Apple's App Store net revenue fell about 5% in September, according to Morgan Stanley, the steepest drop for the business since the bank started modeling the data in 2015. From a report: The App Store saw declines in markets including the U.S., Canada and Japan, Morgan Stanley analyst Erik Woodring wrote in a report Monday. His analysis was based on data from Sensor Tower, a firm that tracks app downloads and sales. Morgan Stanley said the main culprit for the drop was gaming revenue, which was down 14% in September, according to the data.

Apple customers may be spending less due to economic concerns, Woodring wrote. Across much of the globe, consumers are facing soaring inflation and recessionary risks. "We believe the recent App Store results make clear that the global consumer has somewhat de-emphasized App Store spending in the near-term as discretionary income is reallocated to areas of pent-up demand," Woodring wrote in the note. Morgan Stanley analysts also expect to see a drop in sales on Google Play, the primary Android app store. They estimate revenue there fell 9% in September.

Canon is about to begin constructing a new $345 million plant to build the equipment used in a crucial part of semiconductor manufacturing called lithography. PetaPixel reports: Lithography is the first step in building chips for everything from microwave ovens to defense systems. The machines involved in this process require incredibly precise steps and equally precise accuracy. It is part of what most people think of when they envision the large white clean rooms in processor manufacturing. According to Nikkei Asia, which covers the industry and economics of Japan, Canon is expected to invest more than $354 million in this new plant in the Tochigi prefecture, a sum covering the facility's construction and the equipment to produce these lithographic machines.

The company currently operates two other plants in Japan, mainly for the production of chips for the automotive industry, and anticipates that this new facility will double the production capacity. According to Nikkei Asia, sales of semiconductor lithography equipment are "expected to rise 29%, year on year, in 2022 to 180 units, a fourfold increase versus ten years ago." Currently, Canon produces 30% of the world's lithography equipment, which is about half of the closest competitor, ASML. Intel and Taiwan Semiconductor have said they will expand their operations as well.

Nikkei Asia also notes that Canon will "develop next-generation technology called nanoimprint lithography" due to the high cost and high energy consumption of current equipment, and nanoimprint lithography will handle "finer line widths," which means more capacity and reduced processing time per chip. Canon is reported to expect 40% lower costs for the new process, as well as a reduction in power consumption by 90%. The new plant is expected to come online in 2025 and will be built adjacent to an existing plant. Canon has not created a new lithography plant in 21 years.

NASA says the damage to their launch facilities in Florida following Hurricane Ian was minimal and work was already underway for a "rapid-fire succession of three launches in three days," reports Ars Technica. An anonymous reader shares an excerpt from the report: First up is a commercial mission on United Launch Alliance's Atlas V rocket to launch SES-20 and SES-21 satellites for Luxembourg-based satellite operator SES. Stacked in its '531' configuration, this Atlas rocket has a five-meter-diameter payload fairing, three solid rocket boosters, and one engine on the upper-stage Centaur. On Friday, United Launch Alliance said everything continues to progress toward the launch of this mission on Tuesday, October 4, from Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The launch is planned for 5:36 pm EST (21:36 UTC). Weather is forecast to be favorable, with a 70 percent chance of favorable conditions for launch. After launching, the Atlas V rocket will deliver the pair of communications satellites into near-circular, near-geosynchronous orbits. Once separated, the satellites will use onboard propulsion systems to circularize their orbits at 35,900 km above the equator.

Next up in Florida is NASA's Crew-5 mission, which will launch on a Falcon 9 rocket to the International Space Station. NASA officials confirmed this mission remains on schedule for noon EST (16:00 UTC) on October 5 from Launch Complex-39A at Kennedy Space Center. The crew of four -- NASA astronauts Nicole Mann and Josh Cassada, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Koichi Wakata, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Anna Kikina -- have been holding at Johnson Space Center in Houston pending the outcome of Hurricane Ian. However, they will now fly to Florida on Saturday in preparation for the launch. SpaceX, meanwhile, will roll its Falcon 9 rocket with the Crew Dragon spacecraft to the launchpad on Friday night or Saturday, ahead of a static fire test on Sunday. There appear to be no significant technical issues to be worked on ahead of the launch next Wednesday.

Finally, on October 6, SpaceX plans an additional launch. For this mission, from Space Launch Complex-40 at Cape Canaveral, a Falcon 9 rocket will deliver Intelsat's Galaxy 33 and 34 satellites telecommunications satellites into a geostationary transfer orbit. The launch is set for 7:07 pm EST (23:07 UTC). Of note for this mission, this Falcon 9 first-stage booster will be making its 14th launch. This marks the first time a SpaceX rocket has flown a purely commercial payload on its 10th flight or later. This strongly suggests that the commercial satellite market is becoming increasingly comfortable with SpaceX's refurbishment process for even well-used rockets. Additionally, NASA said that its Artemis I hardware "survived Hurricane Ian just fine, safely tucked inside the large Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center," notes Ars. "The agency will aim to have the rocket ready for a launch attempt in about six weeks."

Japan -- which has strict laws against the use of marijuana -- should consider approving the import, manufacture and use of medicines derived from cannabis, subject to the same approval process as pharmaceuticals, a health ministry panel said. From a report: At the same time, the country should do more to discourage recreational use of the plant, the committee said in its findings following a meeting Thursday. Possession of cannabis is illegal but not its use; the panel recommended that unsanctioned use should also be made a criminal offense. While Canada, several US states and some European countries have decriminalized the recreational use of marijuana, penalties for possession, cultivation and sales of the substance in Japan can carry prison sentences of as long as 10 years. Just 1.4% of the population have ever tried cannabis, according to one study with 2017 data. Celebrities caught for possession often become front-page news.

Canada has said it is dropping all remaining Covid border restrictions, including vaccine requirements for travelers. The BBC reports: As of 1 October, travelers will also no longer need to provide proof of Covid vaccination, to undergo any testing or to isolate and quarantine. The mask mandate on planes and trains will also be lifted. The ArriveCan app -- used to upload health documents when entering Canada -- will become optional.

Federal health minister Jean-Yves Duclos said in an announcement on Monday that Canada is "in a much better position" than it was earlier in the pandemic, in part due to availability of Covid-19 vaccines and treatment options. The country's high vaccination rate - with around 82% of the population having received two doses - and a falling death rate are also factors. The report notes that vaccine mandates for travelers entering the U.S. remain in place.

Further reading: Japan To Allow Visa-Free Travel After 2 1/2 Years of Mostly Closed Borders

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: In January this year, an undersea volcano in Tonga produced a massive eruption, the largest so far this century. The mixing of hot volcanic material and cool ocean water created an explosion that sent an atmospheric shockwave across the planet and triggered a tsunami that devastated local communities and reached as far as Japan. The only part of the crater's rim that extended above water was reduced in size and separated into two islands. A plume of material was blasted straight through the stratosphere and into the mesosphere, over 50 km above the Earth's surface. We've taken a good look at a number of past volcanic eruptions and studied how they influence the climate. But those eruptions (most notably that of Mount Pinatubo) all came from volcanoes on land. Hunga Tonga may be the largest eruption we've ever documented that took place under water, and the eruption plume contained unusual amounts of water vapor -- so much of it that it actually got in the way of satellite observations at some wavelengths. Now, researchers have used weather balloon data to reconstruct the plume and follow its progress during two circuits around the globe.

Your vocabulary word of the day is radiosonde, which is a small instrument package and transmitter that can be carried into the atmosphere by a weather balloon. There are networks of sites where radiosondes are launched as part of weather forecasting services; the most relevant ones for Hunga Tonga are in Fiji and Eastern Australia. A balloon from Fiji was the first to take instruments into the eruption plume, doing so less than 24 hours after Hunga Tonga exploded. That radiosonde saw increasing levels of water as it climbed through the stratosphere from 19 to 28 kilometers of altitude. The water levels had reached the highest yet measured at the top of that range when the balloon burst, bringing an end to the measurements. But shortly after, the plume started showing up along the east coast of Australia, which again registered very high levels of water vapor. Again, water reached to 28 km in altitude but gradually settled to lower heights over the next 24 hours.

The striking thing was how much of it there was. Compared to normal background levels of stratospheric water vapor, these radiosondes were registering 580 times as much water even two days after the eruption, after the plume had some time to spread out. There was so much there that it still stood out as the plume drifted over South America. The researchers were able to track it for a total of six weeks, following it as it spread out while circling the Earth twice. Using some of these readings, the researchers estimated the total volume of the water vapor plume and then used the levels of water present to come up with a total amount of water put into the stratosphere by the eruption. They came up with 50 billion kilograms. And that's a low estimate, because, as mentioned above, there was still water above the altitudes where some of the measurements stopped. The recent findings appear in a new study published in the journal Science.

Japan will allow visa-free, independent tourism and abolish a daily arrival cap as of Oct. 11, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said Thursday, marking a major policy shift after nearly 2 1/2 years of strict COVID-19 restrictions. The government will also launch a nationwide travel discount program, which had been shelved due to the spread of COVID-19 infections. The Japan Times reports: Kishida made the long-awaited announcement during his visit to New York for the U.N. General Assembly. "I hope many people will utilize it," Kishida said at a news conference. "I want to support the travel, entertainment and other industries that have been struggling during the coronavirus pandemic." Japan has been allowing tourists since June, starting with people on guided tours. On Sept. 7, the government allowed those on nonguided tours who had booked their flights and hotels through registered travel agencies. But those measures have been unpopular with many foreign tourists who want greater freedom during their trips.

Tourists will need to be vaccinated three times or submit a negative COVID-19 test result ahead of their trip, Kyodo News reported, citing government sources. A nationwide domestic travel program offering discounts for travel, entry to theme parks, and for sporting events and concerts is also set to start on Oct. 11. People who have been vaccinated three times or submit a negative test result will be eligible for the discounts, according to the report. The program offers financial assistance of up to $77 per person for a one-night stay. The moves will be welcomed by the nation's tourism sector, which has been hit hard by the pandemic. "In 2019, a record 31.88 million foreign travelers visited Japan, but the figure plummeted to about 250,000 in 2021 due to the closed borders," notes the report. "The daily arrival cap has been raised gradually over the past six months, first to 5,000 on March 1 and eventually to the current 50,000."

Apple says it will increase App Store prices across Europe and in some Asian markets next month as currencies weaken against the strong US dollar. The price increases will effect both in-app purchases and regular apps on the App Store starting on October 5th. From a report: All countries using the Euro, Sweden, South Korea, Chile, Egypt, Malaysia, Pakistan, Vietnam, and Japan will be affected by the price hikes. All Euro markets, except Montenegro, will see the base $0.99 app pricing move to $1.19 next month, a 20 percent jump. In Japan the hikes are more than 30 percent, amid the yen dropping to a new 24-year low against the US dollar.

China installed almost as many robots in its factories last year as the rest of the world, accelerating a rush to automate and consolidate its manufacturing dominance even as its working-age population shrinks. WSJ: Shipments of industrial robots to China in 2021 rose 45% compared with the previous year to more than 243,000, according to new data viewed by The Wall Street Journal from the International Federation of Robotics, a robotics industry trade group. China accounted for just under half of all installations of heavy-duty industrial robots last year, reinforcing the nation's status as the No. 1 market for robot manufacturers worldwide. The IFR data shows China installed nearly twice as many new robots as did factories throughout the Americas and Europe.

Part of the explanation for China's rapid automation is that it is simply catching up with richer peers. The world's second-largest economy lags behind the U.S. and manufacturing powerhouses such as Japan, Germany and South Korea in the prevalence of robots on production lines. The rapid automation also reflects a growing recognition in China that its factories need to adapt as the country's supply of cheap labor dwindles and wages rise. The United Nations expects India to surpass China as the world's most-populous country as soon as next year. The population of those in China age 20 to 64 -- the bulk of the workforce -- might have already peaked, U.N. projections show, and is expected to fall steeply after 2030, as China's population ages and birthrates stay low.

"Whirring as it powered up, a hoverbike lifted directly into the air in Michigan, video shows."

That's the lead from one news report about a big debut at a U.S. auto show in Detroit: a gasoline-and-electric powered hoverbike (using a Kawasaki motor) created by Japanese manufacturing company AERWINS Technologies. They've already started selling them in Japan, and they're now also hoping to sell a smaller version in America in 2023. The hoverbike flies for 40 minutes, Reuters reports, and can reach speeds of up to 62 miles per hour (100 kph). (They added that the bike drew "perhaps inevitable comparisons to the speeder bikes of Star Wars.")

From McClatchy news services: Video from WXYZ's Facebook shows the hoverbike's flight. The test rider checks the vehicle then signals with a fist pump. The engines power up, whirring louder and louder until the bike lifts off. The hoverbike flies back and forth, slightly faster as the ride goes on, then lands smoothly to the ground, video shows. "I feel like I'm literally 15 years old and I just got out of Star Wars," the test rider told Reuters. "It's awesome! Of course, you have a little apprehension, but I was just so amped. I literally had goosebumps and feel like a little kid...."

The price of a hoverbike? Only $777,000 according to current estimates, though the company hopes to get the cost down to about $50,000, The Detroit News reported.
The Detroit News adds this about the company's founder/CEO: As a boy, Shuhei Komatsu loved Star Wars movies, especially the lightning-fast land speeders. So when he grew up, he decided to make one of his own, he said.

"I wanted to make something from the movie real," Komatsu said. "It's a land speeder for the Dark Side...."

Komatsu said his company will make its public offering of stock on the NASDAQ exchange in November.... He said he's hoping the U.S. government classifies its XTURISMO as a non-aircraft.... He said he thinks consumers will buy the machine for recreation, and governments will buy it for law enforcement and for inspecting infrastructure. "I hope that in the future, people will use it for every day," he said.

The makers of the secure telnet client PuTTY also sell a service monitoring company security services — and this July Mandiant Managed Defense "identified a novel spear phish methodology," according to a post on the company's blog: [The threat cluster] established communication with the victim over WhatsApp and lured them to download a malicious ISO package regarding a fake job offering that led to the deployment of the AIRDRY.V2 backdoor through a trojanized instance of the PuTTY utility.... This activity was identified by our Mandiant Intelligence: Staging Directories mission, which searches for anomalous files written to directories commonly used by threat actors....

The amazon_assessment.iso archive held two files: an executable and a text file. The text file named Readme.txt had connection details for use with the second file: PuTTY.exe.... [T]he PuTTY.exe binary in the malicious archive does not have a digital signature. The size of the PuTTY binary downloaded by the victim is also substantially larger than the legitimate version. Upon closer inspection, it has a large, high entropy .data section in comparison to the officially distributed version. Sections like these are typically indicative of packed or encrypted data. The suspicious nature of the PuTTY.exe embedded in the ISO file prompted Managed Defense to perform a deeper investigation on the host and the file itself.

The execution of the malicious PuTTY binary resulted in the deployment of a backdoor to the host.
"The executable embedded in each ISO file is a fully functional PuTTY application compiled using publicly available PuTTY version 0.77 source code," the blog post points out.

Ars Technica notes that Mandiant's researchers believe it's being pushed by groups with ties to North Korea: The executable file installed the latest version of Airdry, a backdoor the US government has attributed to the North Korean government. The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has a description here. Japan's community emergency response team has this description of the backdoor, which is also tracked as BLINDINGCAN.

AmiMoJo writes: The operator of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, which suffered core meltdowns in 2011, is considering a new submersion method for removing radioactive fuel debris that would wholly encase a reactor building in a water-filled, tank-like structure, a source close to the company said earlier this month. Conceptual breakthroughs with the method, whose advantages include using water's ability to interrupt radiation and thereby provide a safer working environment, have made it a promising candidate for the cleanup of the defunct nuclear plant, according to the source close to Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings (Tepco). But with no proven track record in the nuclear field, investigations are ongoing into future technological issues and costs, among other contingencies. The source said it could "require advanced technology to stop water leaking out and become a huge construction project."

Were it to go ahead, the process from building to actual debris removal would be lengthy and would likely affect total decommissioning costs, currently pegged at about $57.45 billion. In the aftermath of the March 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami, nuclear fuel cooling processes failed at the Fukushima plant's reactors 1 through 3, causing the fuel to melt and re-solidify into radioactive debris mixed with concrete, metal and other materials present in the reactors. Debris removal is the operator's most challenging issue in the Fukushima plant cleanup. Some 880 tons of the radioactive waste material is estimated to have been created by the nuclear meltdown across the three reactors. The new submersion method, which is currently expected to be applied to the No. 3 reactor, would involve building a strong, pressure-resistant structure, much like a ship's hull or a plane's body, completely encapsulating the reactor, including underground. The structure could then be filled with water, and removal work would take place from the top.

CNBC reports that former Tesla CFO Deepak Ahuja (now at Alphabet's Verily Life Sciences) will join the leadership team at Zipline, a Silicon Valley-based company providing drone deliveries: It initially focused on medical supplies, but is expanding into e-commerce and food delivery. The company has previously partnered with the Rwandan government to deliver medical supplies and handled Covid-19 vaccine distribution in Ghana, and has expanded operations from three to seven countries over the last two years, according to a release....

"Rarely do I see this level of disruption and impact paired with the world-class technology that Zipline's team is building," Ahuja said in a release. "It's an exciting time for Zipline, and I'm thrilled to join the team as we keep building to offer these solutions at a massive scale."
The move comes "as the drone delivery and logistics startup accelerates its global expansion in Africa, the United States and other regions," reports TechCrunch, noting that Ahuja will be the company's first chief business and financial officer: Zipline also operates in Japan and in the United States, including Arkansas and North Carolina. The company is expanding to Utah later this year through a partnership with Intermountain Health and announced plans to begin operations with Multicare Health System in Washington starting in 2024.

Ahuja will focus on building Zipline's business in the United States and other regions globally, the company told TechCrunch.... His appointment signals Zipline's growing aspirations fueled by partnerships and $250 million in venture capital it raised last year. (The company has raised $486 million to date.) The company, founded in 2014, has developed the entire ecosystem from the drones and logistics software to launch and landing system....

It also recently received FAA Part 135 approval for its long-range drone delivery service in the United States.... Zipline has partnerships with Toyota Group and UPS, it delivers medical equipment and personal protective gear for Novant Health in North Carolina and health and wellness products for Walmart.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNET: In a new study, published Monday in the journal npj Flexible Electronics, an international team of researchers revealed it has engineered a system to remotely control the legs of cockroaches from afar. The system, which is basically a cockroach backpack wired into the creature's nervous system, has a power output about 50 times higher than previous devices and is built with an ultrathin and flexible solar cell that doesn't hinder the roach's movement. Pressing a button sends a shock to the backpack that tricks the roach into moving a certain direction.

Cockroach cyborgs are not a new idea. Back in 2012, researchers at North Carolina State University were experimenting with Madagascar hissing cockroaches and wireless backpacks, showing the critters could be remotely controlled to walk along a track. The way scientists do this is by attaching the backpack and connecting wires to a cockroach's "cerci," two appendages at the end of the abdomen that are basically sensory nerves. One on the left, one on the right. Previous studies have shown electrical impulses to either side can stimulate the roach into moving in that direction, giving researchers some control over locomotion. But to send and receive signals, you need to power the backpack. You might be able to use a battery but, eventually, a battery will run out of power and the cyborg cockroach will be free to disappear into the leaf litter.

The team at Riken crafted the system to be solar-powered and rechargeable. They attached a battery and stimulation module to the cockroach's thorax (the upper segment of its body). That was the first step. The second step was to make sure the solar cell module would adhere to the cockroach's abdomen, the segmented lower section of its body. [T]he Riken team tested a number of thin electronic films, subjecting their roaches to a bunch of experiments and watching how the roaches moved depending on the thickness of the film. This helped them decide on a module about 17 times thinner than a human hair. It adhered to the abdomen without greatly limiting the degree of freedom the roaches had and also stuck around for about a month, greatly outlasting previous systems. "The current system only has a wireless locomotion control system, so it's not enough to prepare an application such as urban rescue," said Kenjiro Fukuda, an expert in flexible electronics at Japan's Riken. "By integrating other required devices such as sensors and cameras, we can use our cyborg insects for such purposes."

Fukuda notes the design of the ultrathin solar cell could be applied to other insects, like beetles and cicadas.

A surprise from the Associated Press. The head of America's Environment Protection Agency "said Friday that advanced nuclear technology will be 'critical' for both the United States and Japan as they step up cooperation to meet decarbonization goals." Michael Regan, after holding talks with his Japanese counterpart Akihiro Nishimura in Tokyo, told a joint news conference that nuclear energy in their countries plays a role... "I think the science tells us that we have to respond to the climate crisis with a sense of urgency and nuclear energy and nuclear technology has and can have a role in continuing with a zero emissions contribution to the climate," he said, showing support for Japan's recent shift toward returning to nuclear energy.

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said last week he instructed his government to consider developing safer, smaller nuclear reactors, in a renewed emphasis on nuclear energy years after many of the country's plants were shut down. Kishida said Japan needs to consider all options of energy mix, including nuclear, to bolster its "green transformation" effort to curb emissions of greenhouse gases and to secure stable energy supply. Japan has pledged to reach carbon neutrality by 2050.... While maintaining a 20%-22% target for nuclear energy as part of its energy mix for 2030, Japan's government had previously insisted it was not considering building new plants or replacing aged reactors, apparently to avoid stoking criticism from a wary public. Kishida's recent comment represents a sharp change from that stance.

Kishida asked a government panel to decide by the end of the year on its proposal for the development and construction of "new innovative reactors," such as small modular reactors, while also considering extending operational lifespan of aging reactors.

President Joe Biden also believes that it is an "all hands on deck approach," Regan said, adding that investments in nuclear technology and carbon capture will complement the big potential for renewable energy.

The Ocean Cleanup project has an announcement....

75% to 86% of plastic debris in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch "originates from fishing activities at sea." Plastic emissions from rivers remain the main source of plastic pollution from a global ocean perspective. Plastic lost at sea has a higher chance of accumulating offshore than plastic emitted from rivers, leading to high concentrations of fishing-related debris in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch [or GPGP]. New findings confirm the oceanic garbage patches cannot be cleaned solely through river interception and highlight the potentially vital role of fishing and aquaculture in ridding the world's oceans of plastic....

Our previous research has shown that almost half of the plastic mass in the GPGP is comprised of fishing nets and ropes (fibrous plastics used, for example, to make our The Ocean Cleanup sunglasses), with the remainder largely composed of hard plastic objects and small fragments. While the provenance of fishing nets is obvious, the origins of the other plastics in the GPGP have — until now — remained unclear.... In 2019, System 001/B, an early iteration of our cleanup technology, retrieved over 6,000 hard plastic debris items (larger than 5 cm) from the GPGP, providing our scientists with a unique opportunity to study larger objects not studied by previous research efforts. Each item was sorted into predefined item categories and inspected individually for evidence of country of origin (evidence may include language or text on the object, company name, brand, logo, or other identifying text such as an address or telephone number, etc.) and date of production. This comprehensive analysis revealed that roughly a third of the items were unidentifiable fragments. The other two-thirds was dominated by objects typically used in fishing, such as floats, buoys, crates, buckets, baskets, containers, drums, jerry cans, fish boxes, and eel traps.

Nearly half (49%) of plastic objects which could be dated were produced in the 20th century, with the oldest identified item being a buoy dating from 1966. This distribution is in line with our previous research showing significant occurrence of decades-old objects in the GPGP and re-emphasizes that the plastic in these garbage patches persists and can cause harm for lengthy periods, continually degrading into microplastics and becoming increasingly difficult to remove. In short, these results underline the urgent need to clean the GPGP; no matter what actions are taken to prevent riverine plastic emissions, the GPGP will persist and its content will continue to beach on remote islands, such as the Hawaiian Archipelago, and fragment into microplastics that will eventually sink to the seabed.
Surprisingly, countries near the edge of the northern Pacific (like the Philippines) weren't major contributors to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, and instead their research blamed Japan (34%), China (32%), the Korean peninsula (10%), and the USA (7%). While they're not major sources of plastic from rivers, "they do carry out the majority of industrialized fishing activities in the GPGP region....

"[T]rawlers, fixed gear, and drifting longlines accounted for more than 95% of identified fishing activities that may account for emissions of floating plastic debris into the GPGP. "

When games like Dragalia Lost shut down for good, what happens next? From a report: Dragalia Lost launched in 2018 as a statement of intent from Nintendo in partnership with Japanese developer Cygames. Nintendo may have first jumped into the field of mobile games in 2016 with the launch of games like Super Mario Run and Miitomo, but this was the first original property the company had produced exclusively for mobile devices. This free-to-play gacha game (a game whose content is generally free to access while charging microtransactions for loot boxes and randomized lotteries for rare and limited-time characters) had a flashy multi-region launch campaign collaborating with major Japanese musician DAOKO, banking on the game's success at home and abroad. And it was a hit. Less than a year after launch, the game had already earned over $100 million, with a steady stream of merchandise following soon after. Yet, as of last month, Nintendo and Cygames published the game's final update, and this week, it was revealed that the game would shut down on November 29th after just three years of operation.

Without any announcement from Nintendo of an official offline version or archive to memorialize the game after servers shut down and the game is no longer accessible to the public, fans are working across the community to preserve everything they can of a game they dedicated themselves to over the last few years. "Especially with games like Dragalia Lost and games that are on a live server and stuff, once the server closes down, you can't play that anymore," explains Sei, an active member of the game's community. "It's not like you can download a ROM of a Game Boy game and play it: once it's gone, it's gone." Free-to-play games have risen from an anomaly to the most profitable sector of the games industry. In 2012, the mobile games market hit $9 billion in revenue at a time when free-to-play revenue systems were only starting to grow more popular, challenging the norm of games charging a one-time price of entry.

At the same time, free-to-play revenue on PC was at an impressive $11 billion, thanks to titles like League of Legends, already eclipsing the revenue earned by premium titles. By 2020, free-to-play revenue across mobile, PC, and console accounted for over $96 billion. Unsurprisingly, the industry has adapted to increasingly cater to players in this bustling sector. Yet, for every headline boasting of the phenomenal revenue-generating success of titles like Fortnite or Pokemon Go comes a host of titles that burn out within a year or sometimes even less. Japan is one of the biggest regions for free-to-play games, particularly on mobile, where titles like Uma Musume: Pretty Derby have broken into the top 10 highest-grossing mobile games worldwide despite only being available in a single country. Yet, even games based on major properties like Bandai Namco's Tales of Luminaria have struggled, shutting down in under six months.

Japan's digital minister, who's vowed to rid the bureaucracy of outdated tools from the hanko stamp to the fax machine, has now declared "war" on a technology many haven't seen for decades -- the floppy disk. From a report: The hand-sized, square-shaped data storage item, along with similar devices including the CD or even lesser-known mini disk, are still required for some 1,900 government procedures and must go, digital minister Taro Kono wrote in a Twitter post Wednesday. "We will be reviewing these practices swiftly," Kono said in a press conference Tuesday, who added that Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has offered his full support. "Where does one even buy a floppy disk these days?" Japan isn't the only nation that has struggled to phase out the outdated technology -- the US Defense Department only announced in 2019 that it has ended the use of floppy disks, which were first developed in the 1960s, in a control system for its nuclear arsenal. Sony Group stopped making the disks in 2011 and many young people would struggle to describe how to use one or even identify one in the modern workplace.

Tesla has unveiled a new virtual power plant using Powerwalls home battery pack, and this time, it's on an island, Miyako-jima, in Japan. Electrek reports: A virtual power plant (VPP) consists of distributed energy storage systems, like Tesla Powerwalls, used in concert to provide grid services and avoid the use of polluting and expensive peaker power plants. Tesla launched one in California earlier this year, and it had its first emergency event earlier this month with great results. Now the company is trying to deploy a virtual power plant in Texas, and of course, it also had one in operation for years in Australia that is still expanding.

But now we have learned that Tesla also quietly built a new virtual power plant in Japan, and it has now decided to unveil it. The project is called "Miyakojima VPP" because it is located on the island of Miyako-jima, the most populous island in the Okinawa Prefecture. Tesla announced that it started to install Powerwalls in partnership with the local electric utility in 2021, and it now has over 300 Powerwalls on the island as part of the VPP. [...] Tesla explains that VPP is helping the island take better advantage of its renewable energy, but it is also proving more grid resilience, especially in the case of a natural disaster. The Miyakojima VPP is still growing, and Tesla expects that it will include 400 Powerwalls by the end of this year and 600 Powerwalls by the end of 2023. In 2024, Tesla expects to start installing Powerwalls for similar projects throughout the Okinawa Prefecture. "[W]hen power supply and demand are tight on Miyako Island, electricity generated by photovoltaic power generation is stored in Powerwall before the tight time period and discharged from Powerwall to the home during the tight time period," said Tesla in a statement translated to Japanese. "It contributes not only to the households where the is installed, but also to the stabilization of Miyako Island's grid power supply, and stabilizes the power supply on the island. In addition, in the event of a power outage due to a typhoon, etc., power will be supplied from the Powerwall to the installed home, making it possible to prevent power outages in the home."

The war in Ukraine has "reshaped" energy markets, reports the Washington Post, with gas and oil shortages driving up the price of fossil fuels.

The end result? "From Japan to Germany to Britain to the United States, leaders of countries that had stopped investing in nuclear power are now considering building new power plants or delaying the closure of existing ones." The shift is especially notable in Japan and Germany, where both turned decisively against nuclear power after the 2011 Fukushima disaster.... This week, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida announced that his government is considering constructing next-generation nuclear power plants with the goal of making them commercially operational in the 2030s. The government may also extend the operational life of its current nuclear power plants. German policymakers, meanwhile, are considering prolonging the life of three final nuclear power plants that had been scheduled to go offline at the end of the year. The reprieve would be temporary — just a year or two to get through the current energy crisis — but it would still mark a significant policy reversal that has been a major focus of Germany political life for the last decade...

Any decision in Germany would have to be approved by [German Economy Minister Robert] Habeck and his Green party — which was founded decades ago to focus on abolishing nuclear power. It remains a core policy position of the party — but so is opposition to Russia's war in Ukraine and a desire to be as strong as possible against the Kremlin. "We are in really special times," said Dennis Tänzler, a director of Adelphi, a Berlin-based climate think tank. "The bottom line is that German climate and energy policy has been shaped since Fukushima by a cross-party consensus that overall the technological risks, the security risks, are just too great."

Even some prominent nuclear critics appear open to keeping existing plants online for longer, though they oppose building any new ones. "There's no connection between building nuclear power plants and dealing with the price spike caused by the loss of Russian gas," since they take at least a decade to construct, said Tom Burke, the chairman of E3G, a London-based climate think tank. But, he said, extending the life of existing reactors could make sense. "If you can do it safely, and it's worthwhile economically to do it, I don't see any good reason not to extend the life of nuclear reactors," he said.