The country which gave the world classic arcade games such as "Space Invaders" and "PacMan" is facing a demographic crisis, with a dwindling birth rate and ever-swelling numbers of elderly people.
So Japan’s amusement arcades, once an exclusive resort of youth, are increasingly becoming the abode of the old, The (London) Times said today.
According to the Hello Taito game centre in the Tokyo suburb of Kameari, as many as 90 per cent of its weekday visitors are over 60 years old.
Read the rest of the story: Game over for Japanese teens …

Japan’s defense chief said Tuesday that the country’s largest arms contractor has suffered a cyberattack, but that no sensitive information is known to have been lost.
Defense Minister Yasuo Ichikawa urged Mitsubishi Heavy Industry Ltd. to strengthen its data security systems.
"We are not aware of any important data having leaked to the outside," Ichikawa said.
The company makes ships, submarines, missile parts and other weapons for Japan’s military.
Read the rest of the story: Japan says no loss of key data in cyberattack.

Tobacco taxes in Japan should be raised until the average price for a pack of cigarettes is about 700 yen, or 75 percent more than the present level, to cut medical costs, Health MinisterYoko Komiyama said.
The ministry, which is participating in a tax panel session, will push for increasing tobacco levies by 100 yen annually for three years, Komiyama said. Most of the members of the panel agreed with the idea last year, she said.
Efforts to raise duties have been complicated by government ownership of a controlling stake in Japan …

Will Japan avoid economic and societal decline?   I believe that the answer to this question depends, more than anything else, on free market reform of agriculture.
It is a regrettable but seemingly immutable fact of life that agriculture is the most “protected”—by which I mean politically favored, subsidized, cartelized, regulated, and non-competitive—sectors in most countries, not least the U.S.    It is also a fact that productivity, technological advance, and overall output in agriculture are inversely related to the degree of “protection.”
For two, almost three, generations Japanese agriculture has been essentially “socialized,” that …

Japans biggest defense contractor, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd, said on Monday hackers had gained access to its computers, with one newspaper saying its submarine, missile and nuclear power plant component factories had been the target.
The company said in a statement that some information could have been stolen in the first known cyber attack on Japans defense industry.
"Weve found out that some system information such as IP addresses have been leaked and thats creepy enough," said a Mitsubishi Heavy spokesman.
Read the rest of the story: Japans Defense Industry Hit By First …

Farmers have been trying to gain consumers confidence in their products and some rice farmers asked private institutes to measure the amount of radiation in their crops.
After radioactive caesium exceeding the government-set provisional limit of 500 becquerels a kilogram was detected in some wild mushrooms, the shipment was banned in 43 municipalities.
In the town of Tanagura-machi, famous for its matsutake mushrooms, the tourist association normally organises matsutake hunts from mid-September to mid-October and a mushroom festival on October 22. However, both events are cancelled this year.
via Cloud hangs over Japans …

Japan’s Nissin Foods opened a cup noodle museum on Saturday charting the history of the speedy snack where visitors even get the chance to create their own tasty version.
About 500 adults and children queued up before the museum opened in the port city of Yokohama near Tokyo with celebrity guests ranging from a former prime minister to a retail business tycoon.
"We opened this place… as a factory that gives children experience and a museum for corporate activities," Nissin Foods Holdings president Koki Ando said.
via Japan noodle museum opens doors.

For gamers, this weekend will feel like Christmas. Tokyo Game Show (TGS), Japan’s biggest gaming event, began Thursday at Chiba’s Makuhari Messe convention center and will continue through Sept. 18 (on Saturday and Sunday it will be open to the public). More than 140 exhibitors are on hand, off-site parties have already begun to go late into the night and — most importantly — there are tons of new video games.
Game face: Research engineer Mikael Le Goff checks out Sony’s PlayStation Vita at Tokyo Game Show on Thursday. Japan’s largest …

Kashiwa Sato is the face behind many of Japan’s most famous designs — from the logos for Fast Retailing’s casual-clothing chain Uniqlo to artwork for Japan’s popular boy band SMAP and premier fashion designer Issey Miyake. Now he is taking on a new challenge as the creative mind behind the country’s new logo and message representing “Cool Japan,” the government’s campaign to promote modern Japanese culture abroad. It will be used by Japanese agencies and companies.
This week Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda selected the 46-year-old’s design out of 99 submissions. The …

Social games played on smartphones are hogging the attention at this year’s Tokyo video-game exhibition, boasting new ways of making money by selling "virtual" goodies, not the usual expensive machines and software packages.
Gree Inc., a social networking service that began just seven years ago in the founder’s living room, was the big star at the annual Tokyo Game Show, with its first booth ever. The show previewed to media Thursday ahead of its opening to the public later this week at Makuhari Messe hall in this Tokyo suburb.
Its stardom underlines …