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Voting for “Pokémon of the Year” opens on Google, to be decided this Pokémon Day

Vote or black out.

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Our writer Seiji becomes the face of baldness on Google Japan

Seiji experiences a roller-coaster of emotions after a shocking discovery.

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Google opens haunted house in Tokyo for one week only

Admission is free – just ask the friendly Google ghost you didn’t know was hiding inside your smartphone.

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Tour Akita Prefecture from the back of an Akita Inu Dog with Google’s adorable doggie Street View

The adorable breed of dogs introduces the Internet to its home in Japan’s northern Akita Prefecture.

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“Good on the floor?” Five funny times Google Translate drops the ball with Japanese idioms

Free online translation programs have come a long way, but they’re still far from perfect.

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Google Street View captures hilarious before-and-after of person cycling into a ditch 【Photos】

Poor cyclist’s embarrassing tumble caught on camera.

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Google Maps captures “only in Japan” moment as sumo wrestler sneaks a peek at Google car

In Japan, children don’t chase ice cream trucks — sumo wrestlers chase Google cars.

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Google’s Go-playing AI has been turned into a beautiful, moe-ified anime character

Her most recent depictions show the AI’s heartbroken face when “she” lost to Lee Se-dol.

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How to play Go, the game that humans keep losing to Google’s highly intelligent computer brain

After seeing Google’s artificial intelligence system “AlphaGo” beat one of the best Go players alive last week, I decided to try the popular game myself.

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Does this math problem prove that Japan’s 20-somethings are getting dumber?

Studies show that only 60 percent of Japanese 20-somethings are able to correctly solve this math problem, compared to a whopping 90 percent 30 years ago.

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Google’s Street View takes privacy to a whole new level in Japan【Photos】

Since 2001, the Google Street View truck has been rolling through neighborhoods all over the world, taking photos of our towns and city streets in order add to its parent company’s enormous library of 3D street-level images. In the search for the perfect panoramic image, however, Google doesn’t always have time to wait around for the streets they’re mapping to clear, leading to the occasional unintentional photobomber.

Luckily, Google also has a pretty advanced facial technology recognition system, used to blur out the faces of those caught on camera as a way of protecting their privacy. The only caveat is that sometimes it works a little too well, and to hilarious results.

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Nintendo might be using Android to power its next games console

Nintendo may be ditching its historic proprietary operating systems (OS) and instead using Android to power its next games console, according to Japanese newspaper Nikkei, Kotaku reported.

If true, this could be a big win for Google, while helping to boost Nintendo’s flagging sales.

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Japan’s “Underground Temple” now up for virtual touring in Google Street View

Running underneath Kasukabe City, Saitama Prefecture, lies the Metropolitan Area Outer Underground Discharge Channel – a sprawling network of waterways as long as its name. Its 6.3 kilometers (3.9 miles) of tunnels are intended to divert flood water from area rivers.

Also, since the massive project was completed in 2009 its enormous columns and walls are in relatively pristine condition giving the place an almost magical atmosphere. As a result it’s earned the nickname of the “Underground Temple” and has been frequently used in movies and music videos.

Tours run regularly for free which you can join, or just take a peek right now from the comfort of your browser with Google Street View.

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Guy supposedly finds himself sneaking a smoke at work on Google Street View

The fact that cameras are just about everywhere these days has all but guaranteed that you’ll get caught doing anything even remotely socially unacceptable unless you do it in the privacy of your own home (and even then you better make sure you close the curtains).

Gone are the days of anonymously ringing the crazy cat lady’s doorbell and running away, or sneaking in to your local Masonic Temple to uncover their nefarious, cult-ish deeds (true story!). You can pretty much forget about doing anything in an elevator.

Oh, and, better be sure to tell your supervisor before you take that smoke break, or the ever watchful, judging gaze of the Google Street View car might out you to your employer, as a Japanese Netizen apparently found out recently.

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Google knows you’re no April Fool, so they offer you Pac-Man playable in Google Maps

You may remember Google’s April Fools’ challenge last year, since it was pretty epic. If you missed it, Google came out with a game where you could search for Pokemon on the Google Maps app on your mobile device. It got rave reviews and it’s such a shame that it was only available for a limited time.

This year, Google is reaching out to a slightly older generation of video game lovers, letting us play Pac-Man on real streets of Google Maps!! Of course, being Google and April Fools’ Day, there is a catch, but more or less, you can transform neighborhoods into Pac-Man game screens.

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Laughter online as Google mistakes Japanese beauty researcher for someone a little different…

When the subject of artificial intelligence comes up, people tend to default to “Skynet is going to murder us all!” mode faster than you can say “overreaction.” While we can understand their concern–even Stephen Hawking and Elon Musk seem pretty intimated by the concept of a sentient Arnold Schwarzenegger–this little story goes a long way to showing just how far we are from computers being able to identify and terminate any random person they feel like…

A Japanese Twitter user recently noticed that Google was accidentally identifying a legendary Japanese entrepreneur and beauty researcher as a certain member of America’s pop royalty. Can you guess who?

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Google’s Street View cameras are taking spooky selfies in museums around the world

It turns out that there are a surprising number of mirrors in museums, so when Google unleashed its Street View cameras to catalog the insides of museums around the world, more than a few of them ended up accidentally taking pictures of themselves, we learn via Quartz.

Spanish artist Mario Santamaría noticed this happening quite a bit and did exactly what one should do upon noticing a trend: build a Tumblr around it.

Titled “The Camera In The Mirror,” Santamaría’s site catalogs the eerie moments in which Google’s cameras photograph their own reflections. You get a peek at them wrapped up in silver cloth or exposed to reveal a surprisingly robot-like body.

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Google sends winners of Pokémon Challenge ‘Pokémon Master’ business cards

Google Maps‘ elaborate April Fools joke got even better. On April 1, Google launched its Pokémon Challenge game, where users could search real world locations on Google Maps and catch the original 151 Pokémon to complete a Pokédex.

Players who successfully completed the Pokédex received a message from Google Maps to fill out a form for a “surprise.” It turns out their efforts weren’t for naught, as several players, including Reddit user “tinygrump” received a congratulatory letter from Google Maps software engineer Tatsuo Nomura and 10 business cards with the title “Pokémon Master.”

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【TBT】Pigeon people flock to Google Street View in Tokyo

If you happen to be looking for directions around Mitaka Station in Musashino, Tokyo you might be in for an eerie surprise. As Google’s Street View camera strapped to a guy’s back passed through the quaint tree-lined path alongside the Tamagawa Aqueduct, it was momentarily surrounded by a group of people standing around wearing pigeon heads.

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TwitchPlaysPokemon: Here’s one of the weirdest subcultures on Google’s video game streaming acquisition

Google is reportedly in talks to buy Twitch.tv, the live video-game streaming site that has exploded in popularity over the last year, currently ranking fourth in U.S. Internet traffic, behind only Netflix, Google, and Apple.

Twitch is a site where users can view other users playing popular video games. The site is also the host of Intel’s Extreme Masters World Finals, the “Champions League” of e-sports (organized video-game competitions). More than 23 million people tuned in this year to see the world’s best players square off in Counter-Strike, StarCraft II, and League of Legends.

The Twitch phenomenon was punctuated in March by one of the weirdest online experiments in recent memory. For over three weeks, nearly 1.1 million video game players collectively beat Pokemon Red on Twitch after 390 hours of game-time.

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