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City of Yokohama offering 14 days of free Wi-Fi to overseas tourists

Yokohama, being Japan’s second-largest city, has a little something for everyone. Its romantic harbor is lined with parks and backed by a breathtaking skyline. History buffs can see numerous centuries-old structures inside Sankeien Garden. The Ramen Museum and Chinatown are great foodie destinations, and the Noge and Kannai districts are filled with enough cocktail bars and brewpubs give your liver a serious workout.

Unfortunately, many overseas travelers are unaware of all Yokohama has to offer, and skip right by the city on their way between Tokyo and Kyoto. In an effort to help get the word out on Yokohama’s numerous attractions, the city has teamed up with telecommunications giant NTT to provide free Internet access to foreign tourists.

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Honda recreates legendary F1 lap with light and sound in awesome video

Honda recreates legendary F1 lap with light and sound in awesome video

Some of our readers may be too young to remember, but in his heyday, Ayrton Senna was the biggest thing in racing. The Brazilian racer took home the F1 driver’s championship in 1988, 1990, and 1991 before his life was cut short when his car collided with a retaining wall at over 230 kilometers (143) miles per hour during the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix.

Japanese motorsport fans have a particular fondness for Senna. Aside from having some of his most memorable races at Japan’s Suzuka Circuit, Senna won all three of his championships in cars powered by Honda engines, and was also involved in the production of the company’s flagship NSX sports car.

Using telemetric data Honda has recreated Senna’s record-breaking 1989 lap of Suzuka in light and sound as part of an incredible video posted on the company’s website.

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Feeling parched? How about a nice bottle of fish stock from this vending machine?

Any well-stocked Japanese kitchen needs a bottle of dashi, a salty cooking stock usually made with dried bonito. Dashi is sometimes combined with soy sauce, and the resulting mixture, called dashi-joyu, is commonly used to prepare soups and season a number of ingredients.

As such a ubiquitous part of Japanese cooking, you can buy dashi-joyu at any supermarket. And if you happen to be at a certain few parking lots in Hiroshima or Okayama Prefectures, now you can get it from a vending machine, too**.**

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Google Street View captures view from top of Mt. Fuji, negates only reason to climb it

There’s a saying in Japan about Mt. Fuji that goes to the tune of, “You ought to climb it once, but only a fool would climb it twice.”

That’s because, as yours truly learned just last weekend, climbing Mt. Fuji is  a lot like spending up to eight hours repeatedly swinging a mallet into your knees as hard as you can. It’s also – at least this year, after having been declared a World Heritage Site – so crowded you’re guaranteed to be spending the climb with your face in dangerous proximity to someone else’s ass at all times.

Lucky for those that haven’t climbed it yet, Google Street View strapped some poor sucker with 100 pounds of weird Google robot gear, maybe gave him a bottle of water and some peanuts, and told him to walk right on up and take some pictures from the top. “It’ll be cool,” they probably said. “We promise.”

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Domino’s Pizza Japan offers dinner and a show with new toppings and a Hatsune Miku mini-concert

With the majority of its pizzas costing over 2,000 yen (US$20), even in medium size, Domino’s Pizza is positioned a bit more upmarket in Japan than its native U.S. Sure, the convenience of home delivery is worth paying a slight premium for, but with prices stretching beyond what you’d pay in a reasonable Italian restaurant in Tokyo with full table service, Domino’s Japan has to offer something more than just a slab of cheese and sauce.

The pizza giant recently convinced us to open our wallets, though, with a three-pronged attack that’s two parts delicious pork and one part high-tech entertainment.

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Sony coughs up US$375,000 to British authorities for security breach

Withdrawing its previous objection, Sony Corporation has agreed to pay a civil fine of 37.5 million yen (about US$375,000) to British authorities after the 2011 security breach of its online gaming network resulted in the leakage of millions of users’ personal information.

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Hello, School Nurse! Japanese website lets you exchange emails with licensed youth caretaker

There are certain trappings to the ideal vision of high school in Japan. A schoolhouse with surprisingly lenient rooftop access policies is one. A bevy of beautiful, earnest coed equipment managers cheering you on in the big game is another. And no set of rose-colored school days is complete without a kind, patient, nurturing school nurse.

If you’re past your teens, most of these are now out of reach. Contrary to what anime and TV dramas have shown us, Japanese educational institutes don’t even let their own students eat lunch on the roof, much less some random guy trying to turn back the clock. Putting your grown-man strength to use in youth athletics is similarly out of the question.

Thanks to a new website that launched this month, though, it’s not too late to have another chat with that school nurse.

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No need to fear dark and stormy nights with this light-up umbrella

A common image of the Japanese city is a concrete jungle of towering skyscrapers, tinting the night sky with the vibrant light from countless neon signs. But while you definitely can find those urban landscapes in downtown districts like Tokyo’s Shinjuku and Osaka’s Namba, take a short train ride into the suburbs and things can be very different.

My own apartment is in the most populous ward of Japan’s second biggest city, but one block away from the shopping arcade there are no sidewalks to be found, and street lights are few and far between. Add in a storm that cuts down visibility even more, and a walk home from the station can be a little unnerving.

Thankfully, PC and cell phone peripheral manufacturer Century has a solution for both problems with their light-up umbrella.

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US$125,000 power suit lets you battle Kaiju, snack without getting Cheeto fingers

Meet the Powere Jacket MK3, an elaborate power suit clearly inspired by anime and hitting the market just in time to ride the wave of excitement over Guillermo Del Toro’s Kaiju Vs. Robots monster movie, Pacific Rim.

Though the power suit is far less impressive than the towering robots of the film, according to the below video, it lets you achieve all kinds of superhuman feats, including running at faster speeds, lifting heavy objects, and eating Cheetos without getting orange powder all over your fingers.

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Twitter user finds novel use for CD tray

With the move to flash drives and cloud storage, CD trays may become a thing of the past, but don’t write yours off as a waste of space just yet. One Japanese Twitter user has found an excellent new use for his.

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Unfortunate Google employee forced to wander alone on eerie abandoned island for Street View photos

Google Street View seems to have its priorities all out of whack. While only just getting around to snapping the more remote areas of mainland Japan and having yet to cover the majority of Canada, Google sent out one intrepid employee to explore the completely abandoned Japanese island of Gunkanjima.

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Say what? Animal figures live in your fridge, speak in adorable Japanese regional dialects

Regional dialects can be a powerful thing. Call out “partner” or “boyo” and I might not even realize you’re talking to me, but just say the word “dude” and you’ve got my complete attention.

Despite its small land mass, Japan’s language is filled with dialects, largely the result of mountains, not to mention centuries of civil war and travel restrictions, making it hard for people different from different areas to mix for much of the country’s history. Occasionally these unique speech patterns pop up in unexpected places, like when a coworker from Osaka stubs his toe in the office, or a drinking buddy from Akita’s accent starts showing after the fifth round of beers.

And now, you can hear Japanese dialects in your refrigerator.

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Yes, Zima’s robot band will play metal and electronica, as long as you compose it for them

Zima never really took off in the U.S.. Molson Coors’ clear malt beverage never even made it out of puberty in its home market, lasting just 15 years before the last Zima made for American consumption shipped in 2008.

In Japan though, it’s been a solid hit, particularly at clubs. The company recently asked the lofty question of whether the way human beings party is advancing at the same rate of other aspects of our modern lifestyle, and has decided to give it an evolutionary kick in the backside by creating a robot party band.

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ALIENWARE and JINS PC collaborate on must-have eyewear for the serious gamer

Cutting 50 percent of blue light while allowing 85 percent of visible light through, these new glasses are a must-have for any hardcore gamer or corporate desk slave.

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Japan’s futuristic underground bicycle parking vaults

Culture Japan’s Danny Choo gives us an inside look at one of Shinagawa’s automated bicycle vaults, proving once and for all that they are not operated by tiny elves working under illegal labour conditions.

Our favourite part is when the official explains that the vaults keep bikes safe from “the weather and pranksters.” Damn those pranksters, stealing our bikes! Not funny this time, you guys.

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Want that new Mac Pro now? Amazon Japan currently offering the next best thing!

Calling all MacHeads! Can’t wait to get your hands on that ever-so-sexy Mac Pro introduced at the WWDC a few days ago? Not to worry, Amazon Japan has you covered, almost. Check out the New TUBELOR (black) from ideaco which can be yours for a mere 3,465 yen (about US$36). Though it doesn’t come with dual GPUs, PCI Express-based flash storage or high-performance Thunderbolt 2, with a little work on your part, this piece of just-as-sexy office hardware could have your co-workers drooling with envy, and, bump you to the top of your office’s cool colleague rankings.

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Vampire smartphones! ‘Resqcable’ renders your phone undead

As smartphones have become more popular and advanced, their battery lives have grown shorter and shorter and shorter.

As someone who uses a smartphone so much it’s probably causing me physical harm, I find mine needs charging sometimes twice a day. But when you’re out and about, it’s often hard to get enough time to sit down and plug it your phone in. And what if your external battery pack just died, but you desperately need to upload a photo of your lunch to Facebook? What happens then!?

Well, you could whip out your handy Resqcable power leacher!

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Still have any mix tapes lying about? Go digital with this cheap converter from Sanwa Direct

Remember making all those mixed-tapes after the Walkman burst onto the scene at the beginning of the 80s (for those of you who grew up with all things digital, ask your dad)? Do you have any of them left? Perhaps there are a few stuffed away at the bottom of the sock drawer? If you still have all or part of that collection, Sanwa Direct can help. Their new 400-MEDI002 cassette to MP3 converter makes changing those old analog compilations to digital format cheap and easy.

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China turns to tech to curtail cheating on tests, employs fingerprint scanners and metal detectors nationwide

In China this year, 7 June was the day prospective tertiary education hopefuls sat down to take the national university entrance examination. It’s a high stakes affair that has a great impact on each young person’s future.

Given the pressure these students and their family face there’s no question some will resort to cheating to get through. This year alone 9,120,000 people will take the exam. Considering those numbers, even if the cheating rate is only 0.1 percent, there is still a serious problem.

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Showa Era newspaper’s drawings of future Tokyo scarily accurate, hilariously off base

These photos, which surfaced recently on a Vipper forum, show a Showa Era newspaper’s predictions of what Tokyo would look like in their future. If Mark Twain can foresee the Internet nearly a hundred years in advance, surely a Showa Era newspaper can get a few predictions right? Let’s take a look:

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