Twitter Inc. will “aggressively” add sales staff in Japan to attract more advertisers as local user growth exceeds the company’s global expansion, Chief Executive Officer Dick Costolo said.
The microblogging service will continue to invest and hire in Japan and will also add engineers, Costolo told reporters in Tokyo today, without specifying investment amounts or the number of people being added.
The San Francisco-based company, which lets users post 140-character messages, is expanding abroad to decrease its reliance on the U.S. market. The percentage of revenue Twitter earns from the U.S. will …

Japan may go “momentarily” without nuclear power next month when the only one reactor still in operation shuts down for maintenance work, the country’s industry minister warned Sunday.
Yukio Edano made the comment as the government prepared to restart two offline nuclear reactors amid criticism from media and environmental groups sceptical over the safety of atomic power after the Fukushima accident.
“The number of nuclear reactors operating across the country may go down to zero, perhaps momentarily, from May 6,” he said in a seminar in Tokushima, western Japan.
The government of Prime …

Japan’s Sony Corp flagged a record $6.4 billion annual net loss, double an earlier forecast and a fourth straight year of red ink, as it writes off deferred tax credits, heaping more pressure on its new CEO to turn around the electronics giant.
Sony, which plans to axe 10,000 jobs – around 6 percent of its global workforce – according to media reports this week, has been hammered by weak demand for its televisions and overtaken by more innovative gadget rivals such as Apple Inc and Samsung Electronics.
Yet, in a bid …

Japan and Britain agreed Tuesday to develop defense weapons together in Tokyo’s first such arrangement outside of its security alliance with the United States.
Japan has cooperated exclusively with the U.S. on missile shield development and other equipment under their long-standing alliance. Easing its decades-long weapons export ban in December allowed Japan to extend the exception to other defense partners, including European nations and Australia.
Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda and his visiting British counterpart, David Cameron, agreed to cooperate in research, development and production of defense equipment. The leaders agreed to find …

If you’ve ever been to Tokyo or any other large Japanese city, you’ll have noticed the huge variety of billboards plastering the urban landscape, often featuring the month’s most popular idol. Now researchers at Keio University are working on a system that will allow passers-by to interact with said posters via an ultrasound sensor setup. The sensor will detect the motion of people in front of it, and display appropriate pictures in response — “appropriate” may not be the right word for everyone, though, as the main use case demonstrated …

PBS’s Idea Channel just put out a new video comparing Hatsune Miku to Lana Del Rey. Of course, we here at BionicBong.com don’t believe Miku deserves getting compared to the disaster that is Lana Del Ray, but here’s the video and tell us what you think!

After visiting China earlier this week, Mark Zuckerberg apparently jetted over to Japan and swapped his trademark jeans and hoodie for a suit and tie to meet with Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda.
During the brief meeting, which took place in Nodas residence in Tokyo, the Facebook founder reportedly said the massive tsunamis that struck Japan last year inspired him to look for ways the social network could be used to help those affected by natural disasters
Read the rest of the story: Zuckerberg Meets With Japans Prime Minister, Talks Tsunami.

Japan is preparing to bolt turbines onto barges and build the world’s largest commercial power plant using floating windmills, tackling the engineering challenges of an unproven technology to cut its reliance on atomic energy.
Marubeni Corp. (8002), Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. (7011) and Nippon Steel Corp. (5401) are among developers erecting a 16-megawatt pilot plant off the coast of Fukushima, site of the nuclear accident that pushed the government to pursue cleaner energy. The project may be expanded to 1,000 megawatts, the trade ministry said, bigger than any wind farm fixed …

It’s the part of the job that stock analyst Hiroshi Naya dislikes the most: phoning investor relations managers on a Saturday or Sunday when he’s working on a report and facing a deadline. In Japan, placing a work call to someone’s cell phone on the weekend “feels like entering someone’s house with your shoes on,” says Naya, chief analyst at Ichiyoshi Research Institute in Tokyo. So last year, Naya started asking his questions via messages on Facebook. While a telephone call seems intrusive, he says, a Facebook message “feels more …

Google paid tribute on Wednesday to the “father of the modern origami” Akira Yoshizawa by transforming its celebrated homepage logo into an homage to the folded-paper art pioneer.To mark what would have been Yoshizawa’s 101st birthday, the letters in Google’s name are formed by folded paper shapes created by origami artist Robert Lang.
Read the rest of the story: Google pays tribute to origami pioneer.