Google in Tokyo

Google will open a research and development lab in Tokyo, bolstering its technical expertise in four countries.

The search company will begin aggressively hiring engineers in Tokyo, where it has already opened an advertising sales office. The Tokyo group will join a rapidly growing research arm within Google, one of the most popular Internet search engines worldwide.

Google employs engineers in Mountain View and Santa Monica, Calif.; New York; Zurich, Switzerland; and Ireland. It also plans to employ more than 100 engineers in India, an office it opened in late 2003.

Japan Fireman Drives 20 Years without license

The case came to light when the firefighter in his 40s, who had been working for the city for over 25 years, hesitated to show his driver’s license during a regular inspection last week.

A firefighter in Japan lost his job after city officials found out he had been driving ambulances and firetrucks for over 20 years without a driver’s license, an official in Takaoka City, central Japan, said on Tuesday.

The monthly inspection of driver’s licenses started last year and before that, the firefighter had filed a fake license registration number to Takaoka City in 1981. Between April 2003 and June 2008, the firefighter, who told city officials he had gone to a driving school but failed the writing exam, drove ambulances 309 times and firetrucks 97 times.