While we all may not always stick to the plan when it comes to eating the right foods, leave it to technology to find a way to get you back on course. A new wristband from Japanese carrier NTT can tell what food you’re eating simply by how you move your hand while you do …

If you’re always late because your analogue watch is off by a few minutes, then perhaps Casio‘s new timepieces will save you from future embarrassment. The Japanese watchmaker will soon be releasing a new set of wristwatches that incorporates a module called the “Connected Engine 3-way.” That’s fancy speak for a system that uses a combination of GPS, radio waves …

Japanese scientists want your help to cure cancer. No, they don’t want your money — they want the processing power of your phone. The Smash Childhood Cancer project utilises people’s phones and computers to run drug simulations, which would take thousands of years to run on a single computer. Akira Nakagawara and his team at the Saga-ken Medical Centre Koseikan …

Ever felt the brute force of social media’s scrutiny and ridicule? This insurance company wants to help. Japanese company Sompo is offering “enjo” insurance (flaming insurance), reports Rocket News, which covers people and organisations against their name being marred online by mishaps or rumours. Sompo will fork out money for the insured person/company to run media campaigns in their defense …

Going to a new country is fun, but trying to make sense of foreign menus isn’t so great. Fret not, gaijin in Japan: Carrier NTT Docomo wants to help all of those visiting The Land of the Rising Sun. The company’s Food Menu Translation AR app, though not conveniently named, uses your phone’s camera to scan menus and conveniently translates …

Can’t trust yourself to know when you’re too tired to drive? There’s now a shirt for that. Japanese company Toyobo has teamed up with Union Tool to create Cocomi, a drowsiness detecting shirt that identifies electric signals of the heart which indicate the onset of sleep. There are around 100,000 police-reported crashes in the US due to driver fatigue, estimates …

The last few years have seen wearables that monitor your heart rate blow up. Panasonic thinks it can do one better, working on camera tech that reads your heart rate just by looking at you. It’s called Contactless Vital Sensing and its software is capable of reading your heart rate without having to use special camera equipment, reports Nikkei Technology. …

If you’ve always wanted an Astro Boy of your own, you’re in luck. You can now build your own Astro Boy robot, and all it’ll take is 70 weeks and around $1,600. To assemble young Astro, you’ll have to be in Japan and buy the weekly craft magazine Shukan Tetsuwan Atom o Tsukuro (which translates to “Let’s Create Astro Boy …

Is there a more devastating sight than walking into a public bathroom, only to find all the cubicles are occupied? KDDI Corp, one of Japan’s leading carriers, knows the feeling and wants to spare you the pain. The company has developed software for PCs and smartphones to let people know just how many free bathroom stalls are available, and where, …

Phone cameras have become good enough filmmakers will use them to shoot movies, but a new chip from Sony could make them a whole lot better. The Japanese giant has developed a new image sensor that can shoot video at 960 frames per second (fps), reports Nikkei Tech. A phone equipped with this sensor will be able to take 19.3 …