It’s sad to see a once great country fall on hard times. It’s like watching a formerly leading hedge fund manager apply for food stamps...

The latest piece of news of Japan does not make for happy reading I am afraid and although we have seen some tentative signs, as of late, of a stabilization this has to be very preoccupying for Japanese policy makers...

But currency markets remain range bound...

The dissolution of the House of Representatives, Prime Minister Tarō Asō tells us, is not far off...

Imagine the following scenario. A small Italian town on the Swiss border. The customs officers, checking the passengers on a local cross-border train, notice among the usual workers making their daily commute to Switzerland a couple of well-dressed Asian men, one of whom is carrying a briefcase. When examined, the briefcase proves to have a false bottom...

When I traded the Nikkei during the nineties, every market rally was capped by a predictable flood of new equity issuance by cash starved, undercapitalized Japanese banks...

By Michael Kerferl, CScout Japan

Augmented reality (AR) is a marketer’s dream, and it is about to hit home.

As digital devices become a more integrated part of everyday life, we live much more of our social lives in digital spaces: writing blogs, sharing photos and generally linking to new information. What happens when we start to live our real-world lives through a digital filter?

By Rob Churcher

Nagano-based server company JMF is using cloud computing to provide cheap, eco-friendly solutions to clients

It’s a simple and yet complex concept - a virtual server. The idea of pulling out the clunky piece of hardware that is at the heart of a business’ information processing system and surrendering it to the ether can be a difficult proposition for some business owners. “Cloud computing” is becoming more of a buzz word as Internet infrastructure rapidly improves around the globe and desktop and mobile devices increasingly piggyback processing power that exists elsewhere.

By Edward Hugh and Claus Vistesen

What has happened to Japan’s economy?

Japan’s economy just does not seem to be able to catch a break at the moment. GDP contracted at an annual pace of over 15.2 percent in the first three months of this year, while industrial output fell by over 34.5 percent following a contraction in exports which was nearer to the 40 percent mark.

By Jean-Julien Aucouturier

With nearly 1.5 million members, could concerts in Second Life be the future of music?

The two artists, both professional musicians, couldn’t be more different. One is a live-show powerhouse, playing more than 20 sell-out gigs per month. His fans travel from all over the world just to see him, and many have been following him since the early days. The other is not reaching the audience he deserves. Embroiled in a disproportionate network of industrial interests, his artistic freedom is jeopardized and his music denied radio airplay.

By Steffen Heinrich and Florian Kohlbacher

Change and continuity in Japan’s permanent employment system

More than a decade of reforms have made Japan a global leader in non-regular employment; lay-offs have become common and many expect that the current market environment will bring about an overhaul of Japanese HR strategies. Yet, despite all this, we find that the system of permanent employment has hardly changed.