Google’s company policy requires that each office reflect some of the local colour of the city around it: Google Zurich has ski gondolas, Google Pittsburgh has steel mill photos, and so on. That policy results in designs that sometimes border on twee (see: Google London's gratuitous Union Jacks), but sometimes, it ends up being brilliant in a campy sort of way. In the case of the company's new Tokyo offices, it’s the latter. Read More >>

A team of scientists unveiled the technical designs for the International Linear Collider (ILC), a proposed particle accelerator that could unravel the deepest mysteries of the universe. At just under 20-miles long, it's about 30 per cent larger than the world's biggest particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland. Read More >>

Ironically, coming from the land of the tiny, Japan has beaten the rest of the world with the biggest McDonald's fries you've ever seen. It's not just super-sized anymore, it's simply humongous. Meet the epically-named "Mega Potato". Now you're making me hungry. Read More >>

If you listen to the architect Kengo Kuma, the craze for kyosho jutaku, that distinctly Japanese variant of the micro home, started in the thirteenth century, when the poet Kamo no Chomei penned an essay about the joys of living in a shack called An Account of My Hut. Contemporaneously speaking, though, micro homes became a thing in the 1990s, when rising real estate prices and a nagging recession spurred many young Tokyo residents to reconsider suburbia. Read More >>

Oh Japan, how we love thee. Although I have no idea why your stereotypical fascination with women's pants extends to gadgets, it's nice to see you catering for everyone's tastes regardless of how weird they are. Available in briefs, thongs, boxers and classic budgie-smugglers, there's something for everyone. Read More >>

A New Zealand man has been given a three-month prison sentence for possessing weird Japanese cartoon porn, with the odd scenes of elves, trolls and pixies bonking each other deemed illegal by his country's enforcers. Read More >>

Iron Man 3 premieres in the UK today -- a day late thanks to the Iron Lady -- and while we're all champing at the bit to see what kind of pain Stark's going to bring unto the Mandarin, the lucky, lucky Japanese will be able to witness the epic badassery in practically-living 4DX. Read More >>

In Japan, just like on the continent, they love their beer with a healthy head of foam. Which explains why gadgets like the self-frothing beer mug, and now this ultrasonic frother even exist. Read More >>

The aptly named Skyward House is relatively secluded from some angles. But it actually faces a pretty well-trafficked road, so the architect had to design it with features that make it feel private. Read More >>

While there's no doubt that the nuclear crisis in Fukushima back in 2011 could have been avoided, a recent discovery suggests that this week's extended blackout was entirely out of their of hands. Instead, the loss of power lies in the diabolical paws of a now deceased, foresight-lacking rat. Read More >>

Two years ago yesterday, Japan was ravaged by a horrible tsunami. And now, right on the anniversary of the disaster, there's a new memorial to the people and things who lived through it: the "miracle tree" that survived the surge has now been converted into a sculpture. Read More >>

This bucolic Japanese bathroom is a temporary installation at Tokyo's House Vision Expo. There should be no question as to whether you'd pee in it. As long as you don't defile the bushes, that would be the best bathroom experience of your life. Read More >>

There's a newly enhanced robot helper about to assist in cleansing the streets (and nuclear dead zones) of Japan, with this latest "disaster recovery" exoskeleton supposedly only a year away from being put into service. Read More >>

Somewhere in between the honour of getting a bronze statue of yourself and the shame of re-creating your sexual organs in plastic is this awesome gummy-bear-yourself service. You can basically create a gummy replica of yourself to eat. It looks absolutely delicious. Read More >>

Sony's big PS4 announcement event claimed the machine will see a launch at the end of 2013. But where? America? Japan? Here? Everywhere? Just on the International Space Station? Even Sony doesn't seem to know the answer to that one yet. Read More >>