In what could be seen as a nod to science fiction, Japanese scientists are making detailed plans to gather solar energy in space where it is abundant and then beam that energy down to earth.

It seems that it was just yesterday that everyone was either dying to get a Wii or had just purchased one and was talking about how wonderful it was. Now, sales are way off and Nintendo is in pain.

I don’t know.  Does designating 335,561 square miles of ocean as protected somehow make up for all the environmental laws and regulations that he has so cavalierly watered down?  Will this designation somehow make the worst environmental President ever somehow an environmental hero?

Nintendo recently announced that the company will be looking to integrate video and food services into the Wii. The Wii is Nintendo’s latest video game console with Internet capability. There is a growing trend of merging technologies as seen with Sony’s PS3 and Microsoft Xbox 360.

Japanese electronics and other goods are in high demand in China. Next month, a new internet shopping mall will open in China that will allow Chinese to pay for Japanese goods with the popular China UnionPay cards.

Usually, when we think of impulse purchases, our minds go to that alluring candy bar that we drop into our cart in the supermarket checkout aisle. Apparently that is not what the typical citizen of Japan thinks of, though. Two of the top 20 impulse buys in that island nation are the Wii Fit game console and the Apple iPhone. Items like candy are on the Japanese list, as well, although in slightly different forms than what their American counterparts would buy on impulse.

Faced with drastically lower global economic expectations, handset manufacturing giant Nokia says that they will pull out of the lucrative (but quirky) Japanese cell phone market, one of the largest in the world. Nokia has announced that they will stop developing and manufacturing handsets for Japanese partners NTT DoCoMo and Softbank Mobile, effective immediately.

Just one day after the the early AMD launch of their new Shanghai series of processors, Intel has pre-launched the first members of their much-heralded Nehalem series of chips. The early delivery of the new AMD chip was covered here in this column yesterday, but that timing advantage did not last long. Intel made Nehalem processors available in Tokyo late last night. The new Intel processor is scheduled for delivery worldwide tomorrow.

Honda has developed and introduced a cybernetic device which is used to help support body weight and reduce stress on the legs and knees. Although the bulk of Honda’s presentation of the device was aimed at assisting factory workers, there are obvious implications for others among the rapidly aging population of our planet. The mechanism is specifically designed support the weight of the body, reduce stress on the knees, help getting up steps, and staying in crouching positions.

The ailing economy continues to have a significant negative effect on the technology sector. Falling share prices in SanDisk is prompting the second move in as many months to buy the ailing flash memory company’s chipmaking facilities in Japan. Last month, the suitor was memory giant Samsung, whose bid was rejected by SanDisk as being too low. The newest company to show an interest in the facilities is tech behemoth Toshiba.

The Internet has made the world a much smaller place over the past few years, with all of us able to communicate with each other across vast distances. But, it’s important to remember the cultural differences that make each nation individual and unique. Which is exactly what Webkare, a Japanese social network where girls can hook up with virtual Animé characters, does.

CERN is beginning to run experiments to recreate the ‘Big Bang’ theory of Universe creation on the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).   While some fear that these experiments will lead to the destruction of Earth, physicists associated with the project from around the world have assured everyone that the experiments are safe.

For those that are visually oriented, WorldMapper is the best way to view many statistical realities.  Floods in the Midwest, Hurricanes in Florida and the Gulf Coast are major disasters right?  Not if you look at a map of the world affected by Disasters.  The U.S. barely registers.

All of those images of robots that we have amassed from scifi pictures and TV series may have it all wrong.  Robots won’t be covered in metal, but in a rubberized e-skin developed by researchers at Japan’s Tokyo University.

Sounding more like a character from a play than an electric car, Subaru is about to introduce a new electric prototype at the G8 summit in Hokkaido, Japan.  This little electric plug in will be bigger than many of the electric cars previewed so far that are only two seaters.

Wind turbines are normally big, noisy, and expensive.  Several inventors have created home wind power options that are efficient, productive, and more affordable than the traditional methods.  Not all of the products that are mentioned in this article are available – yet.  When all of these home wind power products will be manufactured for sale is unknown as are the possible prices. Some of the products mentioned below are available and such information that can be found on pricing is included.  Each inventor took a different approach and created different look.

Remember HAL?  He was the artificial intelligence computer in 2001: A Space Odyssey.  Well, this HAL won’t be shoving people out of any airlocks but it does read minds, sort of.