Need to work on the fly? Japan has a 'phone booth' office for that

TOKYO -- Japanese developer Mitsubishi Estate and its partners are planning to set up phone booth-sized offices at airports and train stations to provide work space to the country's growing legions of remote workers.

The property developer will start a new company as early as next month with videoconferencing software maker V-Cube and office furniture maker Okamura, the co-developers of the so-called Telecube. The plan is to build 1,000 tiny offices, which are designed to be rented by the hour, throughout the country over the next four to five years.