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.
![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’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: Square mobile payment comes to Japan, super-green Kitakyushu & UNIDO join, Japanese research groups are Joining the European Human Brain Project, and some really unfortunate and sad news in the world of humanoid robotics.
Today’s Dispatch: The Japanese “Smart Cities” initiative ramps up, a robot that shoots dry ice to clean up radiation, and a Japanese powder that cleans water in Tanzania (that last bit doubles as an opportunity to deride hippies, too – value added!).
Today’s Dispatch: Heavy metals from Japan might be monkeywreching the Dreamliner, some heavy metals were found in Jamaica by some Japanese guys, heavy metals irking Japan’s anti-nuclear hippies, and once again, Sony gets hit with some technosnark.
Today’s Dispatch: Japanese technology companies are not doing well. But Apple and Samsung are. Uh-oh.
This Week’s Dispatch: Hard evidence that JTFF is awesome, America sells more of it’s war machine recipes to Japan, and Japan is going to be all kinds of leading the world with green technology or something like that I wasn’t paying attention really.