A team led by Japan's QST has shown, for the first time, a magnetic memory that writes with a laser pulse instead of current, and made it work on CoFeB, the alloy already inside commercial chips. Here's how, and why it matters for data-center power.
The University of Tokyo's Kono Lab, with Aisin and ARM Technologies, ran the world's first end-to-end demo storing green hydrogen in a room-temperature, non-flammable liquid, moving it between cities in a simple container, and generating power directly. We unpack the efficiency claims against ammonia and MCH, and how it diverges from US, European and Chinese hydrogen-carrier strategy.
Japan's Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare says about 7.5 million internal Microsoft Teams messages were erased after a Toshiba maintenance error. Nearly three years of data vanished, and some records that count as official documents cannot be recovered.
When Artemis II passed behind the Moon, the crew went 40 minutes without a signal. A sustained lunar presence needs always-on infrastructure, not one-shot mission links. We trace what KDDI, the carrier that once relayed Japan's international calls, is building with laser comms and multi-hop relays, and ask how close it really is.
A Japanese radiative cooling film that stays below air temperature in direct sun, with zero electricity. How SPACECOOL dumps heat into space, its 29% energy cut in Saudi trials, and why passive cooling matters as the planet warms.
Sony Semiconductor Solutions is mass-producing the IMX711, a direct-conversion X-ray CMOS image sensor based on a pixel structure invented at Japan's RIKEN institute. With an industry-fastest 26,100fps and noise low enough to measure single X-ray photons, it ends a decades-old trade-off in X-ray imaging. Here's why battery makers, chip fabs and scientists are paying attention.
A ball bearing with a 0.6mm bore, smaller than a sesame seed. One firm in a former coal town in Hokkaido reportedly makes around 70% of the world's sub-millimeter bearings. Here's how.
Tokyo Ohka Kogyo is No. 1 in photoresist with a 24.7% share and No. 2 in EUV resist with 28%. How a 1936 maker of coal-lamp battery material became a chokepoint in the AI chip supply chain.
Telomelysin, a common-cold virus reprogrammed to destroy cancer cells, has won the world's first approval for esophageal cancer. It took 35 years, one surgeon's idea, and an Okayama University startup pushing through a regulatory maze.
Japan's H3 Rocket No. 6 was postponed over poor weather and flew successfully on June 12, 2026. The booster-less test flight carried six small satellites: deorbit sails, a 1 km space tether, a day-and-night telescope, and a French sat that hunts ships gone dark. Here is what each one does.
Sanyo Special Steel, Japan's No.1 maker of bearing steel and a world leader in steel cleanliness, will be absorbed by Nippon Steel and dissolved on April 1, 2027. The model for the famous novel The Grand Family, it once suffered postwar Japan's largest bankruptcy. Why give up the name now? A look at China's steel glut and an unexpected Swedish thread.