Now retired from the civil service, Taniguchi is among a small but growing number of critics within Japan who say it's time for Tokyo to stop hurting its image worldwide.

NPR: Debate Over Whale Hunt Focuses On Japan

Detailing the number of tweets, calls on Skype, music-streamers on Pandora, and other activities on the web, the folks at GO-Globe.com packaged a mountain of information in digestible rainbow-colored spokes extending from a classic stop-watch image, underscoring that all of this happens in just 60 seconds.

FORBES: How Much Information Zips Around the Web in 60 Seconds?

Being digital, you won't be surprised to hear the process doesn't stop with merely showing you an image.

BBC: Digital product placement creates adverts out of thin air

He had recently distanced himself from DoylesRoom, saying he no longer was associated with the web site that carried his image and asked it to stop using his name.

FORBES: Poker Legend Doyle Brunson Gets Fight With Feds He Gambled On

He started "The Vandal" with the image of a sad woman at a bus stop and it evolved from there.

WSJ: Actor Hamish Linklater evolves into playwright

You wrote an article a few years back in Glamour magazine about your girlhood struggles with body image and how you're trying to stop being so self-critical.

NPR: Roundtable: Black Women and Body Image

For example, you could point your camera at a street scene, and the image on your screen would be overlaid with cafe reviews, directions to the nearest subway stop and other useful travel information.

BBC: Best travel tech in 2012

Many of us know The Sharper Image best as a purveyor of massaging lounge chairs (which makes their stores a must-stop location in the mall), a chronic pusher of ozone generators, and as a perennial favorite in SkyMall catalogs as we bide our time on the redeye.

ENGADGET: Sharper Image selling self-branded cellphones Mobile

That won't stop the DUP playing that card closer between now and polling day, but it sits uncomfortably alongside the clear image of them, Sinn Fein and Alliance as the "team players" (to borrow Martin McGuinness's phrase) ranged against the UUP and SDLP "internal opposition".

BBC: NI Assembly election campaigning - state of play so far