Japanese consumer confidence improved in March to the highest level in almost six years, a Cabinet Office survey showed on Wednesday, indicating that aggressive government and central bank policies are having their desired effect. The survey's sentiment index for general households, which includes views on incomes and jobs, was 44.8 in March, which was the highest since May 2007. That was also up from a revised 44.2 in February. 

We posted about tiny housing in Japan before but this time, the home's even smaller: Fuyuhito Moriya is 39 and still lives with his mother, but in circumstances you would call a tad unusual. Moriya, an unmarried man, and his mother, Yoko, live in a house that's built on 30 square meters, that's the same as the size of a parking space for one car. They live in what's called an ultra-small house, a genre of single family homes bred of Japan's economic stagnation and brought to life by architectural ingenuity.

People come from all over the world to get a short glimpse of Japan's blooming cherry blossoms. Google is taking advantage of this worldwide sakura passion to show off their virtual-tour map feature with Street View Sakura Edition, which shows cherry blossom scenes not only in normal pictures but also as 360-degree panoramas. The Blossom Edition features sites from Kyushu all the way up to Aomori, including about 50 different spots, and gives information such as the number of cherry blossom trees, the area they cover and, in some cases, the history of the locations.