According to The Asahi Shimbun, Japan’s first facial authentication ticketing system for public transportation was introduced here, allowing commuters to simply scan their faces to use buses and trains, officials said.
The system was established on the Yamaman Yukarigaoka Line transit system and the Yamaman Community Bus network, which both serve the Yukarigaoka New Town urban development project in Sakura. Yamaman Co., the Tokyo-based developer of the Yukarigaoka area, also operates the train line and the bus network. Company officials said users must register their facial data and credit card information on a special-purpose website or elsewhere in advance. They can then board a train or a bus by having their face recognized by a tablet device installed at ticket gates. https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/15320948
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According to The Jiji News, restaurant sales in Japan in June climbed 12.4 pct from a year before, reflecting a rise in the number of people going out due to the late start of this year's rainy season, industry data showed.
Robust demand from foreign visitors to Japan also pushed up overall sales, according to the Japan Food Service Association. https://sp.m.jiji.com/english/show/34480#goog_rewarded
According to The Jiji News, Japan's trade deficit halved in the first half of the year from a year before as a weaker yen helped to lift exports of automobiles and semiconductor-related items, the Finance Ministry said.
The country posted a customs-cleared trade deficit of 3,234.5 billion yen for the six-month period, down 53.7 pct from a year before, the Finance Ministry said in a preliminary report. The dollar rose 12.5 pct to 150.89 yen during the period. Exports rose 8.8 pct to 51,516.9 billion yen. Vehicle exports climbed 13.9 pct, led by hybrid vehicles to the Unites States. Imports inched up 0.8 pct to 54,751.4 billion yen. Imports of coal and liquefied natural gas fell, while those of personal computers and aircraft from the United States increased. https://sp.m.jiji.com/english/show/34320
According to The Jiji News, the number of merger and acquisition cases involving Japanese companies in January-June jumped 19.4 pct from a year earlier to 2,321, the highest level since records began in 1985, according to M&A data service provider Recofdata Corp.
The result reflected a recovery of coporate structural reforms and overseas acquisitions from the COVID-19 crisis, a Recofdata official said. https://sp.m.jiji.com/english/show/34315#goog_rewarded
According to The Asahi Shimbun, the average summer bonus at major Japanese companies in 2024 hit a record high of 983,112 yen, a survey by the Japan Business Federation, or Keidanren, showed.
The weighted average rose 4.31 pct from a year before to the highest level since the 1981 start of comparable data, amid growing momentum to raise wages against a backdrop of historic inflation. Robust earnings also led to hikes in both monthly pay and bonuses. The initial tally by the country's biggest employers group covered 97 companies in 17 industries. The average increased year on year for the third straight year. https://sp.m.jiji.com/english/show/34227
According to The Asahi Shimbun, Japan’s communications carriers are looking to the “final frontier” to expand their businesses, with an eye toward a stratospheric communication platform and high-speed wireless capability on the moon.
Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp. (NTT) announced on June 3 that it will send aloft an “airborne base station” on a commercial basis in 2026. KDDI Corp. released plans on building a telecom network that will link Earth and the moon by 2028. NTT President Akira Shimada unveiled the NTT C89 orbital development initiative. One of the key programs under the endeavor is the envisioned installation of a high-altitude platform station (HAPS). An unmanned aircraft mounted with a repeater will be sent into the stratosphere 20 kilometers above the Earth. https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/15294036
According to The Jiji News, Japanese flying car startup SkyDrive Inc. and Kyushu Railway Co., or JR Kyushu, said that they have signed an agreement to collaborate in town planning and tourism promotion.
The two companies will explore business opportunities using flying cars and trains to promote tourism in the Kyushu southwestern Japan region and revitalize local economies. https://sp.m.jiji.com/english/show/34042
According to The Jiji News, Japan Airlines and Toppan Inc. said that they have begun at Tokyo's Haneda Airport a demonstration test of the clear-screen translation system developed by the printing company.
The system can automatically translate spoken words into 13 languages including English and Korean and quickly display the translated words and sentences on its transparent screen. It also shows words input from a keyboard. https://sp.m.jiji.com/english/show/33983
According to The Asahi Shimbun, researchers in Japan scored a world first by imaging how a substance responsible for Parkinson’s disease and Lewy body dementia accumulates in patients’ brains.
The breakthrough is expected to lead to the development of treatments targeting the causal substance of those intractable diseases, just like Alzheimer's. It was achieved by a team primarily from the National Institutes for Quantum Science and Technology (QST) in Chiba Prefecture close to Tokyo. https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/15296599
According to The Asahi Shimbun, a vast trove of valuable rare metals, cobalt and nickel to name just some, lies deep below the sea surface in Japan’s exclusive economic zone nearly 2,000 kilometers southeast of Tokyo, researchers say.
Now, plans are afoot to begin trial collection of the manganese nodules, or mineral concretions, from the Pacific Ocean site as early as 2025 with a view toward commercialization. Manganese nodules rich in cobalt, nickel and other rare metals were found concentrated on the sea floor near Minami-Torishima island, Japan’s easternmost island, according to the announcement by the University of Tokyo and the Nippon Foundation. A research team conducted a survey from April to June to extract mineral resources scattered on the seabed at depths of between 5,200 and 5,700 meters off the island, part of the Ogasawara island chain. Based on the survey, which covered 10,000 square kilometers, researchers estimate there are about 230 million tons of manganese nodules. https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/15316394 |
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