What a sentence! Instead of arguing and pointing out obvious, I highly recommend you read something about Japan, other than "internet news".
Putting a label on someone's culture at least calls for a few years of actually living there. After 10 years in US I still wouldn't dare giving a grade to American culture, it would take a tome (and I'd still be wrong), let alone labeling it with a single word.
Disclaimer: I'm not Japanese
P.S. Canon&Nikon, despite their "counterproductive" cultures, pretty much destroyed American and German photo equipment industries. These days it feels awkward to say "Kodak moment", most kids will probably ask "who is Kodak?"
My girlfriend works at Proto, a company that produces a bunch of entertainment-related websites. Large company, 10k people. Between meetings and actual work, she spends approximately 15 hours a DAY at work. This is not abnormal. Another friend who works at a kindergarden works 6 days a week (sunday is spent preparing lessons) and about the same (15-16 hours a day).
Read that again, tell me how that is not "counterproductive". In my girlfriend's case, the meetings alone take up 3-4 hours in a day. She leaves at 7 AM and often gets back after midnight. And for what? So that the world can find out the latest gossip about Korean dramas with an easy-to-use GUI?
While working on my startup, I took a small contract at Fujitsu. I was responsible for cleaning up the translations on some of their cell phones (the Docomo F1100 being the main one - a story for another day). I had a chat with some people there and they told me how the game works; Fujitsu gives a small salary, and pays overtime. As a result, average workers sit around for half the day, then work like nuts during overtime to finish their work.
A lot of younger workers realize this is madness, but keep in mind that the people in charge generally came up during a worker shortage in the "bubble" era. These were less competent people who now have seniority in a seniority-based system. Can you imagine how depressing it is to work on a project that you know is going to fail? That's life.
I love Japan, I love the trains, I love the politeness and I love the people. However, given a level playing field (IE: No banks artificially propping up a company to avoid declaring losses on their own records), it wouldn't take much to break the back of a lot of local companies. (As much as I hate admitting it, but I can't work effectively after 8 or 9 hours - and the Japanese don't have superior body operating systems)
> Putting a label on someone's culture at least calls for a few years of actually living there.
No, it doesn't. To give an example, I have no problem labeling Aztec culture as violent.
(Here's the long, boring thread debating this point: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=548429 )
I don't need to live somewhere to be able to point out cultural flaws, like I don't need to drink alcohol to point out the dangers of ethanol intoxication.
Don't know if you're trolling, but the iPhone doesn't even support background tasks or multimedia messaging. My Moto RAZR (from 5 years ago) has those features, and supports google maps, video recording, text messaging, full web browsing (via opera mini), and music/video playback.
Takeshi Natsuno, the inventor of Japan’s i-mode mobile web service and former Senior Vice President NTT DoCoMo, said in an interview, “I believe the iPhone is closer to the mobile phone of the future, compared with the latest Japanese mobile phones.” Natsuno also said uses the iPhone 3G himself.
Signed, a guy who used to work at a japanese telco research lab outside of Tokyo.
Point being: Everyone influences everyone else. Pretending one culture is somehow above another is idiotic and irrelevant.