Kronos comments

assuming you aren't a criminal/terrorist, what are you worried about?

Privacy. Don't confuse it with secrecy.

How nice. Soon, companies like UBER do not have to bother with employees - sorry, contractors - anymore.

Creepy. I would not want one of these in my neighbourhood. If there is no space in crematoriums, please use a morgue.

Also

Unlike other such morgues-in-disguise, which try to blend in by looking like hotels, Sousou doesn’t refrigerate corpses, relying on air conditioned rooms instead

What about summer when the heat is unbearable?

BOJ should deposit money to each person's account directly.

The cash made available to banks and companies are not passing to the public, which are the intended recipients. Just remit it directly.

it should also be a decent size of payment so that people's mortgage and child raising expenses are eased. That will free up cash for other consumption.

Time for unorthodox measurements.

I think one has to read the between the lines here a bit.

First of all, there is no way of knowing whether he gambled or not. It is just his word. And I don't think illegal casinos will provide any evidence about their clients.

Then there is the question that how he knew about these places. Since - assuming - these places are run by the Yaks, you need to have direct connections with the Yaks or need to know someone who does. These are not comfortable thoughts.

On top of that, doesn't Japan have strict laws regarding not to have an dealings with those who are connected to organized crime? In my company, we have such a specific clause with all the employees and clients.

And national team players are held to higher standards than the normal public.

It seems quite logical to me that he is removed from the team.

Should we assume that the software firms will take full responsibility in case of an accident as well? At the end it is the software that tells the hardware what to do. How about moral decisions? Sacrifice the passenger instead of causing more casualties in an accident.

I think driverless cars are in humans' future but not anytime soon.

In court, Muto admitted to all charges against her and also reached an out-of-court settlement with the victims family.

It seems that the court may have considered the settlement in their decision.

What is the impact on cars in Japan? Are they being recalled as well? If so, which brands and how many? It would be nice to know. I assume Takata supplied the airbags to local cars as well.

Collaborative consumption is a more accurate potreyal of this rising economy. A good trend I think that takes power away from large companies and distibutes it to the people. Yes, Airbnb are making huge profits but joe pulbic running the guest houses, rooms etc are getting a much larger share of the profits than they would if they were simply hotel employees.

Not hotel employees, hotel owners. Joe Public is also sidestepping regulations which other honest hotel / guest house owners are abiding by. It is unfair competition. The playfield should be the same for everyone. Other people who are abiding by the rules are honest, hard working people. They do not deserve their hard work to be undermined by those who have no regard for rules and regulations.

Every company wants free labor and no rules, but it does not mean that it will be good for the society in general.

Just make sure they account for it properly.

In the original news, the sentence after this reads

"The real challenge for the stadium has been agreeing an acceptable construction cost against the backdrop of steep annual increases in construction costs in Tokyo and a fixed dead."

It is difficult for us armchair critics to know exactly how much of the overrun is coming from the design and how much from the corrupt Japanese politicians and construction industry. However having lived in Japan for a long time, it is probably more of the latter than the former.

Not much comment if anyone is also looking into whether the auditors had any fault or not. Booking of revenues and expenses should have been vigorously checked by the auditors.

Still Toshiba's auditor is Ernst & Young. After Lehman, Olympus, and Noble there is this. Serious questions should be asked as to how they are conducting their audits.

Actually, I find it quite logical that Turkey does not want to get involved in this mess directly. They would be marching into war with opponents right across their border, where crossings are very difficult to control. They are already dealing with the immense number of refugees almost by themselves. Why should they go into open war on top of that?

Those countries who are cheering for war are sending troops across the world to fight enemies they see on television, not those across their borders.

The bank’s latest board nominee probably doesn’t yet have a strong view on monetary policy, say people who know him, but he’s already preparing for the job by reading a book by outspoken former BOJ deputy governor Kazumasa Iwata.

Reading to catch up on what he does not know. Not sure if he is the right man for the job.

It is difficult to believe Japan has noble intentions with this infrastructure project. As the article indicates, this looks like a competition with the China led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), which Japan did not join.

Japan is late to the party and trying to catch up.

People expect blood and get disappointed when they don't get it. Many still think boxing is what it was in 1920s.

Mayweather is the best at what he does.People may not like his boxing style. They may find him boring. But it gets him wins and that is what it counts at the end of the day. He won this fight fair and square.

Pacquiao knew what kind of boxer he was facing. He should have prepared accordingly. If you cannot beat your opponent's play style and outwit him in the ring, then you have no right to win the fight. Winning is about forcing your style of fighting on your opponent and dominating him, not expecting your opponent to fight the way that will best suit your style.

Pacquiao should just retire. He had a brilliant career but it is very clear that his best years are behind him. He was simply outclasses in this fight.

@ Strangerland

"...and she came back that the law says that handsets sold after May 1st are provided with this option, and that my handset was purchased before May 1st."

Similar to what I was told in Docomo. When they say after May 1st, they mean for new generation models, not current ones - at least for iPhones.

According to J.Farmer's post, Galaxy phones seem to be different.

He obviously does not know that the rules have changed.

I asked my wife to call the Docomo store again. I thought my Japanese was not enough.

Basically they said that they cannot make the iPhone models they are currently selling simfree. They are apparently not built like that (not sure what this means). They said that the next model (i.e. generation) iPhones can be made simfree but not the current ones.

I am very surprised to read this.

I just had a talk with a Docomo store about an hour ago to switch from my old garake to an iPhone 6. The guy at the store said there is no simfree option.Very confusing...

Love him or hate him, Mayweather knows how to win. He fought a smart fight. Pacquiao was simply not good enough to beat him.

It was a decisive win. No need for a rematch.

According to BBC and other news sites, the French prosecutor are saying that after the pilot leaves (most probably to go to the toilet), they hear the co-pilot pushing flight control buttons and assume that he started the descent deliberately. They also hear from the flight recorder that he is breathing normally and did not lose consciousness.

What is even sadder is that the passengers realize what is happening in the last minute as their screams can be heard in the background before the plane crashes. It is just heartbreaking.

I am not sure what kind of controls an airliner can take for a crazy pilot crashing the plane. Even if you make them take psyc tests, these people can see normal until one day they go over the edge. Very sad indeed. RIP to the victims.

Actually this is serious news. Due to extremely close relationships with the business, Nikkei becomes an extension of the companies themselves which is not good from an independent journalism point of view.

It also raises a lot of question marks if they would publish a "scoop" first if was bad news for the companies they are reporting on. If the company gets upset, they may not "leak" any information in the future, whuch would be bad for business. I do remember they were not that quick on picking up the Olympus news even when foreign press first started talking about it...

...42% of firms plan to raise wages at least as much as last year. Still, many are cautious with 44% undecided.... Last year, monthly average cash earnings rose 0.8%, posting the first gain in four years and the fastest growth in 17 years.

Should be something similar. Some firms will give a raise but it will not keep with the increase in prices. Then the government will trumpet this as a great achievement.

Jordan is not going to accept to exchange the prisoner with Goto. They will prioritize their own citizen. IS also knows this. I fear the pilot is already dead. IS is getting the publicity they want, which is a great shame.

I am getting very uncomfortable with the way the press is handling this crisis. I would have preferred less exposure and let the governments talk behind closed doors instead of giving these terrorists the satisfaction.

Amazon then pushes hardest to promote books from publishers who agreed to the most favorable contract terms, which directly impacts how a book sells, they said, confirming a report by the Asahi Shimbun last week.

Unlike many posters, I actually think this is an issue. Amazon is one of the biggest, if not the biggest, sales platforms. Locking small publishers out of the market or directly affecting their sales, is a big market issue. Small publishers do bring variety to the market. Just because consumers are getting lower prices does not mean at Amazon can act this way.

USD 2 billion is overkill as compared to the sales of other franchises in NBA (Bucks USD 550M, Kings USD 534M, etc...) Even if the Clippers are a better franchise, it is difficult to recover this investment. Ballmer was not a good CEO in Microsoft. This offer proves this fact over again.

Language barrier is huge problem. In Hong Kong and Singapore, it is easier to do business in English. And note that he mentions "intelligent", by which I assume, he is only talking about qualified candidates.

Japan had demographics issue, which you cannot fix by deregulation. I would also argue that Japan is already an important financial center.

He can try, I guess. Got nothing to lose...

Pot, please meet kettle.

After the NSA fiasco, the allegations are a bit ironic.

Spending money to meet the expense budgets is a very common practice. In my company advertising expense increases towards the year end since the marketers try to use all their allocated budget before year end. Everyone knows that if you do not use that money, you will be allocated less in next year's budget.

It seems that someone is trying to get back to RIKEN in this STAP debacle and this is the best they can come up with.

I'd love to know what was going through this captain's head when he decided that it was a good idea to just sail off. I suspect he was more concerned about the storm damaging his precious boat then the lives of the divers.

Actually there was some news that the police had information that the captain may have left the scene because the boat was running low on fuel. I am more interested in why they are investigating the instructor though. Perhaps it is standard procedure.