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Japanese employers learn to practice what Islam preaches ATSUSHI TOMIYAMA, Nikkei staff writer A little past 3 p.m., the sparks stop flying at Sasakura Engineering's factory outside of central Jakarta. Workers shuffle off the shop floor into an adjacent prayer room.      All but one of the plant's 90 local employees are Muslim. The company allows them 15 minutes of paid time for evening prayers, which fall during work hours.   Islam guides the daily lives of more than a fifth of the world's people. As Japanese companies venture deeper into Asia, home to nearly a billion Muslims, they are learning to respect the religion's rules and customs as employers. Your correspondent saw how two Japanese manufacturers have adapted to the country with the largest Muslim population.      Most companies in Indonesia have prayer rooms. At Kawai Indonesia, a subsidiary...

 13 YouTube Tricks for True PowerYOUsers  1 of 13 Set Default Video Playback to a Higher Quality Do you find yourself constantly changing video quality to a higher setting? All you want to do is watch some cat videos on your trusted home broadband connection, so why does it always default to some wimpy 360p resolution? What is this, 2009? Thankfully, YouTube has a way out of this important problem. Just click on over to youtube.com/account_playback when signed into to either Google or YouTube. Here, you can change the default to always view the best quality for your connection (even to always play HD). Conversely, you can set YouTube to never play higher-quality video if you are using a known sluggish connection.  2 of 13 Download YouTube Videos There are numerous methods for downloading videos from YouTube for offline viewing. Be aware that some methods are fairly dubious and malware-y (or, at least, I've run across ones that caused my...

Google reportedly seals deal to gobble up Twitch for $1 billion   It's been nearly two months since Variety and The Wall Street Journal reported Google was "in talks" to purchase popular games streaming site Twitch.tv for a billion dollars. According to VentureBeat, we can now upgrade the status from "in talks" to "sealed deal." The report is unconfirmed currently, with VentureBeat only citing "sources familiar with the matter," but it'd hardly be a surprise if true. Details are scarce though—neither company has spoken on the matter, and there's no news of whether just Twitch or all of the empire formerly know as Justin.tv is also part of the deal. We also don't know whether YouTube's own streaming service would continue to function separately from Google. Here's hoping that if the acquisition rumors are true, Google+ won't become mandatory for Twitch accounts. I stand by what I said back in M...

Firefox adds anti-malware file reputation service Summary: Firefox has blocked known phishing and malware sites for some time. Now it will check reputation on individual files and soon use file signatures Mozilla has announced that the new version 31.0 of Firefox, released earlier this week, will check individual file downloads against Google's Safe Browsing reputation service to determine if they are known malware. Firefox has checked web site URLs against Google's Safe Browsing service since version 2.0. Originally, that service checked only to see if sites were known phishing sites; later on, a list of sites known to serve malware was added to the service. When you encounter such a site, Firefox raises an interstitial warning: Version 31.0 adds a new feature. If, during a download, the site passes reputation check, then before completion Firefox will send a SHA-256 hash of the file to Google's Safe Browsing Service, which maintain...

Inside Amazon's Fire Phone Summary: While on the outside the Fire Phone is sleek and smooth, according to iFixit the inside is "a veritable mess of cables, connectors, and glue." For anyone thinking of buying a Fire Phone with the idea of repairing it if something goes wrong, the iFixit verdict on this is simple – don't buy it. Amazon's flagship smartphone is finally out, and that means that over at iFixit HQ it's teardown time. While on the outside the Fire Phone is sleek and smooth, according to iFixit the inside is "a veritable mess of cables, connectors, and glue." For anyone thinking of buying a Fire Phone with the idea of repairing it if something goes wrong, the iFixit verdict on this is simple – don't buy it. The Fire Phone receives a repairability score of 3 out of 10, where 10 is easiest to repair. Even simple repairs are made hard thanks to glue and fragile cables, and replacing a cracked screen will mean either...

The Week in iPad Cases: A distinguished teacup A distinguished teacup There’s a cup with a monocle in this week’s roundup of new iPad cases, alongside a few cats and some amazing plastic bubbles. And did we mention the monocle-wearing cup? Apple and Mint The Pink Fairy (all iPad models; $25) envelops your child’s tablet in a fully padded case with a water-resistant exterior that helps your little ones keep their electronics safe. Each case is velvet-lined for extra protection, can fit up to two full-size iPads, and comes in turquoise, pink, yellow, or red. Ashine Galaxy The Hermes (iPad Air; $44) combines functionality with style by protecting your tablet in a case made of real leather. The case offers ready access to all ports and buttons, and doubles as a viewing stand in landscape orientation. It comes in brown or red. Felix The FlipBook (iPad 2, 3, and 4; $60) is a simple and stylish, full-body folio case for your tablet that e...

How to get photos from your digital camera to Instagram in 3 easy steps   Instagram may be designed for smartphones, but you've probably noticed that the best photos have a distinctly non-camera-phone vibe to them. Savvy Instagrammers post high-quality DSLR or point-and-shoot photos instead. You can create a high-quality Instagram feed, too, with a little help from Dropbox and your iOS or Android device. Step One: Transfer and pre-process your images The goal is to get the photo off your camera and onto a phone or mobile device with the Instagram app installed. The first step starts with your camera.  Importing your photos Transferring your photos to your computer only adds an extra minute or two, and has the added benefit of letting you use your computer to back up and organize your photos.  You can transfer your photographs from your camera to your PC with a card reader, or by connecting your camera directly to your computer. Copy...

Six clicks: Microsoft Word tricks to make you an instant expert Summary: There's much more to Word than just pointing, clicking, typing, and spell-checking. In this gallery, I present six of my favorite hidden features to make you more productive when creating and editing Word documents. Power tips for Microsoft Word Most people use only a fraction of the features in Microsoft Word. That's not surprising, given the sheer breadth of capabilities that Word has. The secret of maximum productivity with Word is learning how to shave steps off the tasks you perform everyday. In this gallery, I present a half-dozen of my favorite time-saving shortcuts, which work in Word 2010 and Word 2013.  =============================================== Master Heading styles in Word documents The built-in heading styles (Heading 1, Heading 2, Heading 3, and so on) are incredibly useful, especially in longer documents such as reports. When you use headings, yo...

The best way to completely wipe your Android device A study from security software vendor Avast has suggested that the factory reset option built into the Android operating system isn't effective in eradicating your personal data from old devices. The firm purchased 20 used Android smartphones on eBay and was able to recover more than 40,000 photos, 750 emails and text messages, and 250 contacts, along with the identities of four of the previous device owners, and even a completed loan application. To make matters worse, Avast employees were using readily available data recovery software to get the job done. While Avast and other companies like it offer data deletion tools, there are other steps you can take to securing your personal data when performing a factory reset. Step one: Encrypting I recommend encrypting your device before you are getting ready to wipe it. The encryption process will scramble the data on your device and, even if the wipe doesn't fu...