Google's Nexus 7 Tablet hard to swallow for Japanese firms
News On Japan via Wall Street Journal -- Jun 28
It's official: Carving out a slice of the fast-growing tablet market just got even harder for Japan's hard-pressed electronics firms.
A week after software giant Microsoft Corp. MSFT +0.50% announced plans to jump into the hardware business with a new tablet called Surface, Google Inc. GOOG +0.82% on Wednesday confirmed its long-rumored entry into the segment with the Nexus 7, a $199 competitor that will highlight the potential for the company's Android operating system.
That means all major software companies with tablet-oriented operating systems are now making their own hardware - a business model that follows Apple Inc.'s AAPL +0.43% huge success in marrying its iOS software and iPad.
With televisions and other traditional consumer electronics offering little room for profit, electronics manufacturers are hoping to ride the smartphone and tablet computer boom to fatter profits. But for standalone hardware makers, the landscape has changed: there are no software friends anymore, just "frenemies."
A 24-year-old woman was in a serious condition Friday after being stabbed by a man whom she reported to police for stalking her in Kurashiki, Okayama Prefecture. (Japan Today )
China's television regulator has ordered a crackdown on dramas about the country's battles with Japan during and before World War Two and demanded they be more serious, state media said on Friday, following viewer complaints about ludicrous storylines. (Reuters )
Police said Friday they have found four dead bodies in an apartment in Kashiwa, Chiba Prefecture, in what is believed to have been a family murder-suicide. (Japan Today )
Shukan Post (May 24) conveys the difficulties experienced by other parts of the adult-entertainment biz in servicing customers from the communist nation.
A deri heru (“delivery health”) call-girl tells the tabloid that she is often requested to arrive at major hotels in the Shinjuku and Ikebukuro entertainment areas of Tokyo by Chinese visitors. (Tokyo Reporter)
Six sailors were found dead after a fire on a foreign freighter docked at a port in Hokkaido, northern Japan.
The sailors are presumed to be Russians. (NHK )
Dozens of American children are abducted to Japan every year-not by strangers, but by parents after messy divorces. (thedailybeast.com 
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A 5-year-old boy sustained an injury at a shopping mall in Nagoya on Friday after his hand became trapped in an escalator. (Japan Today 
A 24-year-old woman was in a serious condition Friday after being stabbed by a man whom she reported to police for stalking her in Kurashiki, Okayama Prefecture. (Japan Today 
A 70-year-old woman has been rescued from a toilet in which she had been waiting for help for three days, Hiroshima police said Friday. (Japan Today 
A traditional dance was performed on Friday at an ancient temple in Nikko City, northeast of Tokyo. (NHK 
China's television regulator has ordered a crackdown on dramas about the country's battles with Japan during and before World War Two and demanded they be more serious, state media said on Friday, following viewer complaints about ludicrous storylines. (Reuters 
A bear was shot dead after it wandered into a school in Kanazawa, Ishikawa Prefecture, on Thursday. (Japan Today 
Police said Friday they have found four dead bodies in an apartment in Kashiwa, Chiba Prefecture, in what is believed to have been a family murder-suicide. (Japan Today 
Shukan Post (May 24) conveys the difficulties experienced by other parts of the adult-entertainment biz in servicing customers from the communist nation.
A deri heru (“delivery health”) call-girl tells the tabloid that she is often requested to arrive at major hotels in the Shinjuku and Ikebukuro entertainment areas of Tokyo by Chinese visitors. (Tokyo Reporter) 
Six sailors were found dead after a fire on a foreign freighter docked at a port in Hokkaido, northern Japan.
The sailors are presumed to be Russians. (NHK