This week Hitachi is finally ready to send its snake/crawler hybrid robot into the heart of Fukushima Daiichi’s severely melted-down reactor #1, and a Japanese booze maker that owns an American booze maker wants to get cozier and it’s kind of funny.
Farming might be dying, but the farms still physically exist, and one in particular, located in Chiba Prefecture, the eastern edge of the Tokyo Metro area, has put part of their plot to double-use by installing a solar array above their veggie operation.
![Retiring USS Enterprise and the X-47B Shall Never Find Romance [FLASHBACK]](http://anthrobotic.com/wp-content/uploads/thumb-cache/ENTERPRISE.BYE-BYE.X-47B-e1354853962346-30e37995e573082ac65853d46d80866d-180x129-6-nocrop.png)
The U.S. Navy has retired the world’s first nuclear-power aircraft carrier after 51 years, and the first unmanned carrier-launched military drone is getting ready to enlist. Awesome technologies – glad we can do that. Sooo… where’s my goddamn spaceship?
![Japanese Technology from the Future Friday [via Akihabara News]](http://anthrobotic.com/wp-content/uploads/thumb-cache/JTFF.AKIBA_.ANTHROBOTIC-e1368805129484-bc8093c63b0667d513eefa304751bf5e-180x124-6-nocrop.png)
This week it’s Sony selling stuff to Iran, stuff that America doesn’t like, which is yet another “Sony, what are you doing?” moment, a huge internet cable has been completed in Asia, and Japan’s gung-ho nuclear (energy) tech proliferation is causing political unrest.
THIS WEEK’S DISPATCH: JAXA & the ESA taking NASA stuff into space, Japan likes Apple’s patents better than Samsung’s, Toyota and Tesla made an electric baby RAV4, and the guy who invented DRAM got a Japanese medal and $500 Gs!
THIS WEEK’S DISPATCH: Japan continues international outreach with nuclear-friendly French (outreach began with Turkey and the UAE), and sad news for hippies: a UN science committee has found no increased risk of cancer due to the Fukushima accident.
THIS WEEK’S DISPATCH: Japan wants American gas, Japan’s lack of startups, and J-tech to make horses happy!