The competition, which started as a tribute to the victims of the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake and as an emblem of hope for restoration, held its annual “Heartful Day” on January 28, permitting invited company to view the lights at a slower tempo earlier than the overall opening.

Visitors expressed their pleasure, with one saying the show was “incredibly beautiful,” whereas one other shared that lengthy hospital stays had saved them from attending lately, including that they had been decided to go to this 12 months.

The theme for this 12 months’s occasion is “The Pulse of Kobe, a Story of Light,” reflecting a need to convey heat and luxury by means of the illuminated installations.

An official lighting ceremony can be held on January 30, with the competition working by means of February 8.

Source: KTV NEWS

Cases wherein these lost-item prevention tags are misused for stalking have surged, together with a homicide case in Ibaraki Prefecture, prompting rising concern over how the gadgets are being abused and what countermeasures are wanted.

Reports of malicious use are growing quickly, with some victims discovering the tags secretly connected behind car license plates or frames, triggering worry that their actions have been being monitored with out their information. The psychological impression of realizing that one’s location could also be continuously tracked has left many shaken, elevating questions on simply how exact the gadgets are and the way people can shield themselves.

Lost-item prevention tags are small gadgets bought at electronics retailers and different shops, designed to be connected to wallets, baggage or different valuables so their location could be checked by way of smartphone if misplaced. However, authorities say the identical location-tracking perform has been exploited by stalkers.

One high-profile case occurred final New Year’s Eve in Ibaraki Prefecture, the place a feminine nail technician was killed. The man arrested on suspicion of homicide, her former accomplice, was additionally suspected of stalking her. Investigators discovered a monitoring tag hidden inside a stuffed toy on the lady’s house, main police to imagine the suspect used the tag to determine her residence.

In one other case, a girl who attended a motorbike occasion mentioned a tag was probably connected to her bike whereas she was away. She later found it caught behind the license plate, sufficiently small to slot in the palm of her hand. A colleague seen the machine when she parked the motorbike at her office after the occasion.

She mentioned the likelihood that somebody may study the place she lived just by monitoring the machine was terrifying, noting that if she had taken the bike house with out realizing it was there, her tackle may have been uncovered.

According to police information, consultations associated to stalking instances involving monitoring tags have been rising yearly, reaching roughly 600 instances final 12 months, marking a document excessive.

To look at the accuracy of the gadgets, reporters carried out an experiment by putting a monitoring tag inside a pockets and asking a workers member to hold it elsewhere. About 10 minutes after the workers member started transferring, the smartphone linked to the tag confirmed the situation shifting south. After round 40 minutes, the map indicated a place believed to be very near the precise location. When reporters went to the world, they have been capable of finding the workers member with little issue, confirming the excessive accuracy of the situation information.

Unlike conventional GPS-based monitoring gadgets, which depend on satellite tv for pc indicators, these tags sometimes use Bluetooth know-how and work by speaking with close by smartphones. While GPS gadgets can obtain accuracy inside about one meter, monitoring tags kind a community by leveraging different individuals’s smartphones, permitting them to perform at a a lot decrease price.

Security consultants expressed frustration over the misuse of merchandise supposed to guard private property, noting that the affordability and ease of use of the tags additionally make them enticing for malicious functions.

Some individuals interviewed mentioned the gadgets are extraordinarily handy when used correctly however turn into deeply unsettling when abused. Others identified the danger posed by items or objects which can be tough to examine internally, warning that tags might be hidden with out the recipient realizing it.

Victims usually are not restricted to stalking instances. One man who enjoys motorbike touring mentioned he discovered a monitoring tag connected to the again of his bike’s body after listening to about related incidents involving common fashions. He reported the matter to police, however investigators have been unable to determine the one that positioned the machine because of an absence of fingerprints or possession information, leaving the case unresolved.

Experts say detecting hidden monitoring tags is extraordinarily tough. The gadgets are sometimes concerning the measurement of a 500-yen coin and could be hid nearly anyplace, with few sensible instruments accessible for detection.

Amid rising concern, authorized measures have been strengthened. Revisions to the Stalker Control Law now prohibit not solely the unauthorized acquisition of location information utilizing GPS gadgets but additionally the act of attaching lost-item prevention tags to acquire location data with out consent.

Legal consultants say the modification closes a loophole in earlier laws, noting that the network-based monitoring methodology utilized by these tags was not adequately coated beneath earlier legal guidelines. However, they warn that as new applied sciences proceed to emerge, misuse is more likely to persist, requiring society as an entire to stay vigilant.

Some smartphone makers have begun introducing options that alert customers when an unfamiliar monitoring tag is detected close by, although such measures usually are not but universally accessible throughout all gadgets.

Specialists urge anybody involved about stalking to seek the advice of police, who can present recommendation and assist, and advocate recurrently checking private belongings for unfamiliar objects. Users are additionally inspired to overview their smartphone settings to make sure detection options for unknown monitoring tags are enabled, as consciousness and precaution stay key to private security.

Source: KTV NEWS

Hazama was beforehand nominated on the 62nd Grammy Awards six years in the past, when an album by the ensemble she leads was shortlisted for Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album, making this her second profession nomination. With the awards ceremony set to happen on February 1, or February 2 Japan time, Hazama spoke about her work and creative actions throughout an interview carried out in Japan, the place she had arrived from her New York base for a sequence of performances.

Source: Kyodo

Sato Shinichi, a 62-year-old professor on the University of Tokyo’s graduate college, together with a former specifically appointed affiliate professor, is suspected of accepting leisure at high-end golf equipment and different venues in return for offering preferential therapy associated to joint analysis with the Japan Cosmetic Industry Association.

Subsequent reporting has discovered that the affiliation’s consultant director accompanied the 2 to luxurious French eating places and unique golf equipment, paying a complete of 850,000 yen in a single day.

The whole worth of the leisure obtained by the 2 is believed to quantity to round 4.9 million yen, with the Metropolitan Police Department investigating the case on the view that Sato repeatedly demanded such hospitality.

Source: FNN

The discovery was made on the Asuka Ike Workshop ruins in Nara Prefecture, a website that exposed clear proof of Japan’s earliest coin-minting exercise, together with a collection of different groundbreaking finds, together with the oldest identified picket tablets inscribed with phrases nonetheless used at this time, making the positioning probably the most important archaeological discoveries linked to the foundations of Japanese manufacturing.

The investigation staff visited Asuka Village, usually described because the birthplace of Japan, house to quite a few “firsts” in Japanese historical past, together with Asukadera, the nation’s first full-scale Buddhist temple, and the Mizuo-chi ruins, the place Japan’s earliest timekeeping machine is believed to have been created.

The focus of the investigation was the origins of cash, at a location the place imperial palaces have been constructed throughout 4 totally different phases of the Asuka interval, together with the stays of a effectively related to Kiyomihara Palace from the reign of Emperor Tenmu, whose period grew to become central to the discoveries made close by.

For a long time, Japan’s first forex was believed to be Wado Kaichin, minted round August 708, however in 1999, archaeologists confirmed the existence of a good older coin sort often known as Fuhonsen on the Asuka Ike Workshop website, situated solely a brief distance away, establishing it because the oldest coin identified to have been produced in Japan.

The workshop ruins themselves have been first recognized in 1991, and subsequent excavations uncovered fragments of unfinished Fuhonsen cash, usually present in pairs, offering clear proof that the cash have been being manufactured on website moderately than imported or produced solely for ritual functions.

Archaeologists additionally found gold, silver, glass merchandise and earthenware, indicating that the positioning functioned as a large-scale, built-in manufacturing facility, not like something beforehand identified from the interval.

Roughly 8,000 picket tablets have been excavated from the positioning, accounting for greater than half of all such tablets discovered within the wider Asuka space, and amongst them was the oldest identified instance of the characters used to write down “tenno,” providing very important clues about when the imperial title got here into use.

The Asuka Ike Workshop ruins are situated inside the grounds of the Manyo Culture Museum, which recreates scenes from the Manyoshu, Japan’s oldest anthology of poetry, utilizing fashions and visible shows to convey the lives and landscapes of the period, and guests coming into the museum are instantly confronted with the preserved stays of the workshop itself.

The website incorporates the stays of round 300 furnaces unfold throughout an space of roughly 20,000 sq. meters, equal to about half the scale of Koshien Stadium, and archaeological proof exhibits that metals comparable to gold, copper and iron, together with glass, have been melted, formed and processed there, demonstrating an unprecedented degree of commercial exercise for the time.

Following the invention, the ruins have been fastidiously reburied for preservation, and the format revealed via excavation was reconstructed above floor to replicate the positioning because it appeared through the Asuka interval, after it was confirmed that the workshop lay beneath what had as soon as been an Edo-period irrigation pond.

Further investigation into the coin manufacturing space revealed greater than 500 fragments of failed or damaged Fuhonsen cash, indicating large-scale manufacturing and distribution, since accomplished cash would have been shipped out, leaving solely faulty items behind.

While Wado Kaichin is confirmed to have circulated broadly as official forex, historians proceed to debate whether or not Fuhonsen functioned as circulating cash or served a extra restricted function, though documentary data from the reign of Emperor Tenmu align intently with the proof uncovered on the website, strengthening the case that Fuhonsen represented Japan’s earliest try at coinage.

In addition to cash, the positioning yielded proof of superior glassmaking and gold refining, together with high-purity gold fragments, suggesting subtle manufacturing strategies that will have been launched by craftsmen from the Korean Peninsula, the place comparable furnaces and supplies have been discovered.

The workshop’s location, simply 600 meters from the political heart of the traditional capital, underscores its function as a state-run facility designed to centralize manufacturing, management supplies and help the formation of an early centralized authorities.

The picket tablets found on the website served a variety of functions, together with manufacturing orders, supply directions, stock tags, administrative data and fragments of spiritual texts, providing uncommon, direct perception into the executive and financial techniques of the time.

Among them, the pill bearing the characters for “tenno” is taken into account the oldest surviving instance of the time period, though students proceed to debate whether or not it referred explicitly to the emperor as a political title or carried a extra spiritual or cosmological that means, and even its exact studying stays a topic of debate.

Due to their distinctive historic worth, most of the artifacts uncovered on the Asuka Ike Workshop ruins have been designated as Important Cultural Properties, and museum shows now reconstruct scenes of coin casting, glass manufacturing and toolmaking to convey the size and complexity of operations that after passed off there.

The website is now thought to be the place to begin of Japan’s built-in manufacturing custom, providing a uncommon glimpse into how the applied sciences and techniques that underpin fashionable Japanese trade first took form greater than 1,300 years in the past.

Source: YOMIURI