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| Asahi
Glass has inaugurated an ambulance service for window glass
in Japan. Well, something like that. A broken window can
be a real pane. Rain pours in. So can unwelcome characters.
So Asahi Glass has begun offering a 24-hour repair service
for window glass. |
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It’ll be good as new. |
Asahi
Glass provides the new service in cooperation with a Nagoya-based
company that specializes in emergency repair and replacement
services for homeowners. Breakage in connection with burglaries
and other nefarious activity accounts for about 70% of the
broken windows in Japanese homes. People report more than
300,000 cases of suspicious breakage annually.
Anyone with a broken window naturally wants
to get the glass fixed promptly, especially if criminal
activity is involved. The new emergency service provides
immediate peace of mind. Asahi Glass and its partner are
offering the service initially in selected urban areas,
and their plans call for broadening the service gradually. |
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NYK
Line has established a joint venture with the huge Chinese
transport group, COSCO, to carry cars. Representatives of
NYK and COSCO signed an agreement in October (photo)
to set up NYKCOS Car Carrier Company Limited.
The new joint venture initially will provide
domestic logistics support for vehicles manufactured in
China. However, the partners plan to expand into transport
services for vehicle exports and imports. NYK holds a 49%
stake in the venture, and the COSCO Group owns 51%. |
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Diamond
Lease, the largest specialized leasing firm among the Mitsubishi
companies, has sealed a promising partnership with Microsoft
Japan. In January, the Mitsubishi firm began providing large-volume
users of Microsoft products with financing for their software.
Companies that license software for more than
250 desktop computers can use so-called Microsoft Enterprise
Agreements. Those licensing arrangements provide discounts,
but they still entail large expenditures. Diamond Lease
helps companies optimize their software spending further
by devising payment plans suited to individual needs and
circumstances. |
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Nikon’s science is popular. And so are its
digital cameras. |
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Popular
Science magazine has chosen two Nikon cameras as the
best products in their class in the past year. The magazine,
a perennial favorite among amateur science enthusiasts,
selected Nikon’s D100 and COOLPIX 5700 digital cameras
in its Best of What’s New awards for 2002. Those annual
awards recognize the most innovative and useful new products
and inventions of the year.
The judges for the 2002 Best of What’s
New awards selected a total of 100 items in 10 categories,
including aviation and space, electronics, cars, photography
and computers. In choosing the Nikon D100 digital SLR camera,
the judges cited its advanced autofocus and light metering
capabilities, accurate color reproduction and superior ability
to capture the sparkle in objects. They liked the Nikon
COOLPIX5700 because of its superb 8x optical zoom lens,
its 5.0-effective-megapixel CCD that produces studio-quality
prints of up to 16 by 20 inches (40 by 50 centimeters) and
its Best Shot Selector, which automatically selects the
sharpest picture from a series of consecutive shots.
Popular Science, published monthly,
is the world’s largest science and technology magazine.
It has about 1.45 million subscribers and a readership of
more than 7 million people. Now in its 130th year, Popular
Science appears in five languages. Read more about the Best
of What’s New awards on the World Wide Web at www.popsci.com/popsci/ |
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Two
Mitsubishi companies--Kirin Beverage and Mitsubishi Corporation--have
established a joint venture with France’s Groupe Danone
to market bottled water in Japan. The venture, Kirin MC
Danone Waters Co., Ltd., imports and markets Danone’s
Volvic line of bottled water. It will also purchase, produce
and promote Kirin Beverage’s Alkali Ion brand of bottled
water. Kirin Beverage owns 51% of the venture. Danone holds
a 25% stake, and Mitsubishi Corporation owns 24%. The partners
set up the new company in November.
Kirin MC Danone Waters inherits the strong
market position that Mitsubishi Corporation has built for
Volvic in Japan. The trading house began importing and distributing
Volvic bottled water in 1993, and Volvic has become the
best-selling product by far in the premium segment of the
market. The Alkali Ion brand, meanwhile, posted growth of
more than 50% in 2002. Together, these two brands will position
the venture as a leading player in the Japanese market.
Danone, which markets its Evian line of bottled
water in Japan through another company, is the overall leader
in the Japanese market for imported bottled water. Kirin
Beverage’s distribution power was what prompted Danone
and Mitsubishi Corporation to shift their successful collaboration
to the new joint venture. |
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| A Nikon
affiliate will soon launch the world’s first truly
personalized bifocal lenses. Bifocals have come a long way
since Benjamin Franklin’s day. Ben cut two pairs of
spectacles for close-up and distant viewing in half and
put half of each lens in a frame. The biggest advance since
his innovation had been the development in 1959 of lenses
that had no visible separation. The creator of those “progressive
additional lenses” was the French company now known
as Essilor International. |
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The unveiling of the new technology for personalizing
progressive additional lenses created a sensation
in Japan. |
Today,
Essilor International is Nikon’s partner in a 50:50
joint venture. Nikon-Essilor Co. Ltd. markets both companies’
products under Nikon and Varilux Brands in Japan and markets
Nikon lenses worldwide. Essilor is also the source of the
new technology for personalizing progressive additional
lenses.
The Essilor technology allows for measuring
each wearer’s eye and head movements. Those movements
are as unique to each individual as fingerprints are. The
measurement data furnishes a basis for creating the first
truly personalized progressive lenses.
This exciting new technology will make its
global debut in Japan through Nikon-Essilor. It subsequently
will appear in other markets around the world. |
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Anew
find by Mitsubishi Gas Chemical has added to Japan’s
paltry known reserves of fossil energy resources. The find
is in Niigata Prefecture. Mitsubishi Gas Chemical is preparing
to produce up to 60,000 cubic meters of natural gas daily
from the gas field. It will use the gas as raw material
and fuel at its Niigata Plant.
Mitsubishi Gas Chemical is a leading producer
of methanol and other chemical products. Natural gas is
an important raw material for a lot of its products. |
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This display version of Mitsubishi Motors’
Canter truck contains a powerful electric motor
to assist the engine. Its hybrid system accumulates
electricity in a large battery when the engine has
power to spare. And it returns the power through
the electric motor when the truck is climbing hills
or accelerating. That improves fuel economy by letting
the engine run under an optimal load. |
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Mitsubishi Motors’ Super Great FU is a show
model that features an ultralight aluminum frame.
The company also has reduced the truck’s weight
by replacing double tires with extrawide single
tires and by using aluminum wheels. The company
has employed a technology known as variable cross-section
extrusion molding to achieve the greatest payload
capacity in this truck’s class. |
Mitsubishi
Motors starred at the Tokyo Motor Show in autumn 2002. That
was the commercial vehicle version of the show, which alternates
annually between passenger cars and commercial vehicles.
The automaker was on hand with 21 vehicles, ranging from
special-purpose minicars to heavy-duty trucks. It also exhibited
new technologies, especially in regard to improving fuel
economy and reducing noxious emissions.
Meet the New was the theme for the Mitsubishi
Motors exhibits, and the company revealed new directions
in motor transport. The show coincided with the 70th anniversary
of the Fuso Mitsubishi line of trucks and buses. Mitsubishi
Motors spun off its truck and bus operations this January
as Mitsubishi Fuso Truck and Bus Corporation. |
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Trains
run on schedule on the United Kingdom’s most expansive
outdoor miniature railway open to the public, thanks to
Mitsubishi Electric. The picturesque Bekonscot Model Railway,
in Buckinghamshire, comprises more than 450 meters of Gauge
1 track and weaves through more than 3,700 square meters
(nearly one acre) of landscaped garden.
In the early 1990s, the engineering team at
Bekonscots decided to modernize their track, which then
relied on manual operation. They chose Mitsubishi Electric
products for the railway’s signaling and controls because
the company offered superior quality, responsive technical
support and a promise of backward compatibility in future
product generations.
Mitsubishi Electric technology now supports
highly sophisticated systems at Bekonscot. Derailments occur
occasionally when overly curious children reach out and
touch the trains. When a train goes off the track, a coded
routing setting (CRS) system clicks in automatically and
reroutes the other trains around the problem area. That
helps keep a maximal number of trains running at all times.
A MP3 player heightens the sense of realism.
Sensors detect bar code markings on the trains and actuate
the MP3 player to announce the destination, route and station
stops for each train. |
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Nippon
Oil, a Mitsubishi company and Japan’s largest oil
refiner, is going global. The company already operates
worldwide, of course, in its exploration, drilling and
purchasing activities. But now, Nippon Oil will begin
marketing lubricating oil under its ENEOS brand in China.
And plans call for internationalizing the brand further,
beginning in Southeast Asia.
In 2002, ENEOS became the common name for
the retail products and operations of Nippon Oil and the
former Mitsubishi Oil. The two companies merged in 1999.
Nippon Oil already produces lubricating oil
in China through a joint venture with a local partner.
It established a wholly owned subsidiary in November to
market the lubricating oil under the ENEOS name. The new
Chinese subsidiary will supply the oil to vehicle repair
shops and other outlets throughout China. |
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Asahi
Glass fixes broken windows 24/7
