Welcome to Japanese Technology from the Future Friday!
It’s already Friday west of the international dateline – here in Japan, it’s totally the future. The weekly JTFF is our somewhat technosnarky coverage of 2-5 particularly important, specifically Japan-related tech stories. Get yourself hip to the micro & macro that went down while North America was sleeping – check in with Akihabara News every Friday morning and BOOM! Ahead of the game, you win.
:: JTFF – May 3, 2013 ::
• New Pacific Rim Trailer for Japanese Audiences
The JTFF doesn’t often jump into entertainment stories, but since this one’s 1. about giant robots fighting alien sea monsters (“kaiju,” Japanese for “monster”), and 2. directed by Guillermo del Toro, it’s not only wildly relevant (perhaps you’ve noticed our recent renaissance in robotics coverage?), but also promises to maybe, just maybe be a decent blockbuster-scale robot movie. Jump through to see what the suits up in marketing decided to aim at the Japanese.
[PACIFIC RIM JAPAN TRAILER – DIGITAL JOURNAL]
• How Robots are Changing the Way We Age
Interesting and very comprehensive coverage of why and how robots will be all up the developing world’s aging process. Of course anyone worth their Robo-Dorky merit badge knows Japan’s aging society is the vanguard of the “Yeah so we’re getting old really fast and who’s going to take care of us ummm okay let’s do robots” club, and this piece provides a very nice contextual framework for how the issue’s addressed both here and in the rest of the world. For a primer, you might want to begin with our own coverage here.
[GETTING OLD WITH ROBOTS & STUFF – FISCAL TIMES]
• Japan’s Taking Nuclear Energy Tech to the Middle East
Not only is Japan funding off-shore wind farms in the eastern United States, they’re also taking J-Tech nuclear energy know-how to the UAE and Turkey. After Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s pan-Arabian hobnobbing, a deal was inked for Japan to sell nuclear tech to the UAE, and this bodes well both for tech exports and maintaining Japan’s steady stream of UAE fossil fuels, for which it’s a platinum-level customer. Motivation and angles on the agreement with Turkey are not quite as easy to parse, but appear to be part of Japan’s ongoing efforts to boost technological exports in lucrative markets outside of the traditional electronics, automotive, etc.
[THINGS GO WELL FOR ABE IN THE UAE – UPI] – [TURKEY GETS SOME NUCLEAR J-TECH – JAPAN TIMES]
That was the JTFF, and live from the future – that is all!
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Reno J. Tibke is the founder and operator of Anthrobotic.com, where the JTFF was born.
Tokyo at Night image via PhotoEverywhere.
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