianism is not about maximizing growth; it is about balancing economic objectives with the imperative of regime survival.
Teens watch a TikTok video with their friends in Melbourne, Australia, on Nov. 13. Australia is trying to wean children under 16 off the likes of TikTok, Snapchat, YouTube and Instagram with a new law.
WORLD / Society
Dec 8, 2025
‘Not black or white’: Teens worldwide react to Australia social media ban
The move will be closely watched by other countries, which could follow suit with similar laws.
The Casio Mini, the world’s first personal calculator, is seen at the Toshio Kashio Memorial Museum of Invention in Tokyo on Nov. 25.
BUSINESS / Companies
Dec 8, 2025
Number’s up: Calculators hold out against AI
The humble pocket calculator may not be able to keep up with the mathematical capabilities of new technology, but it will never hallucinate.
Masayoshi Son, chairman and chief executive officer of SoftBank Group, speaks during the Future Investment Initiative Institute Priority Asia conference in Tokyo on Monday.
BUSINESS / Companies
Dec 7, 2025
SoftBank in talks to buy data-center investor DigitalBridge
The Japanese conglomerate is negotiating a potential deal to buy the firm as it seeks to take advantage of an AI-driven boom in digital infrastructure.
Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi delivers a policy speech during a Lower House plenary session on Oct. 24.
JAPAN / Politics
Dec 7, 2025
Japan aims to raise public AI use to 80%
The draft emphasizes the need to boost AI usage with a view to developing Japan’s own AI technologies.
People cast their early ballots at a polling station in Lansing, Michigan, in November 2024.
WORLD / Politics
Dec 6, 2025
AI chatbots can sway voters’ political views, studies say
The most common tactic used by chatbots to persuade was “being polite and providing evidence.”
The European Commission on Friday imposed a €120 million penalty on Elon Musk's X for breaching European Union online content rules.
BUSINESS / Tech
Dec 6, 2025
Europe continues Big Tech crackdown with X fine in defiance of Trump
Europe is forging ahead with its crackdown on Big Tech, levying fines on Alphabet's Google and Elon Musk's X and opening new investigations, asserting its sovereign right to enforce its laws in defiance of U.S. President Donald Trump.
A representative from Noitom Robotics demonstraties remote robot operation at the iREX International Robot Exhibition in Tokyo on Friday.
BUSINESS / Tech
Dec 5, 2025
Spotlight shines on humanoid robots at Tokyo show
The 2025 International Robot Exhibition in Tokyo is showcasing humanoid robots who can perform duties ranging from extinguishing fires to working alongside humans in an office.
SoftBank Group Chairman and CEO Masayoshi Son meets with South Korean President Lee Jae Myung on Friday in Seoul.
BUSINESS
Dec 5, 2025
SoftBank Group CEO meets with South Korean president
The pair discussed cooperation in the fields of AI and semiconductors, as well as infrastructure investment.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg makes a keynote speech at an annual event at the company’s headquarters in Menlo Park, California, in September last year.
BUSINESS / Companies
Dec 5, 2025
Meta’s Zuckerberg plans deep cuts for metaverse efforts
The metaverse effort was once framed as the future of the company and was the reason for the company changing its name from Facebook.
Chips at a booth in a mall of the Huaqiangbei electronics market in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, China, on Oct. 30. Many Chinese smartphone makers are warning of price increases.
BUSINESS / Tech / FOCUS
Dec 3, 2025
The AI frenzy is driving a new global supply chain crisis
Japanese electronics stores have begun limiting how many hard-disk drives shoppers can buy while Chinese smartphone makers are warning of price increases.
Amazon's AWS is the largest seller of rented computing power and data storage.
BUSINESS / Tech
Dec 3, 2025
Amazon rushes out latest AI chip to take on Nvidia and Google
The chip push is a key element of Amazon’s strategy to stand out in AI.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. reported the alleged theft to the authorities this year, triggering a probe that’s cast a spotlight on the sensitive nature of chipmaking technology.
BUSINESS / Companies
Dec 2, 2025
Taiwan charges Tokyo Electron in TSMC secrets theft case
The development escalates a dispute involving two Asian linchpins of a chip industry increasingly vital to national and economic security.
Social media, the internet and other modern-day pressures like digital overload, complexity and declining community ties are fueling loneliness and mental strain across Western societies.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 2, 2025
The West is facing fearsome new ‘giants’
The old postwar “Five Giants” have been defeated, but new challenges — loneliness, addiction, distraction, lies and complexity — threaten Western societies.
Masayoshi Son, chairman and chief executive officer of SoftBank Group, speaks during the Future Investment Initiative (FII) Institute Priority Asia conference in Tokyo on Monday.
BUSINESS / Companies
Dec 2, 2025
SoftBank’s Son ‘cried’ about Nvidia stake sale to fund AI bets
Son, addressing for the first time the surprise disclosure that SoftBank had unloaded its stake in the world’s most valuable company, also slammed talk of an AI investment bubble.
Pope Leo XIV prays at the Tomb of Saint Francis in Assisi, Italy, last month. The Vatican is pushing a global conversation on how AI can uphold human dignity and serve the common good. 
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 2, 2025
The Vatican’s voice of reason on artificial intelligence
The Vatican is pushing a global conversation on how AI can uphold human dignity and serve the common good, echoing the Church’s historic responses to past technological upheavals.
A rare earths processing plant in Dingnan County, Ganzhou, in eastern China's Jiangxi province on Nov. 20. The U.S. is looking to cut its dependence on China.
BUSINESS / Tech
Dec 2, 2025
U.S. moves to deepen minerals supply chain in AI race with China
The initiative, which builds on efforts dating back to the first administration of President Donald Trump, unfolds as the U.S. looks to cut its dependence on China.
A leaflet made by the Metropolitan Police Department explains its Digi Police crime prevention app.
JAPAN
Dec 1, 2025
Tokyo police app blocks incoming international calls to help combat fraud
When the new feature is enabled, the app automatically blocks international calls and calls from numbers Tokyo police know have been used for fraud.
An aerial view of an Amazon Web Services Data Center known as U.S. East 1 in Ashburn, Virginia, on Oct. 20
BUSINESS / Tech
Dec 1, 2025
Keeping cool: Heat a key challenge for data centers and AI
An outage at the world’s biggest exchange operator, CME Group, has put a spotlight on data centers overheating.
Yumi Matsutoya began her decades-long career under her maiden name, Yumi Arai, but Japanese fans might know her better as “Yuming.”
CULTURE / Music / Longform
Dec 1, 2025
Yumi Matsutoya’s human touch in an AI age
Even as she experiments with AI, Yumi Matsutoya returns to the craft, memories and instincts that shaped her long career.
Japanese payment processor’s collapse hits banks and restaurants
Zentoshin served around 200,000 shops, many of which rely on early payments to maintain cash flow, raising concerns over their financial stability following the disruption.
Japan needs caregivers. Young Indians are answering the call.
Young people in India's northeast are increasingly studying Japanese in hopes of building new lives and careers in Japan.
Trump says ‘Japan’ instead of Iran at meeting in Ankara
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks at a news conference during a NATO leaders' summit in Ankara on Wednesday.
Wakatakakage injury casts pall over July meet, but potential new stars loom
Nicholas Tarasenko trains at Minato stable in August 2024.
Osaka trumps Tokyo as both ranked among world’s top 10 most livable cities
Osaka’s infrastructure earned higher marks than Tokyo’s in the Economist Intelligence Unit’s latest Global Liveability Index.
The beating heart inside ‘Human Vapor’
Different forms of love and connection form the emotional backbone of Netflix’s “Human Vapor,” says actor Shun Oguri, who plays troubled detective Kenji Okamoto.
Japan bets on character IP to drive global growth
Born on social media platforms in 2022, Opanchu Usagi has become a major hit, especially among Generation Z.
Filmmaker explores history of discrimination against foreign nationals in Japan
Takashi Nishihara, the director of "Now and Then," in Tokyo on Wednesday. The director has spent 10 years traversing politically charged terrain while exploring youth-driven grassroots political movements that scrutinize the status quo.
Okinawa’s prized seaweed under threat as oceans warm
Local harvesters gather <i>mozuku</i> during low tide at Hyakuna Beach in the city of Nanjo, Okinawa Prefecture. As the planet warms, rising ocean temperatures are placing increasing pressure on the seaweed industry.
Japanese nail salons are tourists’ new obsession
Tourists in Japan have always been interested in quintessentially Japanese approaches to modern culture, and, increasingly, visits to nail salons have become the new hot thing.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

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

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Digital marketer Netyear zeros in on generative AI
Digital marketer Netyear zeros in on generative AI

SPECIAL SUPPLEMENTS note

Read more

SUPPLEMENTS BINDER