Japanese consumers are having to put up with a lot of passive smoking these days, and the Ministry of International Trade & Industry has put its foot down and says that it has got to stop: no, it’s not the addictive weed that’s at issue here, it’s laptop computers and television sets – the problem is that manufacturers are having to fall over themselves to keep up with the galloping advance in technology, and the legendary Japanese reputation for reliability and quality is getting trampled in the rush, so that Seiko Epson Corp has had to recall a line of laptops that smoked under stress, and no fewer than four manufacturers – Sony Corp, Matsushita Electric Industrial Co, Toshiba Corp and Pioneer Electronics Corp have had to recall television sets that smoked when the action got over-heated.
