internet (Page 2)
We take a look at a Japanese website that lets you transform your photos into 8-bit, Gameboy-style works of art!
The digital image created captures kitty in a moment of quiet determination, with a face of uncertain triumph.
And Japanese Twitter users are quick to provide us with some hilarious political commentary.
Dealing with angry customers all day is harrowing work, but Apple’s team was able to quell our reporter Hatori Go’s rage with but a single word.
Major Kusanagi and the members of Public Security Section 9 are on a quest to promote cybersecurity as part of an upcoming public awareness campaign.
Parenting in the internet age is a whole lot more difficult than it was before our world was taken over by machines. Back then, the scariest conversation you had to have with your kids was about the birds and the bees, but now it’s the birds and the bees and the creepy old guy pretending to be a high school girl in an online chatroom.
One Japanese mom posted the conversations on Twitter that she’s recently had to have with her nine-year-old son, and they’ve been getting a lot of attention online. Read them for yourself and you’ll crack up over both how true and how hilarious they are.
Japan’s most visited sites saw PC traffic decline by between 10 and 20 percent in 2014, while access from smartphones rose rapidly, according to a Nielson survey published this week. Online retailers saw the most marked changes, with some experiencing as much as a 60 percent rise in mobile internet traffic.
It’s easy to see this shift to mobile as part of a wider global trend – after all, Americans already spend more time accessing the internet via mobile and tablet apps than with computers. But smartphone use in Japan looks a little different. When Japanese consumers use smartphones to access the internet, it is mostly via mobile web browsing, rather than dedicated apps.
Join us after the jump as we take a closer look at the what and why of these suprising survey results.
It was a veritable who’s who of Marvel superheroes: Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Captain America, Thor… but some fans from a country with its own rich history of superhero characters have been asking, couldn’t there have been a Captain Japan in The Avengers?
Join us as we delve into a parallel universe, asking, “If The Avengers had a Japanese superhero, which one would it be?”
Call us jaded, but usually when we think of the Internet, we think of a cesspit of erotic fan fiction, toxic message boards and comments sections filled with ignorance, anger and bad grammar, punctuated by the very occasional glimmer of the web’s potential for greatness, usually in the form of reddit AMAs.
One of those glimmers came a few days ago when a Japanese Twitter user posted a plea for help from fellow net users in decoding a message left behind in his late uncle’s diary.
Ten years ago, I used to read a lot of books. Now, I read a lot of content, which is to say, blogs and online articles. But when I read something that sticks with me, even for a fleeting moment, I still want to reach for a highlighter and shade the words fluorescent yellow, so I can find that part again later. And I’m not alone in my instinctive response to treat the digital word in the same way I do printed material. There’s a reason browsers still call it a “bookmark” when we save a webpage.
There are all kinds of great English-language blogs about Japan out there. But there are also a number of stand-alone articles that, over the years, I’ve read again and again – and they still make me want to grab my highlighter and start collecting quotes. I’ve put them together into this short list, which we may think of as a small (highly subjective) foreigners-living-in-Japan canon: seminal pieces of writing from around the internet.
Some of these are very long. Some are controversial. All of them have stayed with me for some reason or another, and maybe they’ll stick with you too.
Memes tend to come and go (other than the almighty Shibe Doge), sometimes blink-and-you’ll-miss-it fast, so it’s always a little hard to keep track of what’s really popular and cool on the Internet and what isn’t. Right now, the meme of the nanosecond is “Makeup Transformation,” where Net users pose for a few photos in a tiled frame putting makeup on, and are then “miraculously” transformed into a celebrity, or a movie or video game character.
So quick is the turnaround on Internet memes that by the time people in the Philippines caught on to the Makeup Transformation phenom, it was already pretty much played out – despite it only having been in vogue for, like, a day or two in the U.S. For what it’s worth, Philippine netizens are doing a pretty good job of keeping the meme going, despite stupid people like this writer having basically no idea who most of the transformations are supposed to be.
One presumably hot day not that long ago, a young Japanese woman sat down at her computer, logged onto a website dedicated to giving advice to women, and sent out a request for help: “I’ve fallen for a video game otaku. How can I get close to him?”
The first-year university student had developed a crush on her classmate, who always seemed to be alone and playing video games. She wanted to know how to best approach him, so she took her inquiry online. It was soon met by a flood of diverging responses, from the straightforward to some shocking advice.
Read on to see what kinds of pointers they gave her, and whether you agree with them or not.
A meat pie vendor in China has been a recent topic of discussion on the internet, but it’s not for his snacks. He is becoming popular largely because of his resemblance to Chinese President Xi Jinping. Locals are lining up to buy his snacks and to have the chance to see him in person. (No word on whether they are big fans of the president or just enjoy watching a politician do actual work.)
Japan has its own version of Yahoo! Answers, the question and answer site where you can ask anything and receive a quick reply from other users. The Japanese site is named Yahoo! Chiebukuro (“Yahoo! brains” or, more literally, “knowledge bag”), and as this collection of the best Q&A sets shows, the questions people ask range from the bafflingly inane to the unexpectedly profound!
As we’re about to see, Japan has its fair share of loveable idiots as well as geniuses!
Despite its image as a sleek, technologically advanced society, Japan really sucks when it comes to free wi-fi hotspots. In fact, when the Japan Tourism Agency surveyed tourists about difficulties traveling in the country, a lack of free Internet access was far and away the number one answer.
One major city has finally taken note and begun offering better connectivity for visitors. Osaka has just announced the launch of Osaka Free Wi-fi, a program that brings free wi-fi to locations throughout the city, as part of its effort to position itself as an international gateway to rival Tokyo.
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Japan’s final Penguin Suica train cards have already shipped, and when they’re gone, they’re gone
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Weekly
Japan tripled its departure tax to fund tourism but is using the money on cherry blossoms and bears
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Studio Ghibli has a new anime out, and there’s only one place in the world where you can see it
Starbucks Japan releases new drinkware and goods for Valentine’s Day
Starbucks Japan releases new sakura goods and drinkware for cherry blossom season 2026
Japan’s newest Shinkansen has no seats…or passengers [Video]
Tokyo subway installing new ticket gates that don’t accept payment through Suica or other IC cards
Japanese ninja certification exam attracts 131 candidates from Japan and abroad
Salomon releases Japan-exclusive Mt. Fuji hiking gear that doubles as an amazing souvenir
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Tokyo’s Haneda Airport opens new Terminal 1 North Satellite next month
Pizza Hut Japan creates moon-viewing sukiyaki chrysanthemum pizza for tsukimi season
Anime and Hollywood movies cross over in new Universal Studios Japan merch collection
Starting this fall, you’ll be able to take a Pokémon Jet flight to Japan
Nonstop flights from U.S. to Okinawa return after 54 years, making travel faster than before
Japan approves foreign resident visa renewal fee increases of up to 967 percent, starts soon
Starbucks Japan adds a gooey sweet potato Frappuccino to its menu this autumn
Family Mart reveals new T-shirt uniforms, relaxes hair colour rules for staff… but is it all too casual?
Godiva Japan hops into tsukimi season with bunny and moon-themed chocolate assortments
McDonald’s Japan reveals exclusive new Tsukimi moon viewing collection for 2026
Tokaido Lumière Express: Stay overnight inside the Shinkansen from Osaka to Tokyo
No, Japan’s prime minster did not make friends with a cockroach, despite what you may have heard
Ministop brings bulked up Okinawan-style rice balls to mainland Japan for one week only
Starbucks Japan adds new Customisation Bar to stores, with free ways to hack your food and drink orders
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