Research cited by Nature finds that as Japan's countryside empties and small farms are abandoned, populations of butterflies, fireflies, frogs, birds and native plants are declining rather than rebounding. A 2025 study found biodiversity stable only where human populations remained stable, while depopulated areas saw species losses. Researchers note similar patterns in rural Spain and China, and a separate study of Germany's Lake Constance region found plant diversity peaked under medieval-era small farming, exceeding both earlier closed forests and later industrial agriculture.
e360.yale.edu
· 2026-11-06
Japan's annual 'Jimi Halloween' (Mundane Halloween) tradition continued this year, with participants dressing as everyday scenarios like someone struggling with a designer faucet or trying to take a group photo in a cramped izakaya. The event, which began in 2014 among adults at Daily Portal Z, intentionally avoids flashy costumes in favor of relatable, hyper-specific situational outfits shared under the hashtag #地味ハロウィン.
spoon-tamago.com
· 2026-11-02
McDonald's will bring back Pokemon-themed Happy Meals at participating US locations starting Nov. 10, each including one of 15 collectible toys and two of 15 Pokemon cards. The meals come with standard options like hamburger or chicken nuggets, fries, apple slices and a drink, plus a QR code linking to a digital Pokemon-finding game. McDonald's says the promotion runs while supplies last.
cnet.com
· 2026-10-30
Toyota and Waymo announced plans to begin testing a fleet of autonomous Toyota bZ4X electric vehicles in Japan in 2027, building on a preliminary partnership the companies struck in April 2025. Toyota will manufacture and equip the bZ4X with Waymo's self-driving hardware at its Takaoka plant in Aichi Prefecture, and the companies plan to later expand testing to the UK and other right-hand drive markets.
engadget.com
· 2026-10-30
Japan Airlines disclosed that unauthorized access to Amadeus's Passenger Service System, which handles reservations and check-in, occurred between August 2023 and September 2026 and exposed data on roughly 92,000 customers. For most, exposed details included reservation codes, names, flight dates, routes and travel class, while about 2,000 customers also had contact details, passport numbers, frequent flyer numbers and ticket information exposed. JAL said credit card numbers and passwords were not compromised and that Amadeus has since applied security fixes, with flight operations unaffected.
bleepingcomputer.com
· 2026-10-29
Counterpoint Research found iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max sales fell 4% in the US and 27% in Japan during their first three weeks on shelves compared with the iPhone 17 Pro series last year. China sales rose 29% over the same period, pushing global growth to 3.1%, while the Pro Max's share of Pro-series sales slipped slightly to 56% from 57%.
9to5mac.com
· 2026-10-27
GMO Internet Group confirmed that attackers gained unauthorized access to its Onamae.com Desktop Cloud VPS service and installed malicious programs on nearly 27,000 customer server environments. The company began shutting down affected servers on October 21, 2026, taking all Desktop Cloud plans offline with no restoration date given. GMO says payment data was stored separately and wasn't affected, but customer-stored data may have been exposed.
bleepingcomputer.com
· 2026-10-21
Roughly 80 Japanese companies were targeted in cyberattacks originating from overseas, with investigators finding digital traces pointing to Artex, an AI agent developed in China. Details on the specific companies affected or the extent of damage have not been disclosed.
wsj.com
· 2026-10-21
Nikkei Inc. disclosed that hackers used stolen credentials to access a development system on October 7, exposing 1.83 million personal data records stored in the cloud. The company said 150,000 records contained identifiable details such as names, emails, addresses, phone numbers or birthdates, while the remaining 1.68 million held no identifying information and no credit card data was exposed. Nikkei revoked the compromised credentials, notified Japan's Personal Information Protection Commission on October 11, and said it has found no evidence of misuse or system tampering so far.
bleepingcomputer.com
· 2026-10-19
Japan-based audio company Final has introduced the Porta, a pair of wireless headphones distinguished by an unusually thin, slimmed-down headband and a retro-inspired design aesthetic. Details on pricing, release date, and audio specifications were not specified in the report.
gizmodo.com
· 2026-10-19
iPhone Duo pre-orders, which opened last Friday and quickly backed up into late January 2027, are now showing earlier arrival dates for some customers. Reports collected by 9to5Mac show multiple Japan-based buyers seeing their estimates shifted earlier, including one order moved from December to October 23. The change so far appears limited to orders placed directly through Apple, and Apple has not commented on it.
9to5mac.com
· 2026-10-19
Security researchers and Japan's JPCERT/CC report that attackers are actively exploiting CVE-2026-106931, a critical OS command-injection bug in the statistics feature of SiteGuard Server Edition, a web application firewall used on roughly 500,000 to 1.5 million sites. The flaw lets attackers run commands with root or SYSTEM privileges on hosts where the default-enabled statistics function is active, and the vendor has released patches for multiple affected versions, including some end-of-life builds.
bleepingcomputer.com
· 2026-10-18
GoKawiil