New

Yamagata Shimbun News Online is the newspaper’s Japanese-language regional news site, with coverage centered on Yamagata Prefecture. Its main navigation separates prefectural news, national news, sports, events, and reader submissions. Local stories are grouped across subjects such as politics and administration, society, community affairs, the economy, and sports, while the homepage also carries major domestic and international headlines, culture and entertainment, science, environment, health, and everyday-life topics. Readers can browse local-news rankings, video reports, editorials and columns, and special projects or continuing series. The page also links to earthquake and evacuation information, warnings, tsunami and river-flood alerts, volcanic information, traffic updates, bear-sighting notices, and weather for Yamagata’s regional areas. A digital-edition application path and a viewer for newspaper pages are provided as well. The site brings together reporting and practical local-information links for following public affairs, events, sports, and daily life in Yamagata.

Akita Sakigake Shimpo’s digital edition is the official online news site of the Akita newspaper publisher, with coverage centered on Akita Prefecture. The homepage presents recent stories, editor selections and a ranking of articles accessed during the previous 24 hours. Its sections cover society and crime, daily life, politics and administration, business and industry, education and parenting, culture and entertainment, health, sports, editorials and columns, domestic and international news, and entertainment features. Readers can also find special reports and series, video, weather, maps, coupons and recipes. The site links to a viewer for newspaper pages and provides separate information paths for subscribing to the digital edition and the print newspaper, along with login and reader-submission links. It is useful for following Akita’s public affairs, regional events, local sports, everyday topics and the reporting and opinion of a newspaper based in the prefecture.

Daily Tohoku is a Japanese-language digital newspaper site focused on Hachinohe in Aomori Prefecture and the northern Ou region. Its homepage groups dated midday, morning, and evening editions, with local stories from Hachinohe, elsewhere in Aomori, and northern Iwate. Coverage includes society, business, politics, culture, education, daily life, and sports, alongside domestic and international news. Readers can also find editorials and columns, a morning news digest, quizzes and puzzles, and local notices. Article cards carry labels such as free or digital-only, indicating different content types without implying a single access rule for the whole site. Links lead to the electronic newspaper, article search, tags, services, and the Tomo no Kai membership area; the homepage also offers information about purchasing the print paper. The online edition is useful for following local events, community sports, and everyday life in northern Tohoku while keeping up with major national and international headlines.

Web To-o is the Japanese-language news site of To-o Nippo Press, headquartered in Aomori City. It centers on local reporting from Aomori Prefecture and includes general news, commentary and columns, obituaries, sports, special features and series, lifestyle, leisure, entertainment, photos and video, and content for younger readers. The homepage brings together Aomori weather, breaking updates, events, article rankings, prefectural news, and major stories from Japan and abroad. Premium sections include in-depth news, long-form reports, special columns, and collections of serialized coverage; some items are marked for reader members. The site links to newspaper subscriptions, print-edition viewing, database search, member registration and login, and its news app. It also offers reader submissions, a junior-reporter project, and education and entrance-exam information for Aomori. Its national-news links include Kyodo News and 47NEWS. This is To-o Nippo’s digital edition for readers seeking Aomori reporting alongside stories about daily life, sports, and culture.

Kahoku Shimpo Online is the Japanese-language news site of Kahoku Shimpo Publishing, headquartered in Sendai. It focuses on Sendai and Miyagi while covering local news across the Tohoku region, including Aomori, Iwate, Akita, Yamagata, and Fukushima. Sections also cover politics and administration, business, society, sports, culture and daily life, education, and national and international news. The site features reporting on disaster preparedness and the 2011 Tohoku earthquake, editorials and columns, long-running series, visual news, videos, photo features, and article rankings. Readers can find high-school entrance-exam information, submission forms, a podcast, and online-only columns among its regional projects. The homepage provides article search, access to morning and evening newspaper pages, and sign-up and login links; some articles and features are presented for members. The publisher notes that Kyodo News supplies national and international coverage. It is a digital edition for following Tohoku reporting alongside broader Japanese news.

Hokkaido Shimbun Digital is the Japanese-language news site of The Hokkaido Shimbun Press. It covers regional news, society, business, politics, sports, lifestyle and culture, opinion, national and international stories, and personnel announcements. Local navigation spans Hokkaido, with entry points from Sapporo and Ishikari to eastern, northern, and southern areas of the island. The homepage also features serialized coverage, special reports, reporter-explainer videos, photo stories, article rankings, event listings, and weather, traffic, and disaster alerts. Audio segments discuss Hokkaido news and food, while quizzes and puzzles offer additional reading features. The site links to free and paid membership registration, subscription information, and login; articles marked for members and paid-member content, including premium videos, are also shown. It is a digital source for following Hokkaido reporting alongside broader Japanese and international news and coverage of everyday life and culture.

Chunichi Shimbun Web is the Japanese-language news site published by the Chunichi Shimbun, with coverage centered on the Tokai and Chubu regions. Its homepage links to local news for Aichi, Gifu, and Mie, while articles and regional links also feature places such as Ishikawa, Shiga, Nagano, and Fukui. Alongside society and sports reporting, the site offers special features and serialized stories, the Chunichi Shunju editorial, videos, photos, article rankings, and weather and traffic information. Readers can also find submissions from the public, information for students preparing for entrance exams, an archive of wartime experiences, brain-training games, recipes, and a daily horoscope. Links lead to print-edition viewing, newspaper subscription information, Chunichi Plus membership and login, and related newspaper services such as an article database. It is a digital news destination for people following regional developments and everyday, education, sports, and culture coverage from the Chunichi newsroom.

Tokyo Shimbun Digital is the Japanese-language news website of the Tokyo Shimbun newspaper. Its homepage groups coverage into Tokyo and greater metropolitan-area reporting, society, politics, business, international news, sports, lifestyle, and culture and entertainment. Readers can also browse editorials and columns, serialized features, article rankings, videos, photo stories, and event information; articles display publication times or dates. The site links to a digital view of the printed newspaper, newspaper subscription information, and account login. It also invites readers to share information with reporters and highlights reporting based on questions and tips from the public. The service is useful for readers seeking Tokyo-area local reporting alongside Japanese and international news, commentary, and stories about everyday life and culture from the Tokyo Shimbun newsroom.

Sankei News is the Japanese-language online news site associated with the Sankei Shimbun. Its homepage organizes coverage into sections including breaking news, rankings, politics, world affairs, society, business, sports, entertainment, lifestyle, opinion, and events. Readers can also find special features, serialized columns, regional reporting, videos, editorials, and regular commentary such as Sankei Shō and Seiron. The current page lists recent articles with publication times, and some stories are explicitly marked as paid-member articles. The site provides registration and login links and separates member-only coverage from publicly accessible stories, so access conditions vary by article. It is a single destination for Japanese national news, political and economic reporting, editorials, local stories, and lifestyle or cultural coverage from Sankei.

AIsmiley is a Japanese-language portal where organizations can search and compare AI products and services and request product information. Its catalog covers areas such as generative AI, AI agents, chatbots, image recognition, AI optical character recognition, demand forecasting, and custom AI development. The site also publishes product news, adoption case studies, feature articles, webinars, events, and an AI/DX glossary. Visitors can request product brochures and comparison materials at no charge, and can consult an AI specialist holding Japan’s G Test qualification about ways to use AI products, also without a consultation fee. Newsletter signup is free as well. Free portal research and material requests do not mean the listed AI products themselves are free: product functions, terms, and prices vary by provider and should be checked in each listing or its materials. The portal is operated by AIsmiley Inc.

AI Market is a Japanese matching service that helps organizations find, compare, and select AI development companies and services. Its site organizes providers by areas such as generative AI and large language models, AI agents, image recognition, demand forecasting, speech recognition, and retrieval-augmented generation. Visitors can compare listed options and request materials themselves, or ask an AI-focused consultant to understand their business needs and propose candidates. The consultation process may cover the goal, target operations, available data, organizational setup, budget, and schedule; the site says recommendations are selected from partner providers reviewed under its own criteria. Its FAQ states that consultation and introductions are free for customers and that customers contract directly with the selected provider. It also discloses that listed companies may pay listing fees or referral compensation. The site additionally offers implementation examples, practical AI articles, guides, and event information.

Ledge.ai is a Japanese-language media publication covering important developments in rapidly changing artificial intelligence. Its official introduction says it presents information useful for current work, perspectives for thinking about the near future, and examples of AI use in unexpected fields. The site organizes coverage into areas including business, learning, engineering, academic research, public affairs, and entertainment and art, and offers news, features, videos, rankings, and topic-tag search. Current articles cover generative AI, AI agents, company use cases, public policy, and research, with new posts visible in September 2026. Ledge Inc. operates the publication. Article pages are publicly readable; registered members can also watch webinars, apply for events, and manage viewing history, favorites, and event participation from a personal page.

AINOW is a Japanese-language specialist media site covering artificial intelligence and digital transformation. Its official introduction says it publishes explanations ranging from AI fundamentals to technical topics for both business readers and engineers, interviews about the work of AI companies and startups, contributed articles sharing company know-how, and news about AI and DX services, events, and partnerships. The current homepage features material on generative AI, AI agents, chatbots, workplace use cases, and comparisons of tools, with new articles dated September 2026. AINOW is operated by Dip Inc.; the publication describes its mission as reducing gaps in access to AI knowledge and connecting insights across industry, government, and academia. Articles can be read on the site, while readers may separately sign up for a weekly email selection of featured stories. It is useful for following Japanese AI coverage and practical business and technology perspectives.

Nishika Inc. is a Japanese AI company that develops products and tailored solutions to improve business operations and help customers create additional value. Its official business page lists SecureMemo, an on-premises meeting-minutes tool designed for environments disconnected from external networks; SecureMemoCloud, a cloud service for meeting transcription and records; and AI Concierge, offline AI chat and retrieval-augmented generation software. Its solutions work includes private AI configured for closed or high-security environments, speech-recognition systems with speaker separation, speaker recognition, and multilingual translation, and on-premises AI agents that can use multiple tools. Nishika says it helps customers design AI-oriented business change and carry it through implementation and adoption in actual workplaces. Organizations can use the site to review its meeting-recording products and consultative development services for secure internal AI use.

SIGNATE Competition is a Japanese platform where companies and public organizations present data-focused challenges and participants compete by developing algorithms or proposing solutions. Users choose a competition, review its problem statement and rules, agree to its participation terms, download the data, build an analysis or model, and submit their results. Scores and rankings appear on a leaderboard, allowing participants to refine submissions and gain practical experience solving data problems. Competition results, medals, and activity are recorded on participant profiles, and winners can complete the event-specific process to receive awards. SIGNATE’s official guide says an account is required to participate; dataset access and submission conditions are governed by each competition’s rules. The platform is for people seeking hands-on AI and data-science challenges, a way to compare model performance, and a record of their competition activity.

NII Research Data Cloud (NII RDC) is a research-data infrastructure developed and operated by the National Institute of Informatics (NII) through its Research Center for Open Science and Data Platform (RCOS). Its core structure follows three functions across the research-data lifecycle: GakuNin RDM manages and shares project data during research; JAIRO Cloud provides the institutional-repository publication foundation; and CiNii Research provides discovery of scholarly publications and research data. The official page presents these management, publication, and search foundations as support for open science, research integrity, and data-driven research. NII says development began in 2017 and full-scale operation began in 2021. RCOS also describes ongoing development to enhance the infrastructure in areas including data governance and provenance, reproducible-code packages, privacy-preserving analysis, secure storage, curation, and training. These enhancement topics are identified as research and development work, distinct from the three named core services.

JAIRO Cloud is a cloud-based institutional repository environment jointly operated by Japan’s National Institute of Informatics (NII) and JPCOAR. It uses WEKO, repository software developed by NII, to let eligible member institutions establish and operate their own repositories without managing the underlying hosting infrastructure. Institutions can register individual items or batches of content and metadata, schedule public release, provide field-specific and full-text search, allow file downloads, and export metadata in several formats. The service includes user registration and approval functions for institutional self-archiving, while OAI-PMH output using the JPCOAR schema enables repository records to be shared with services such as IRDB and CiNii. The standard storage allocation is free up to 100 GB; special usage-based fees apply above that amount. Participation in JPCOAR is required to apply for and use the service.

DDBJ is the DNA Data Bank of Japan, operated by the Bioinformation and DDBJ Center at the National Institute of Genetics. As a member of the International Nucleotide Sequence Database Collaboration (INSDC), the center collects nucleotide sequence data submitted by researchers, assigns internationally recognized accession numbers, and provides released records online. Through daily data exchange among DDBJ, the European Nucleotide Archive at EMBL-EBI, and NCBI, the partners maintain a shared international nucleotide sequence resource. The official service directory includes annotated and assembled genome, gene, and transcript sequences; DRA for raw high-throughput sequencing data and alignments; GEA for functional genomics data; BioProject and BioSample records; and MetaboBank for metabolomics data. The portal also provides sequence and taxonomy search, data retrieval, submission guidance, analysis tools, web APIs, and public downloads. Separate controlled-access databases such as JGA and AGD support sharing of individual-level genotype or phenotype information among authorized researchers.

DBCLS (Database Center for Life Science) is a research center within Japan’s Research Organization of Information and Systems (ROIS), established to form a hub for integrating life-science databases. It develops infrastructure technologies and applications that support database integration and improve usability, and works on data integration assistance and standardization with research institutions in Japan and abroad. The official site highlights TogoDX/human, a web application for integrated exploration, overview, and extraction of human-related data; TogoID, a tool for exploring links among identifiers used in life-science databases and converting IDs; and TogoTV, a portal for video learning materials on bioinformatics tools and databases. DBCLS also describes collaboration with the DDBJ Center and JST’s NBDC program office. Its site brings together information on research, services, events, and publications, while the center’s main role is research and development of technologies that make scientific databases and data easier to integrate and use.