Even though all the focus is on hard drives and the aftermath of the Thailand floods, DRAM manufacturers have fallen on hard times, too. DRAM has never been cheaper, and while that’s good for me and you, it’s hard to run a business if you’re basically giving away the product. Japanese DRAM maker Elpida Memory may be learning that lesson the hard way right now; rumors say that the Japanese government is pushing hard for Elpida to join forces with Toshiba to try and keep the business afloat.
If Japan ever decides to ditch the “Rising Sun” bit, “Land of the Awesome Vending Machines” would be an apt second slogan. A multitude of useful, weird and wacky vending machines litter the landscapes of the country’s major cities, offering up goodies ranging from exotic drinks to delicious noodles and heck, even space gold and hotel rooms (as shown by Tom Edwards in his 24 hour vending machine survival stint in the heart of Tokyo). Now, those ubiquitous Japanese vending machines are getting even more useful, as one company plans on rolling out units that double as free Wi-Fi hotspots in 2012.
When Microsoft first started talking about Windows 7 slates, it was still a pre-iPad world. The prospect of Win 7-based tablets still evoked a reasonable amount of hope and excitement. But it soon became clear that Windows 7 and tablets just weren’t meant to be together. Now, the only time the two get together is when a vendor feels that it’s a match made in enterprise computing heaven. This time that vendor happens to be Toshiba.
Most of the time, Google’s nifty little Street View is nothing more than an interesting toy or a way to see landmarks along a road trip. Today, it became something else: a visual memory of one of the most damaging natural disasters in recent history. Google took it upon itself to take its cameras to the streets in the aftermath of Japan’s horrific earthquake and tsunami to show the world the true extent of the devastation, complete with before and after pictures to drive the point home.
Earlier this month we 
The fact that Hulu is still shopping for a buyer hasn't stopped the streaming service from expanding its would-be empire, which now has an international presence. Hulu officially launched in Japan this week, marking the first time it's set virtual foot outside the United States. It's the first step toward becoming a global brand, and could make the service more valuable (and attractive) to potential suitors.
Hulu’s international plans have been the subject of much speculation in recent months as Netflix begins its worldwide expansion. The video streaming service had finally made its first move. Hulu will be available to Japanese users later this year.
If PCs are dead (they're not), someone forgot to tell Japan. And NEC. And Lenovo. In a joint press release today, Lenovo and NEC announced the launch of NEC Lenovo Japan Group, a long winded name that now represents Japan's largest PC provider. Based on recent analyst figures, the group expects to control about 25 percent of Japan's PC market, poking its head into both the commercial/government sector and in consumer sales.
We suspect that with a little bit of tweaking, Japan's "K Computer" wouldn't break a sweat running Crysis, but where this supercomputer really struts its stuff is in the LINKPACK benchmark. Equipped with 68,544 processors, Fujitsu's half-build system cranked out 8.162 petaflops (quadrillion floating-point operations per second) in LINKPACK, short of the company's goal of 10 petaflops by 2012 but still enough to take first place on the 37th Top 500 list.Connect with MaximumPC
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