Archive
Reuters blog archive
from Photographers Blog:
Fishing with film
By Carlos Barria
In the "old" days, back before digital photography, photographers used to lug around tons of extra luggage, portable dark rooms, and set up shop in their hotel bathrooms. Or they would send their film -- by motorcycle, car or even plane -- to somebody else in a hotel or office close by to develop it, scan it and file. Or they might have to scramble and look for a lab in the middle of a crisis, in a foreign country. I don't think my colleague Joe Skipper speaks Spanish, but I know that when he covered a showdown at Colombia's Justice Ministry in the 80s, he learned how to say, "Mas amarillo!," "More yellow!
North America chief photographer Gary Hershorn arrives to the Vancouver international airport with all his photo lab luggage. REUTERS/Stringer
I began my career as a photographer at the beginning of the digital era, working at La Nacion in Argentina. There, in 2000, I had a front row seat to the transition. I shot film myself, but for a very short period.
La Nacion newspaper photographer Rafael Calvino edits film at the newspaper lab in Buenos Aires. Courtesy of Hernan Zenteno
from Photographers Blog:
Robot Paro comforts the elderly in Fukushima
By Kim Kyung-hoon
When I covered Fukushima’s nuclear crisis in March, the first radiation evacuees who I encountered were elderly people who had fled a nursing home which was located near the tsunami-crippled nuclear power plant which was leaking nuclear radiation.
On that night, most of the elderly who could not move well due to old age spent a cold night on a temporary shelter’s hard floor.
from Photographers Blog:
Crash test for dummies
At Toyota Motor’s safety technology media tour on Thursday, the most photogenic objects were not the cars; they were the crash-test dummies. Throughout the day at the Higashifuji Technical Center at the foot of Mount Fuji, Toyota showed us its latest safety features and research facilities, including a head-on collision between a Vitz hatchback and Toyota’s flagship Crown sedan, and a driving simulator that would make NASA proud.
Among the high-tech safety gadgets were the 21 crash-test dummies, lined up neatly in a row, with names like Bio RID II, SID-IIS and THOR. The dummies come in all sizes and shapes to simulate the impact on drivers and passengers from 6-month-old babies to pregnant women. (She comes with a mock uterus with built-in sensors.)
from Environment Forum:
The power of a soccer ball
Anyone who watched the women's World Cup final might have wondered if it's possible to harness that pure human energy. Turns out, it is. There's enough power in a soccer ball to light the night -- or at least a part of it.
It's done via sOccket, a soccer ball that kids kick around all day, where its movement generates energy. When the sun sets, plug an LED lamp into the ball and it turns into a light for reading or other purposes. Play with the sOccket for 15 minutes and use the light for up to three hours. Sustainable, non-polluting, safe.
from Reuters Soccer Blog:
Japan set new benchmark for Asia with women’s World Cup triumph
It was case of "anything you can do, I can do better" for Japan's women footballers as they defied the odds to lift the World Cup just six months after the country's men had captured a record fourth Asian title.
When Saki Kumagai slotted home the winning penalty in a dramatic shootout victory over the United States in Frankfurt on Sunday, Japan completed an astonishing run that overshadowed any achievement by an Asian soccer team at any level.
from Summit Notebook:
Short-term hopes, long-term gloom
By Tomasz Janowski
Optimism that Japan's economy will bounce back from a post-quake slump and pessimism about its long-term prospects is the prevailing message of economists addressing the Reuters Rebuilding Japan Summit.
The reasons for the near-term optimism are well known: strides made by Japanese manufacturers in restoring production and supply networks ripped apart by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami and expectations that sooner or later hundreds of billions of dollars spent on rebuilding the ravaged northeast coast will grease the wheels of the stuttering economy.
from Summit Notebook:
Looking forward to inflation
By Tim Kelly
Yoshiharu Hoshino, the president of Hoshino Resort, one of Japan's leading resort operators, is looking forward to a dose of inflation after years of sliding prices.
By engineering a rise in rates by printing money, he reckons Japan can make a big chunk of its burgeoning national debt disappear, which along with tax hikes is, he predicts, likely the way Japan is going to exit a potential crisis as debt soars to more than twice its gross domestic product.
from James Saft:
The Bank of Japan’s ill-advised “1% rule”
James Saft is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.
The Bank of Japan seems to be running its own fun-house version of monetary policy, intervening in equity markets when they fall.
Dubbed by traders the BOJ's "1% rule," the central bank is apparently stepping in to buy Japanese shares on days when they end the morning down 1 percent or more on the previous day's closing price.
from Summit Notebook:
Suntech eyes Japan growth
By Leonora Walet
Suntech Power may be the world's biggest solar panel maker but it trails Sharp, Kyocera, Panasonic and Mitsubishi Electric in the fast-growing Japanese solar market.
Now, the company is set to take on these Japanese rivals on their home turf and aims to double its market share in the country to 10 percent next year.
from Newsmaker:
Video: A critical piece in jumpstarting Japan’s recovery
On June 22, from Japan, Paul Ingrassia will interview live the legendary business executive Carlos Ghosn, the CEO of Nissan and Renault.
The global map of the auto industry is in the midst of being redrawn, and in this Newsmaker, the two will discuss the strategy Ghosn has set for Nissan's production recovery in the Japanese market and the critical role it will play in helping reset Japan's economy.
