Yahoo! continued to lead the online search market in Japan in December 2007, new research suggests.

According to figures produced by comScore, the US-based search engine experienced 42.1 million visitors during December alone last year.

Meanwhile, rival Google came in second position, securing visits from 32.3 million Japanese internet users, while Microsoft - in third place - saw 29.1 million people access its sites. Read the rest of this entry »

Domestic sales of Toyota, Daihatsu, Honda and other several major Japanese automakers fell in 2007, though their exports all went higher, according to data released Monday by the companies.

Toyota group, comprising Toyota Motor Corp., Daihatsu Motor Co. and Hino Motors Ltd., saw a 4.5- percent decrease of domestic sales in 2007 to 2,261,515 units.
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Tomiyasu Ishikawa, a 71-year-old Japanese climber is believed to have become the oldest person in the world to scale the Seven Summits - the highest mountains of each of the seven continents - after recently conquering Antarctica’s 4,897-meter-high Vinson Massif.

Tomiyasu Ishikawa was born in Aichi Prefecture in 1936. He is a member of the Japanese Alpine Club; vice-chairman of a federation of mountaineering clubs in Aichi, representative of the Hekiryo alpine club, and a member of the Silver Turtles. Read the rest of this entry »

The government of Japan has begun looking into easing conditions on resident visa status for skilled foreign workers such as engineers. The condition will apply only if their Japanese is fluent enough, unnamed government sources were quoted by a Kyodo News report filed Monday. Read the rest of this entry »