Philippe Matthews Show Guru Advice, Author Reviews, Tech Reviews, Entertainment News

Although Japan’s two Suntory distilleries are known for producing a variety of single-malt whiskies, only a few, primarily the multiple award-winning 12- and 18-year-old Yamazaki expressions, have made it to our shores. But now comes a welcomed third offering, Hakushu 12 Year Old single malt ($60), produced in the namesake ...

By Eugenie Samuel Reich of Nature magazine An Irish mathematician has used a complex algorithm and millions of hours of supercomputing time to solve an important open problem in the mathematics of Sudoku , the game popularized in Japan that involves filling in a 9x9 grid of squares with the numbers 1-9 according to certain rules. Gary McGuire of University College Dublin shows in a proof posted online on January 1 that the minimum number of clues--or starting digits--needed to complete a puzzle is 17; puzzles with 16 or fewer clues do not have a unique solution. [More]

Drones on Titan Titan, a moon of Saturn, is mysterious and fascinating to us: Its cloudly atmosphere and slushy liquid-methane surface is a true glimpse into an alien world, and it's not too far away. We've briefly explored its atmosphere and its odd chemical-soaked surface, but

By Nina Chestney LONDON, Jan 6 (Reuters) - The global economy could withstand widespread disruption from a natural disaster or attack by militants for only a week as governments and businesses are not sufficiently prepared to deal with unexpected events, a report by a respected think-tank said. Events such as the 2010 volcanic ash cloud, which grounded flights in Europe, Japan's earthquake and tsunami and Thailand's floods last year, have showed that key sectors and businesses can be severely affected if disruption to production or transport goes on for more than a week

TOKYO, Jan 6 (Reuters) - Japan plans to limit the lifeof nuclear reactors to 40 years, allowing extensions only under [More]

Futurists and smart thinkers weigh in on the technology that will change how you'll do business.

By Shinichi Saoshiro TOKYO (Reuters) - A lack of preparation and poor communication at top levels after disaster struck were among the failures that turned a nuclear accident at Japan's Fukushima plant into the worst atomic crisis in 25 years, a panel probing the disaster said on Monday. [More]

By Scott DiSavino (Reuters) - U.S. regulators moved a step closer on Thursday toward clearing the country's first nuclear reactors since the Three Mile Island accident in 1979, even as the industry struggles against plunging natural gas prices and safety fears after Japan's Fukushima disaster.

Startup incubators are all the rage right now, but if you could swing a deal like mine, you might find that sometimes, doing things the old-fashioned way is best.

Two new studies are offering a sneak peak into the future of the Internet: 24/7 digital surveillance of citizens is about to become affordable for repressive regimes worldwide. Do NOT text a friend about this. In Gary Shteyngart's 2010 novel Super Sad True Love Story, ordinary Americans are glued to superpowered iPhone-like devices while authority figures monitor their every move

From using protests in Egypt to promote clothing lines to a viral campaign video, we take a look at the worst social media blunders of 2011 and what you can learn from them. Social media is immediate. An insensitive or inaccurate tweet can quickly make it around the world before any apology or explanation can even be typed.

After testing it out on himself and 100 other storytellers, Jonathan Harris launches Cowbird, a website that seeks to become the ultimate public library of human experience. Our standard mode of written expression, which started as letter writing, currently hovers around the level of the tweet--140-character missives about anything (or nothing) at all. Perhaps not for long, though.

Breaking news from your editors at Fast Company, with updates all day. Nokia Eyes U.S. With Lumia Windows Phone .

We continue our examination of the business book Purple Cow with an interview of author Seth Godin. What companies are using a purple cow strategy now, and how is Seth trying to change book publishing?

The March 2011 Tohoku-Oki earthquake that decimated Japan and its Fukushima nuclear reactors with a monster tsunami altered the seafloor off the country’s eastern coast much more than scientists had thought. Analysis released today in the journal Science indicates the ocean bed moved as much as 50 meters laterally and 16 meters vertically. The magnitude 9.0 quake occurred close to the nearby Japan Trench that runs north to south in the Pacific Ocean (dark blue line on the map below).