Over the past several years more and more Japanese have been lighting up their homes at the end of the year. In my Yokohama neighborhood stars twinkle in windows, glowing Santa Clauses climb rope ladders up the sides of houses, snowmen illuminate paths to homes...

Speaking in defense of the revision of Clause 2 of the Basic Education Law, which calls for "Respect for tradition and culture, and love for the nation and land that nurtured them," at a meeting of the House of Councilors' Select Committee on Education on November 22, Bunmei Ibuki, the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, said...

Misleading advertisements, a complaining CEO on television, a crashing customer registration system - it all happened within 72 hours after the mobile number portability scheme was introduced on October 24. What has been the impact so far on the mobile subscriber base of the three large carriers?

According to Tom Sato, what's hot right now is the cell phone site Mobage Town, from mobile content developer Dena. "Moba-ge" is a contraction of mobile games, and is a cross between a Social Network System (SNS) and a games portal. Essentially it serves up loads of games and provides rewards that the players can collect and trade. The kicker is that because it is SNS based, it has experienced a humungous word-of-mouth growth over the last 9 months...