Japan

A Japanese software maker says it's doing its part to help fight crime -- by launching an online game featuring mug shots of Japan's most-wanted fugitives.

However, the country's police aren't so crazy about the game "Slot Detective," which has already been played by more than 100,000 people.

Software designer Famista Inc. said Friday that it introduced the free, slot-machine-style game to publicize photographs of suspects in high-profile murder cases, hoping to tap into Japan's obsession with games to help police catch killers.

A new billboard is going up in the middle of Times Square that will be powered with 16 wind turbines and 64 solar panels instead of the usual electricity. When it's windy and sunny, the billboard will be able to generate enough electricity to light up.

Computer infections with viruses by way of USB flash memory drives are spreading in Japan, according to a Trend Micro Inc. survey released Saturday.

Based on the finding, the Tokyo-based virus-scanning software company called on PC users to take precautions when sharing data with others via USB memory sticks.

A USB flash memory drive is a portable data-storage device that has become popular as an alternative to a floppy disk.

New evidence is emerging about the cross-cultural impacts of video-game violence, but analysts are skeptical about the findings.

Apparently, it's not just American kids who show aggression after playing violent video games for a three- to six-month period. Japanese kids are manifesting similar behaviors, according to a study sponsored by Iowa State University's Center for the Study of Violence.

Industrial conglomerate Siemens AG is poised to sell its 50-percent stake in the joint venture Fujitsu Siemens Computers to Japan's Fujitsu Group, two people familiar with the deal told The Associated Press on Monday.

Siemens has been contemplating a sale of its half in the joint venture at least since August. Chief Executive Peter Loescher said then that the company was in talks with Fujitsu about the fate of the unit, which makes personal computers and laptops and posted sales of 6.6 billion euros but a pretax profit of just 105 million euros last year.

Will Panasonic, already the world's largest maker of plasma televisions, become the top electronics company in Japan by revenue?

A successful deal would put it in the top spot.

The heads of Panasonic and Sanyo Electric have agreed in principle to a deal that would see Panasonic take over Sanyo, three people familiar with the matter said Sunday.

Toshiba, Japan's largest chip maker, reported a quarterly loss on Wednesday after the global economic slowdown aggravated a glut in the market for chips used to store data in consumer electronics.

The net loss was yen26.8 billion, or about $275 million, in the three months that ended Sept. 30, compared with a yen25 billion profit a year earlier, the company said. Sales fell 7 percent to yen1.88 trillion.

Toshiba joins Samsung Electronics and Sony among electronics makers reporting lower earnings this month.

Dell has rolled out a new mini-notebook PC in Japan that is slated to launch globally next month at a retail price of under $600.

Tipping the scales at 2.72 lbs and measuring just 0.92 inches thick, the Inspiron Mini 12 integrates Bluetooth and Wi-Fi (802.11b/g) radios, 1GB of RAM, a 12.1-inch WXGA display, a built-in Webcam, and a 60GB or 80GB hard disk drive. In addition to Windows Vista Home Basic, users can elect to run Windows XP or Ubuntu Linux.

In what marks a positive sign in a struggling economy, AdMob on Wednesday announced it has achieved positive cash flow and secured a $15.7 million Series C investment fund.

Led by Sequoia Capital's Growth Fund -- with existing investor Accel Partners also participating -- AdMob intends to use the cash infusion to expand its market position in mobile advertising. The company has posted strong year-over-year growth. In fact, the mobile-advertising platform more than tripled the number of ads served on a monthly basis to 4.5 billion in September.