New York Times technology correspondent
Former Newsweek technology writer
Author, Gearheads
Humongous Brad Stone, porn star
Chairman of Families Worldwide
Garden landscape equipment firm
Member, Sly and the Family Stone
Jennifer Granick, Executive Director Stanford Law School Center for Internet and Society
Loki the Schnoodle, hedonist and layabout
Mr. Boodles, neighborhood security
You are currently browsing the archives for the Japan category.
Unmasking Fake Steve, from the August 6th New York Times.
Web Site for Teenagers Has X-Rated Link, from the July 11 New York Times.
The Mystery of the Missing Car, from the August 2006 issue of Wired magazine.
Netflix Guilt, from the July 12th Plain Text on Newsweek.com.
In the Periscope section of this week’s Newsweek, I have an update on the HP spying saga, which seems to have claimed the career of chairwoman Pattie Dunn.
With help from Tokyo reporter Akiko Kashiwagi, I also expanded my earlier column on Japanese cell phones into a feature for Newsweek International.
This summer I toured Japan’s dot.com companies, expecting gloom and pessimism in the wake of the country’s blossoming Livedoor scandal. Instead, I found a handful of energetic, untraditional companies building new Web 2.0 features, and taking advantage of the country’s mature broadband and 3G networks. In this week’s Newsweek International, I write about what I’m calling the Samurai 2.0, and the obstacles they face in building out the next stage of the Web in Japan.
Forget the great sushi. Here’s a lament for my TV-playing, manga-downloading, coffee-buying mobile phone, in this week’s Plain Text.
The podcast JapanesePod101 helped us linguistically limp our way through Japan over the last two months. In my latest column on Newsweek.com, I write about the show and the growing world of language lessons for your iPod.
You probably already knew, or suspected, about the intimacies of Obi-Wan and Anakin Skywalker in the halls of the Jedi temple; the coinoitering of Harry Potter and Malfoy when the lights go out at Hogwarts; and the love-that-dare-not-speak-its-name between Middle Earth’s Aragorn and Boromir. This week, Jen further illuminates those romances, and Japan’s homoerotic manga genre of Yaoi, in her Wired News column.
Jen believes my Newsweek column, “Japan’s Love Affair with Androids” doesn’t tell the whole story: our love affair with androids. She’s posted a comrephensive Flickr set of our robotic adventures around the country.
A tour through the world of Japanese humanoid robots, in my Newsweek online column this week. A version of the story will also appear in next week’s Newsweek International.
Our friends Todd Lappin and Nicole Avril were in town this week, and the four of us set out for Kyoto, and then the spectacular “art island” of Naoshima, where architect Tadao Ando was given close to free reign. Photo-blogging services provided Jennifer and Telstar Logistics. My meager photography is posted here.
In my first Plain Text from Tokyo, I take a tour through the crowded, enticing video arcades of the Shibuya district. No quarters needed to click on this link.
In addition to my research fellowship in Japan, I’m giving a few speeches around around the country through the American Embassy’s speaking program. This week, we traveled to Fukuoka, on Kyushu Island, a city of 2.5 million that is fashioning itself as the “Silicon Valley of robotics.”
To our surprise and pleasure, we ended up meeting and having lunch with the Mayor, Yamasaki. Then I spoke on a robotics panel with distinguished Sony researcher Hiroaki Kitano, the founder of the Robocup robotic soccer tournament.
Here’s a link to a Japanese news story about my visit: http://www.mainichi-msn.co.jp/science/kagaku/news/20060722k0000m040027000c.html. Naturally I have no idea what it says.