Contributors

- SAM JOSEPH
Sam Joseph ("Robots R Us," page 14) did a Neural Networks PhD at the University of Edinburgh, and came to Japan to work at the Toshiba Research Laboratories. Swept into a startup by the Internet bubble, he eventually found his calling as an artificial intelligence consultant and technology journalist.

- JUSTIN HALL Justin Hall ("Switched On," page 6) has been living in Tokyo since the fall of 2001. His study of Japan comes after years of writing about entertainment technology: weird Web sites, phones and games. Now he's learning to speak the language of the most accelerated technology culture in the world and discovering that the technology here seems more down-home than he suspected. Many of his discoveries in the last eight years have been charted on his Web site www.links.net -- a bewildering mass of personal journalism that hasn't been adequately spell-checked.

- MAYUMI SAITO Mayumi Saito ("A Kurin for Your Thoughts," page 25) is a Tokyo-based freelance writer. Aside from contributing to The Japan Times and other local publications, she now edits Japanese subtitles for World Wrestling Federation shows from the U.S. Inspired by her favorite wrestlers' battle against evil, she has decided to take on her own battle this winter: Snowboarding.

- TAKEHIKO KAMBAYASHI Takehiko Kambayashi ("New Life: Activists Use Internet to Recharge Campaigns," page 23) is a Tokyo-based freelance writer. He has written for The Washington Times, The Christian Science Monitor and other US publications. He also contributed a chapter to "The Mission: Journalism, Ethics and the World," edited by Joseph B. Atkins and published in January by Iowa State University Press. His book on life in Mississippi (in Japanese) from Kaiho Shuppansha will also be published in early 2002.