When it comes to consumer electronics, Japan is generally an excellent weathervane for forecasting the picture in the West a few months ahead. With that in mind, the latest electronics sales figures suggest a balmy Fall lies ahead.
Wednesday, July 02, 2008
Sony company to mass-produce FED displays
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Displays | R&D
04:53 PM
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Less than a year after it launched the world’s first OLED television – the XEL-1 – Sony is looking to compete with an entirely different line of next-generation displays called FEDs.
Friday, June 27, 2008
Video: Sony shows off PlayStation Home and Life With PlayStation services
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Events | Japan | Video
11:11 AM
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We’ve all heard about Sony’s strategy meeting in Tokyo yesterday (read my report here, if you’re bored), but even more interesting than the news that everything’s going to be connected in Sony’s Brave New World and movies will be streaming left and right were a couple of demo videos unleashed on the underwhelmed journos assembled at the event.
/ Keep on truckin' .......................................... \
Monday, June 23, 2008
Noise-canceling tech comes to car interiors
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Audio | Transportation
05:37 PM
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The principle behind noise-cancelling headphones is as elegant as it is simple – sample the noise to be cancelled out and use small speakers to create an equal, but opposite, sound that effectively erases the problem.
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Teeny tiny software developer shows us its Android plans
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Gaming | Interviews | Wireless
07:02 PM
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Last month, one look at the work Japanese company Eitarosoft is doing with Android made it pretty obvious a closer inspection was in order before the fledgling big player hits the inaccessible heights of some of its current customers.
Amazing survey says some Japanese might buy an iPhone
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Japan | Wireless
06:35 PM
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In yet another one of those tech surveys that says close to nothing while appearing to contain something of substance, a Japanese probe has found that – shock! – some people here are interested in buying an iPhone.
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
KDDI building real-world bank to encourage e-payments
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Household | Japan | Wireless
06:27 PM
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Earlier this month, when we looked at the future of mobile technologies from an academic’s perspective, one of the predictions that stood out was that phone companies looking to encourage mobile micropayments using their handsets would be well advised to team up with a solid financial institution first.
Friday, June 06, 2008
The future in our pockets at Japan’s Mobile Consumer Lab
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Interviews | Wireless
06:09 PM
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Japan’s legions of small northwest coastal towns are famed for their patchworks of rice paddies and garlands of snow-capped mountains that offer some of the region’s best skiing, but only one is home to a research lab devoted to understanding how we interact with our mobile phones.
Thursday, June 05, 2008
Exclusive: DoCoMo gives us its side of the Japanese 3G iPhone story
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Interviews | Japan | Wireless
12:36 PM
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Everybody knows the 3G iPhone will hit Japan later this year on the crap-tastic Softbank network, but I don’t believe anyone else was able to get NTT DoCoMo to admit it had been in the race too.
Friday, May 30, 2008
Video: The grabbing (robot) hands grab all they can…
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R&D | Robots
07:27 PM
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Personally, I think Panasonic‘s DSM-Hand is cool not because it can grab a glass without either dropping it or breaking it (I can do that sometimes), but because it uses gears instead of motors to drive its joints.
Video: Panasonic’s giant surface computer in action
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Household | R&D | Video
07:20 PM
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One other cool thing I saw at the super-funky Panasonic Center last week was the company’s take on a wall-mounted surface computer.
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Bending the sun’s rays to light high-tech buildings
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Household | Japan
06:52 PM
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In this age of environmental awareness, a couple of high-tech Japanese companies have turned the clock back over a hundred years to reduce energy consumption using 19th-century lighting techniques.
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Gorgeous Japanese kids’ dinner set hewn from bamboo
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Household | Japan | Off Topic
11:54 AM
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Japan has long enjoyed the reputation of being home to some remarkable craftsmen in fields as diverse as ceramics and woodblock prints, but today’s mail brought the first piece of art I’ve ever seen that’s designed to be bashed around by kids at meal times.
Friday, May 16, 2008
Stunning urban animation crosses genre boundaries - and walls
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Film, TV, manga & anime | Off Topic
11:39 AM
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Heck - it’s nothing to do with either Japan or technology (at least, not directly), but it is an absolutely stunning piece of animation work by a bona-fide genius.
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Spreadable electronics mean OLED TVs may power themselves
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Displays | R&D | WTF?
07:04 PM
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Not satisfied with a future vision that already includes flexible screens and wafer-thin phones, a pair of Japanese companies has pushed the envelope to come up with far-fetched gadgets that do all of the above without ever going near a power socket.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Paranoid simpletons welcome all-seeing car nav system
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Household | Transportation | WTF?
04:48 PM
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Come the end of next month, one of the last refuges of escape from the digital onslaught of the modern world will be cruelly ripped from us, when Panasonic’s new, fully connected car navigation system goes on sale.
BSG says What the Frack? to Japanese bicycle
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Household | Japan | Off Topic | WTF?
08:53 AM
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Battlestar Galactica fans on a budget might get a kick out of this Japanese Mama Chari (or ‘Mom’s bike’) named for their favorite pseudo swearword.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Face recognition machines to stop under-age smoking - not!
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Household | Japan
06:21 PM
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Everyone knows that smoking causes the skin to age unnaturally and lines to appear around the eyes prematurely, but who could have guessed that smokers would one day be thankful for their tobacco-induced wrinkles?
Friday, May 09, 2008
Biometric face scanner tells identical twins apart
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R&D
07:13 PM
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biometrics
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sagawa
Should Homer Simpson ever try to smuggle his unqualified identical twin brother into work in his stead, a new biometric identification system that will be used to secure nuclear plants is sure to prompt a “D’oh!” or seven.
Buckyballs power tiny fuel-cell powerhouse
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Peripherals
07:00 PM
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Exotic molecules like carbon buckyballs may soon become part of our everyday lives if the latest prototype fuel cell from Sony ever makes it to the stores.
Japanese RFID tech batters down doors in West
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R&D | Wireless
06:51 PM
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We recently lifted the lid on just how useful – not to mention pervasive – RFID technology is in Japan, so it’s with a glad heart that we bring you news of a move that’s sure to help it spread more quickly in the West.
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