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GIGAZINE tested connecting Hermes Agent to email via IMAP and SMTP. After adding an allowed sender, replies still did not arrive. Logs showed the error 'no Authentication-Results header.' The email account used, Sakura's Mailbox, added ARC-Authentication-Results instead, which Hermes Agent does not read for sender authentication.
Pinkoi has opened pre-orders for the InstantSnap.novo, the second-generation toy digital camera from Hong Kong brand Escura, priced at 8,894 yen with shipping from September 7. The redesigned horizontal body weighs 38g, adds a 1.3-inch LCD, upgrades to a 5-megapixel CMOS, and includes three interchangeable viewfinders plus five era filters.
Nintendo announced on September 4 via its Nintendo Today app that two presentations will air on consecutive nights in September. The Legend of Zelda 40th Anniversary Direct will stream on September 8 at 11:00 PM Japan time, running about 30 minutes. The following evening, September 9 at 11:00 PM, Nintendo Direct 2026.9.9 will air for roughly 45 minutes. Both broadcasts come ahead of the Tokyo Game Show, and the Zelda presentation coincides with the franchise's 40th anniversary, which began with the original game in 1986. Nintendo has not detailed what either broadcast will show, but sources expect updates on the recently announced remake of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. That game was previously confirmed for a 2026 launch. The Zelda Direct is a dedicated anniversary presentation, while the general Nintendo Direct the next day is expected to cover a broader slate of titles.
Apple is expected to announce the iPhone 18 Pro series at a special event on September 9 (September 10 in Japan), and price projections from Taiwan's TrendForce suggest a significant increase over the current models. According to TrendForce's smartphone market research released September 3, the iPhone 18 series could cost 10 to 20 percent more than the previous generation. U.S. outlet MacRumors applied TrendForce's earlier June forecast of a 14 to 18 percent rise to these projections, estimating the iPhone 18 Pro will start at 1,249 to 1,299 dollars, or roughly 220,000 to 230,000 yen in Japan, while the iPhone 18 Pro Max could start at 1,349 to 1,399 dollars, about 230,000 to 250,000 yen. That would mark an increase of roughly 25,000 to 35,000 yen over the current iPhone 17 Pro, which starts at 1,099 dollars (194,800 yen in Japan), and the iPhone 17 Pro Max at 1,199 dollars (214,800 yen in Japan). TrendForce attributes the higher prices mainly to surging memory costs, which it says could rise nearly 400 percent year over year for the 256GB Pro model in the third quarter of 2026. Total component costs for that model are seen climbing about 38 percent year over year.
Namco Nakano Store announced on September 4 that it would end regular operation of the arcade version of THE IDOLM@STER. Operation began on July 26, 2005. The store cited age-related malfunctions making stable operation difficult. The cabinet remains as a display item, along with 20 years of player communication notebooks.
Director Toshimasa Kuroyanagi and producer Kan Mizoguchi discussed the anime adaptation of Kazuto Mihara's historical drama manga The World is Dancing at Studio Cypic. Mizoguchi, a Nohgaku practitioner himself, explained the work's unique focus on Zeami actively creating Nohgaku rather than interpreting it, and how that creative process parallels modern anime production.
The staff for the second season of The Detective Is Already Dead, based on the light novel series by Nigoju and Umibozu, revealed a third promotional video, new cast members, and an October 7 premiere on Friday. The anime will debut on Tokyo MX at 10:30 p.m., with streaming starting earlier at 10:00 p.m. on d Anime Store. It will also air on AT-X and BS NTV, with additional streaming services to follow. Kadokawa had previously scheduled the season for July before delaying it to October. New cast members include Akari Komiyama as Mia Whitlock and Nobuhiko Okamoto as Scarlet, both introduced in the trailer. Okamoto's Scarlet is described as one of the Tuners and identified as the "Vampire," while Komiyama's Mia Whitlock is another Tuner holding the role of "Priestess." Manabu Kurihara returns to direct at ENGI, with Deko Akao handling series scripts and Yosuke Ito designing characters. The opening theme "Kono Shinzo ni Hanataba wo" is performed by Kokorone, while Kagura Nana performs the ending "Hakuchumu." Both themes are written, composed, and arranged by 40mP.
LOCUS Animation Studio will release Guardians of the Video Game, a theatrical animated film based on Gasfard's webtoon, in South Korean theaters in October. The film follows Patch, an ace agent who sets up worlds inside video games, as he enters the 8-bit game Legend of the Dragon Sword to stop it from being shut down. The studio, known for Red Shoes and The Priest, produced the film and released a launch poster and trailer.
The Elusive Samurai season 2 has added Niina Hanamiya to its cast as Mima. The season began airing July 17 on Fuji TV's Noitamina block and on AT-X, with Crunchyroll streaming it as it airs. Yuta Yamazaki returns to direct at CloverWorks, and Yasushi Nishiya returns as character designer and chief animation director. Kento Nakajima performs the opening theme, and Bocchiboromaru performs the ending with three guest vocalists from Hinatazaka46.
STORM's GKG-PSK78X3D96XT gaming PC is priced at 319,800 yen. The build pairs a Ryzen 7 7800X3D with a Radeon RX 9060 XT 16GB, 32GB of DDR5 memory, and a 1TB NVMe SSD. It targets WQHD gaming and ships in a black and gold case with a 240mm liquid cooler that carries a 2.8-inch LCD. The model is the 64th entry in the brand's recommendation series.
Manga artist Hideki Arai, known for "Miyamoto kara Kimi e" and "The World Is Mine," launched the website "Arai Hideki no Name de Baku" on September 4. The site will publish unpublished storyboards, unreleased manuscripts, and fragments of works. Arai said the trigger was wanting to publish rejected names out of frustration. He also plans to publish childhood works, self-commentary and corrections of past works, and his own manga theory.
PAPABUBBLE CHARACTERS, a new concept shop from candy maker PAPABUBBLE, opens September 4 at Nagoya PARCO. It sells candy collaborations with Panda Kopanda, Chiikawa, Disney Pixar, and Pan Dorobou, about 10 types of character products. Panda Kopanda candy captures the 1972 Takahata and Miyazaki film's characters in about 1cm cross-sections. An opening campaign through September 8 gives a limited NAGOYA lollipop with purchases of 2,000 yen or more.
TOHO Cinemas will re-sell five special items tied to the film Star Wars: The Mandalorian & Grogu starting September 6 at its Shinjuku and Namba locations. The lineup covers three popcorn boxes and two drink cups, all in limited quantities with a one-item-per-person purchase cap. Prices run from 1,700 yen to 14,800 yen. Sales methods differ by theater.
On the night of September 3, ChatGPT, Claude, and Grok all stopped responding within a short window. Grok went down about two hours before the other two. The reason the outages overlapped is not clear. During US business hours, chat interfaces and API services returned errors, disrupting companies that had just started their day. SpaceXAI attributed its problem to an outage at its Memphis compute center. Whether OpenAI and Anthropic share that facility is unconfirmed, and both companies have yet to issue official statements. Services were restored by the time the article was written.
ASCII.jp's gadget column makes the case for carrying a dedicated audio player in the streaming era. The FIIO sub-brand Snowsky ECHO NANO weighs about 33.5g, uses a 6000-series aluminum-magnesium alloy body, has a 0.91-inch OLED display and a metal multi-function dial, and packs a CS43131 DAC chip for hi-res and lossless playback. It also works as an external DAC for a smartphone.
Yurikawa Sasha held a release event for her 4th DVD 'Yuki no Naka no Strast'' on August 22 at Sofmap AKIBA Amusement Hall. The 150-minute disc from Spice Visual, priced at 4620 yen, was filmed in January in Yamagata Prefecture and includes her first snow location footage. She plays an office lady traveling with her boyfriend, played by the viewer, and called the director's novel-like script a new challenge.
The television anime of Isle Osaki's Full Clearing Another World under a Goddess with Zero Believers light novel will debut October 11 on BS Asahi, with simultaneous streaming on d Anime Store, U-NEXT, and Anime Hōdai. Artist 310 performs the opening theme "Mirai no Ashiato" and Suupeas performs the ending theme "Fall in Dream." Seven new cast members join the roster, including Yukina Shutō as Lucy and Kenshō Ono as Ryōsuke Sakurai. Riki Fukushima directs at HORNETS.
HTC NIPPON added a new Round frame design to its VIVE Eagle AI glasses lineup, joining the existing Square model. A software update brings 3K video recording, slow motion, first-person live streaming to YouTube and Twitch, and real-time translation to both designs. A new VIVE Power Boost accessory adds up to 80 percent battery capacity. Sales in Europe, North America, and Australia began September 3.
Voice actor Hiroshi Kamiya modeled items from the Masako Nozawa 90th Anniversary Project, a FAVOLC apparel line marking Nozawa's 90th birthday on October 25, 2026. Photos posted on Aoni Production's official X account show Kamiya wearing a T-shirt printed with Nozawa's face and large 'GOD' lettering. Fans responded on social media, many noting that 'Kami' in Kamiya's name means god.
A Street Fighter 6 special exhibition will run October 1 at Midland Square Cinema 2, Screen 8, ahead of the Street Fighter movie's October 16 release. Pro e-sports players Dogura and KEI.B will play a match with commentary from caster Aru. SKE48-affiliated e-sports team amshy members MIYOMARUKO and OHIME will appear for challenge segments and a talk portion.
Google DeepMind and Google Research announced WeatherNext 3, an AI weather model that ingests real-time geostationary satellite observations directly instead of learning from numerical model data. This removes the roughly six-hour delay in supercomputer-based data, letting it generate new forecasts hourly. Spatial resolution improves up to about five times over WeatherNext 2, down to 5km intervals for surface temperature and humidity. It is already rolling into Google Search, Gemini, and Google Maps.
TBS's Friday drama LOST10 has added Yuki Saito and Kenji Iwaya to its cast, bringing the announced roster to eight. Saito plays Harune, a family member of a missing mountain tour participant. Iwaya plays Awashima, a police chief and the boss of Ryusei Yokohama's detective. The final two cast members will be revealed on September 11. The show starts in October.
iRobot unveiled the Roomba Duo at IFA 2026 in Berlin, a two-robot cleaning concept that pairs a full-size main unit with an 8.4cm companion robot. The main robot carries the companion on a mechanical arm into spaces it cannot reach, and the two divide cleaning work in real time through the Roomba Home app. The companion is the Roomba Plus 575 Combo, released in 2026. iRobot said the model is a concept with no sales planned.
Round One Japan will run a Godzilla -0.0 collaboration campaign at ROUND1 stores from September 18, 2026 to January 11, 2027. The campaign spans bowling, karaoke, and amusement venues, with themed menus, collaboration packs, crane game prizes, a bowling score registration challenge, and an SNS giveaway. The campaign site and store participation vary by location. The collaboration begins at ROUND1 stores on September 4, 2026.
The staff of the original television anime Inherit the Winds announced an advanced two-week screening in Japanese theaters starting November 13, centered on protagonist Tachikawa Jinsuke. The anime premieres in January 2027 on the Agaru Anime block on CBC, TBS, and 26 other affiliated networks. Set in Bakumatsu-era Kyoto, the story follows a memory-lost soldier aided by Shinsengumi member Okita Soji, who names him Tachikawa Jinsuke. Daisuke Sakuma stars as Jinsuke, with Yuki Kaji as Okita Soji.
Age verification requirements on porn streaming sites in the UK, France, Italy, and about half of US states are pushing adult consumers back to physical media. A South Dakota shop owner reports DVD sales up 20 to 22 percent year over year. A distributor says orders from regulated states are rising. Industry figures note low compliance, with consumers turning to VPNs, foreign sites, and messaging apps.
Aoshima is re-releasing the DeLorean DMC-12 as a 1/24 scale plastic model kit in its The Supercar series. Pre-orders are open at AmiAmi and AmiAmi's Yahoo! store at 4,110 yen, against a reference price of 5,720 yen. The kit is scheduled for September 2026 and includes opening gull-wing doors, a reproduced engine, and decals.
Sunrise's 50th anniversary Armored Trooper Votoms film The Grey Witch, directed by Mamoru Oshii, revealed its full main cast. Shinichiro Miki, Yuki Kaji, Yuichi Nakamura, Tomokazu Sugita, Takahiro Sakurai, and Sumire Uesaka join previously announced Miyuki Sawashiro and Mafumi Ando. Set at the end of the Hundred Years War, the film opens nationwide November 20, 2026, and a 30-second trailer was shown.
Cygames and Tokyo Institute of Science had a joint research paper accepted at ECCV2026, the computer vision conference held September 8-12 in Malmo, Sweden. The paper, "Motion Style Slider: Endpoint-Supervised Continuous Style Control for Human Motion Diffusion," proposes a technique that adjusts acting intensity continuously like a slider, using data from Cygames' Osaka motion capture studio. The acceptance rate was 27.5 percent. The paper is registered as a poster presentation for September 11.
Hobby Japan's HJ Modelers Decal series adds Caution A water-slide decals in two color variants, Blue & Black and Red & Black. Each sheet measures about 140mm by 100mm, sells for 1,430 yen on Amazon.co.jp, and is scheduled for release on September 30, 2026. The decals carry caution markings in small 4mm and medium 7mm sizes, with icons and caution letters in one color and text rows in black.
Pasotsuku Service, which runs the used gaming PC shop Pasotsuku, launched Pasotsuku PC Builder, a web service that combines used parts one by one into a custom gaming PC. The system checks compatibility automatically against a live inventory of about 2,500 parts as of September 1, 2026. Users enter a budget and use case and receive a proposed configuration. Prices start at 59,874 yen. The article title reports 700 configurations were built in the first week.
Siroca is sponsoring the frozen food and ice cream all-you-can-eat event "Chin! Suru Restaurant in FUKUOKA," organized by Japan Access and held from September 4 to September 23, 2026, at Fukuoka Island City Forum. The company will provide 60 microwave ovens and a new toaster for finishing touches.
Voice actor Arthur Lounsbery opened his official fan site FORWARD on the Bitfan platform on September 1, 2026. The monthly membership costs 550 yen including tax and covers member-only blog posts, live streaming, group chat, a birthday message, and a digital membership card. A birthday live is scheduled for September 22. Payments can be made through docomo, au, and SoftBank carrier billing, credit cards, or Paidy.
Uber and Wayve launched a supervised robotaxi service in London on September 3, 2026, the first robotaxi service open to the general public in the UK. Riders requesting UberX, Uber Electric, or Uber Comfort may be matched with a fully electric Ford Mustang Mach-E running Wayve AI Driver at no extra charge. A Transport for London approved driver supervises from the driver's seat. About 15 vehicles are registered with TfL, and Nissan's LEAF joins the fleet later.
Anker announced MindBase at IFA Berlin 2026, a smart home hub built around local AI. It ships with 64GB of storage expandable to 48TB, evaluates security camera events on the device, and connects up to 16 wireless cameras, 4 wired cameras, and 34 sensors. It supports Matter 1.5 and works with Apple HomeKit, Amazon Alexa, Google Home, and Home Assistant. Anker also said it will retire the Eufy and Soundcore sub-brands. Price and release date are unannounced.
thatgamecompany released a LINE stamp set on September 4 featuring Sky: Children of the Light characters in Irasutoya's style, themed around the Dear Van Gogh season. The set includes 16 stamps with phrases like "Please" and "I'll do my best!" and costs 190 yen. The official post also offers free downloads of each illustration with and without text.
FIXER announced that Soka City, Saitama Prefecture, has begun introducing the on-premises generative AI service Sovereign GaiXer, the first such case among municipalities nationwide. The city has promoted AI use to address labor shortages from the declining birthrate and aging population, but conventional generative AI raised information leakage concerns for tasks handling personal and confidential data. The new system keeps AI use within a closed city office environment.
Neil Druckmann, co-creator of The Last of Us and head of Naughty Dog, said his work with the series is not finished and that several projects are currently in development. The statement appeared in a Washington Post feature published on September 3, 2026, about what makes strong video game writing, in which Druckmann was one of several writers interviewed. Druckmann described the HBO series season 3, due in 2027, as the conclusion of the story told across the two games. He then said that the end of the television adaptation does not mean the end of The Last of Us, adding that he is excited to discuss the ongoing projects when the time is right. He did not give any specifics about what those projects are. The comments follow Druckmann's earlier remarks in the making-of documentary Grounded II, released with The Last of Us Part II Remastered, in which he said he had recently found a concept that could support another chapter in the story. The sources note that Naughty Dog is also developing the new action-adventure game Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet, though neither the September State of Play broadcasts mentioned it.
Kadokawa streamed the first main promotional video and key visual for the second season of The World's Finest Assassin Gets Reincarnated in a Different World as an Aristocrat on Friday, confirming a January premiere. The video introduces two new cast members: Sumire Uesaka as Epona Rhiannon and Yūsuke Tonozaki as Neusche Gephis. Masafumi Tamura returns to direct at SILVER LINK, with the rest of the core staff back.
BenQ Japan will exhibit its MOBIUZ gaming monitor brand at Tokyo Game Show 2026, September 17-21 at Makuhari Messe. The booth, in Hall 2 at number 02-C07, is designed like a museum and shows six monitors: three premium models with the new Game Art Color HDR feature (EX321UZ, EX271UZ, EX271QZ) and three new WQHD models (EX271QMZ, EX271QM, EX271QP). The booth concept is 'Enter Any World', with a comparison area for the three standard color modes, playable areas for featured titles, and displays of developer comments from game makers on visuals and worldbuilding. The playable setup uses a GALLERIA XPC7A-R57T-WL desktop with an Intel Core Ultra 7 265F and an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti. The WQHD trio was announced in August: the EX271QMZ, a 26.5-inch quantum dot OLED with 240Hz and 0.03ms response, went on sale August 14, while the 27-inch IPS EX271QM (320Hz) and EX271QP (260Hz) launch from September. On the three public days, visitors who post their booth experience on X get a MOBIUZ pouch, and those who clear all four areas get a TGS2026 keyboard keychain. A separate campaign running September 3-16 gives away one of each WQHD monitor to three winners.
Wanokuni, the company behind the AI search optimization agent Brand UP, published the AI Search Cited Award 2026 second half, ranking the sites most cited by AI search across 21 sectors and 122 categories. The award aggregates 484,537 citations from ChatGPT, Gemini, Google AI Overviews, and Google AI Mode between February and July 2026. Twenty-one sector winners spread across 20 sites; only ASPIC took two sectors. Comparison, recommendation, and selection pages made up 32.7 percent of cited pages.
Koki Maeda's brief role as a mercenary in VIVANT Season 2 episode 16 became a talking point after he delivered all his lines in Chinese. Director Yohei Miyazaki thanked him on SNS for attending every rehearsal with the mercenary group despite a lead role elsewhere, noting the casting was decided at the last minute. Maeda posted practice videos on September 3, drawing praise for his pronunciation, including from a Taiwanese viewer who said the Chinese was understandable without subtitles.
NVIDIA has released PAIR (Personal AI Router), a free virtual inference router that detects compatible PCs on a local network and assigns AI inference jobs to them. It works with Ollama and LM Studio and needs no new API. In a demo running five subagents with Qwen 3.6-35B-A3B, a three-machine cluster averaged 8 minutes 48 seconds versus 18 minutes on a single RTX Spark PC.
MSI Computer Japan will release the MAG Z890 TOMAHAWK WIFI II motherboard on September 11. The Z890 board supports Intel Core Ultra Series 2 processors and costs 55,980 yen. It uses a black military-style design with no LED decoration, a 16-phase 90A SPS power circuit, and a large VRM heatsink. Connectivity includes Thunderbolt 4 Type-C with 40Gbps transfer and 8K video output, plus Intel 5G LAN and Wi-Fi 7.
The White House opened ARCADE.GOV, a free browser game site, on September 4, 2026, and promoted it with a video that replaces the SEGA logo with the letters MAGA, for Make America Great Again, while keeping the original Sega sound logo audio. The site hosts five mini-games, including Build the Wall, a Tetris-like game about building a border wall, Flappy Bill, a Flappy Bird-style game with a bald eagle, and Rio Run, a Snake-like game. The promo video plays the Green Hill Zone theme from Sonic the Hedgehog, and the White House posted three additional videos parodying the boot screens of the GameCube, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 2. The site teases more games with the line "A new adventure awaits." The White House has repeatedly used game and anime IP without permission, drawing criticism from fans and multiple expressions of concern from Japan's Foreign Ministry. SEGA had not issued a statement as of the reports.
PlayWay S.A. announced on September 3 that Digital Melody's Zombie Wrap Simulator: Grill the Dead is in development. The first-person shop management sim is planned for PC via Steam with a 2027 release and Japanese language support. Players run the last kebab shop in a fallen world, collecting zombies to process into meat for kebabs, delivering meals by day, and defending the shop from Zomboners at night with barricades and stationary guns.
Microsoft released MAI-Transcribe-2, a speech recognition model that auto-detects 60 languages. The company says it is the fastest, most accurate, and cheapest transcription model available. On the FLEURS benchmark it recorded a 5.2% average word error rate and ranked first. Artificial Analysis verification found it 10 times faster than OpenAI's GPT-Transcribe, 7 times faster than ElevenLabs Scribe v2, and 5 times faster than Google's Gemini 3.5 Transcribe. Pricing is $0.1 per hour through the end of 2026.
Archipel will hold The Tenth Mosaic, a two-day game culture festival, on September 22-23 at Tokyo Nichi-Futsu Gakuen. The lineup includes talks with Kazutaka Kodaka and Masafumi Takada, a Rez 25th anniversary session with Tetsuya Mizuguchi and Ken Ishii, a horror panel with Keiichiro Toyama and Frederic Raynal, and a Persona 30th anniversary talk. Shuhei Yoshida curates an indie legacy showcase with 15-plus titles, and music sets include Yuzo Koshiro and Saori Kobayashi. Several talk sessions have already sold out.
Publisher Harrison World is bringing Hope of Elements: The Journey of the Witch and the Dragon to PC via Steam with Japanese display support, and the demo, which just received a large update, is live now. The turn-based strategy roguelike follows witch Iris and dragon Pipi through five-element regions, with battles built on element reactions that spread across the field and a companion whose support skills cost his own HP.
A24's Backrooms, the feature debut of 21-year-old Kane Parsons, opened September 4. To promote it, a real 3D advertisement recreating the film's liminal space appeared in a vacant glass-walled room in Akasaka, staged by PINPIN STUDIO. Sightings posted on X drew over 88,000 likes. A YouTube Live surveillance stream runs until September 13, but the link is undisclosed; viewers are meant to find it themselves.