We’re going to file this story under “another cool thing Japan has that the United States doesn’t.” Beverage proprietor Asahi Soft Drinks introduced the first of many vending machines with Wi-Fi capabilities. Asahi Soft Drinks expects to have 1,000 of these machines available in 2012, and plans to have 10,000 more in the wild within more »

Are you salivating at the thought of updating your Windows Phone 7 smartphone to Mango? Fall isn’t that far away, but maybe you’re interested in a brand new device with Mango already installed. If you live in Japan, you’ll be able to get the planet’s first Mango-enabled WP7 device in September. It looks like the report from earlier this month was dead on.

Japan is now the place to be if you want to have a better chance of avoiding computer viruses. The country has now made it illegal to create, distribute or store viruses. Those who are caught doing so without a good reason will be either sentenced to prison for up to three years, or be fined up to $6,000 or 500,000 yen. If one is caught storing or acquiring viruses, they could go to prison for two years or be fined around $4,000 or 300,000 yen.

Toshiba seems to have gotten a bit more official with their “Toshiba Tablet” that we have been seeing since CES. The device has been dubbed the Toshiba Regza AT300 and it has begun shipping, but only for those who live in Japan. That aside though, the Tegza AT300 comes priced at ¥60,000 (about $725 US) more »

Similar to AT&T, Vonage and Verizon, we now have word that Sprint is also going to be offering free US to Japan calling. The free calls (and text messages) with Sprint will run from the present day until April 10th. And similar to the other offers, the free calls for Sprint customers are for post-paid more »

Following the disasters in Japan another major carrier has made it easier on the wallet to communicate with friends and family in the country. Verizon is offering not just mobile calls and texts to Japan for free, but a few others services to help those who might need them. Until April 10 it will be more »

AT&T has announced they will not bill for calls to Japan until the end of March, allowing family and friends to check in on those possibly affected by the recent adverse conditions. AT&T will not bill for call charges to Japan for their post-paid customers (those that are billed at the end of the cycle). more »

How does a free iPad sound to you? Chances are, if you’re like most people who don’t hate everything Apple creates, a free iPad would be great. What about a free iPad with a two year contract? Well, if that still sounds good to you, and you happen to live in Japan, you’re in luck. more »

Shown off as a concept in 2009, Sharp and NTT DoCoMo are bringing the cell phone made from wood to market. The good-looking curvy smartphone will merit a run of 15,000 units made of cypress timber. The phone carries the name the Touch-Wood. The project highlights use of domestic wood from Japan. The wood is more »

I still remember the days of using a floppy disc to save my word documents and whatever else I needed to save. For a computer that could barely store more than a few megabytes, a 1.44MB floppy disc seemed to do just the trick. However, as soon as CDs became efficient and popular, I hardly more »