Cody Taylor

Japanese electronics company Pioneer Corp. said Thursday it will cut 10,000 jobs globally to cope with sinking sales of car audio equipment and flat-screen TVs. It also said it will withdraw from its money-losing plasma display business.

krou notes reporting in the Christian Science Monitor that the current economic crisis is helping China’s push into higher-end manufacturing by shaking out low-profit companies. The hope is that, instead of just assembling iPods, Chinese companies will be able to invent the next big thing instead. In this move China is following the well-worn path taken by Japan and the Asian tigers before it. “Last month, the National Development and Reform Commission announced revised plans to transform Guangdong and neighboring Hong Kong and Macau into a ‘significant innovation center’ by 2020. One hundred R&D labs will be set up over the next three years. By 2012, per-capita output in the region should jump 50 percent from 2007, to 80,000 yuan (,700). And by 2020, the study predicts, 30 percent of all industrial output should come from high-tech manufacturing.”

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When those Apple advertisements tout “there’s an app for just about anything,” they aren’t kidding. The latest example? A new iPhone application which just debuted in Japan’s App Store transforms the handheld into a full-blown web server. The application allows your iPhone to appear just like any other web server on the web.

When those Apple advertisements tout “there’s an app for just about anything,” they aren’t kidding. The latest example? A new iPhone application which just debuted in Japan’s App Store transforms the handheld into a full-blown web server.

Two Japanese boys have brought a World War II bomb to class, flustering teachers on the island of Okinawa, which was the scene of the Pacific conflict’s bloodiest battle.

Bokeh is an adaptation from a a Japanese word meaning blur. In photography this term is used to describe the quality of the areas in the picture which are not in focus.