japan

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Gamers in Japan, home of Nintendo's Pokemon, are still impatiently awaiting the launch of the smash-hit Pokemon GO game but the government is already preparing for an invasion of little cartoon monsters, issuing a safety warning. The country's National Center for Incident Readiness and Strategy for Cybersecurity (NISC) issued nine instructions to users of the mobile game, ranging from advising them not to use their real names to warning gamers over fake apps. It is rare for NISC to issue an advisory over specific games, but Japan is just the latest government to do so over Pokemon GO, a game where users chase cuddly cartoon monsters in their real-life neighborhoods.

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By Ritsuko Ando and Reiji Murai TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan Display Inc's new chief executive said on Thursday the screen maker's “biggest client”, widely understood to refer to Apple Inc , is increasing orders ahead of the expected launch of a new iPhone this month. Mitsuru Homma, who was appointed CEO in June, said weakness in China's smartphone market, the world's biggest, amid that country's broader economic slowdown was not affecting the orders for display screens it was getting from its top client. Apple is expected to unveil the new iPhone at an event on Sept. 9.

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China's Alibaba Group Holding Ltd said on Wednesday it would invest $1 billion into its Aliyun cloud computing arm to challenge Amazon.com Inc's lucrative Web Services division, opening a global front in the battle between the two e-commerce giants. With the global cloud computing market estimated by analysts to be worth about $20 billion, Alibaba said in a statement the investment would go toward setting up new Aliyun data centers in the Middle East, Singapore, Japan and Europe. Although Alibaba and Amazon have so far avoided competing directly in their core business of e-commerce outside China, Aliyun's international expansion takes aim squarely at Amazon Web Services (AWS), an increasingly central and profitable division of the Seattle-based company.

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By J.R. Wu TAIPEI (Reuters) – Companies such as electric motor scooter firm Gogoro could hold the key to Taiwan's economic growth. In just three years, the start-up, which counts Japan's Panasonic Corp as a strategic partner and Cher Wang, the founder of local smartphone maker HTC Corp as a key investor, raised $150 million to develop the smartphone-synched bike, and a charging network for it. Gogoro's success in creating a home-grown, innovative product is precisely what Taiwan's government wants to foster as it seeks to reduce the export-driven economy's reliance on the island's world-class tech manufacturing sector.

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By Leika Kihara and Kaori Kaneko TOKYO (Reuters) – Factory worker Satomi Iwata has new co-workers, a troupe of humanoid automata that are helping to address two of Japan's most pressing concerns – a shortage of labor and a need for growth. The 19 robots, which cost her employer Glory Ltd about 7.4 million yen ($60,000) each, have eye-like sensors and two arms that assemble made-to-order change dispensers alongside their human colleagues in a factory employing 370. Glory is in the vanguard as Japanese firms ramp up spending on robotics and automation, responding at last to premier Shinzo Abe's efforts to stimulate the economy and end two decades of stagnation and deflation.

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Japan Display Inc is considering building a plant to supply smartphone screens for Apple Inc and is negotiating with the U.S. company for investment in the project, a person familiar with the situation said on Friday. The Japanese screen maker aims to be the primary supplier of high-tech screens for Apple's wildly popular iPhones, the person told Reuters. Global iPhone sales, notably in China, have surged to make Apple the most profitable company in history. Japan Display wants Apple to shoulder much of the expected 200 billion yen ($1.7 billion) investment in the plant, which aims to be in operation next year, the source said on condition of anonymity as the talks remain confidential.