Bus or Train? World’s First ‘Dual-Mode Vehicle’ to Begin Operating in Japan

The DMV looks like a minibus and runs on normal rubber tires on the road. (Reuters)
The DMV looks like a minibus and runs on normal rubber tires on the road. (Reuters)
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Bus or Train? World’s First ‘Dual-Mode Vehicle’ to Begin Operating in Japan

The DMV looks like a minibus and runs on normal rubber tires on the road. (Reuters)
The DMV looks like a minibus and runs on normal rubber tires on the road. (Reuters)

It's a bus, it's a train, it's a DMV! The world's first dual-mode vehicle, equally at home on road and rail, is set to make its public debut on Saturday in the town of Kaiyo in Japan's Tokushima prefecture.

The DMV looks like a minibus and runs on normal rubber tires on the road. But when it arrives at an interchange, steel wheels descend from the vehicle's underbelly onto the rail track, effectively turning it into a train carriage.

The train wheels lift the front tires off the track while the rear wheels stay down to propel the DMV onto the railway.

The CEO of Asa Coast Railway company, which operates the DMVs, said the vehicles could help small towns like Kaiyo with an ageing and shrinking population, where local transport companies struggle to make a profit.

"This (DMV) can reach the locals (as a bus), and carry them onto the railway as well," CEO Shigeki Miura told Reuters on Friday. "Especially in rural areas with an ageing population, we expect it to be a very good form of public transport."

The DMV can carry up to 21 passengers and runs at a speed of 60km/h (37 mph) on rail tracks and can go as fast as around 100km/h (62 mph) on public roads, Asa Coast Railway said.

Powered by diesel fuel, the small fleet of vehicles, which come in different colors, will run along part of the coast of Shikoku island in southern Japan, connecting several small towns and offering passengers attractive seaside scenery.

Miura said he hoped the project would encourage railway fans from around Japan to visit.



Microsoft Server Hack Has Now Hit 400 Victims, Researchers Say

A view shows the Microsoft logo on the day of the Hannover Messe, one of the world's largest industrial trade fairs with this year's partner country being Canada, as both Canada and the European Union face new US tariffs, in Hanover, Germany, March 31, 2025. (Reuters)
A view shows the Microsoft logo on the day of the Hannover Messe, one of the world's largest industrial trade fairs with this year's partner country being Canada, as both Canada and the European Union face new US tariffs, in Hanover, Germany, March 31, 2025. (Reuters)
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Microsoft Server Hack Has Now Hit 400 Victims, Researchers Say

A view shows the Microsoft logo on the day of the Hannover Messe, one of the world's largest industrial trade fairs with this year's partner country being Canada, as both Canada and the European Union face new US tariffs, in Hanover, Germany, March 31, 2025. (Reuters)
A view shows the Microsoft logo on the day of the Hannover Messe, one of the world's largest industrial trade fairs with this year's partner country being Canada, as both Canada and the European Union face new US tariffs, in Hanover, Germany, March 31, 2025. (Reuters)

A sweeping cyber-espionage campaign organization centered on vulnerable versions of Microsoft's server software has now claimed about 400 victims, according to researchers at Netherlands-based Eye Security.

The figure, which is derived from a count of digital artifacts discovered during scans of servers running vulnerable versions of Microsoft's SharePoint software, compares to 100 organizations cataloged over the weekend. Eye Security says the figure is likely an undercount, Reuters reported.

"There are many more, because not all attack vectors have left artifacts that we could scan for," said Vaisha Bernard, the chief hacker for Eye Security, which was among the first organizations to flag the breaches, Reuters reported.

The spy campaign kicked off after Microsoft failed to fully patch a security hole in its SharePoint server software, kicking off a scramble to fix the vulnerability when it was discovered. Microsoft and its tech rival, Google owner Alphabet, have both said Chinese hackers are among those taking advantage of the flaw. Beijing has denied the claim.

The details of most of the victim organizations have not yet been fully disclosed. Bernard declined to identify them.