Monday, April 9, 2001		Lens on IT

Yohei Yagi of the National Space Development Agency of Japan (NASDA) demonstrates the world's first prototype of a touchable computer display for blind users, studded with 3,072 dots that pop up to simulate images displayed on a conventional computer screen, at NASDA hedaquarters in Tsukuba . It allows blind users to “see” computer displays with their hands. It is set to be commercialised by the end of the year.

Students work on computers at the computer centre at Kabul University in Kabul, the Capital of Afganistan. Kabul University was once in the forefront of the modernisation transforming Afghanistan in the 1960s and 1970.

Microsoft Japan director of enterprise solution group Shizumi Setoguchi introduces its new business software Office XP prior to its scheduled launch in the second quarter of the year during a press preview in Tokyo.

A South Korean Internet user clicks on the homepage of Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party at a cyber cafe in Seoul during an online protest against a controversial Japanese history textbook that has drawn criticism from across Asia for whitewashing Japanese actions during World War II. Thousands of South Korean Internet users joined together in a concerted effort to disrupt the Web servers of Japan's Educational Ministry and various other Japanese organisations by repeatedly re-loading the homepages at pre-arranged times.

Microsoft Corp promoters show off a new Xbox videogame console (R) and its controller as they introduce the new game machine during Tokyo Game Show at Makuhari Messe, Japan last week. Microsoft announced that more than 70 Japanese game companies, including Sega Corporation, have declared their support for Xbox.

— Reuters photos