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Digital wall
Panasonic Shows Off Surface-Like Digital Wall
Microsoft's getting some competition for its Surface device. Panasonic is showing off a very Surface-like product it's calling Digital Wall, and it's exactly what it sounds like. While at this point it doesn't appear to offer all the the features of Surface it could also come in much cheaper that the Microsoft version, and for many people that's the key. Hit the jump for a short video of the Digital Wall in action. [Digital World Tokyo] More »
from japan
No doubt inspired by the Japanese video site Nico Nico Douga that overlays scrolling comments over videos during playback, the Anobar sits on top of a TV and scrolls messages from others watching the same channel in real time, along with emails, Twitters, news headlines, or any other feed. The Anobar uses a pricey 640 x 96 FED display, which ensures zero motion blur on all of the dick jokes whizzing by. For now it's Japan only, and the prototype cost nearly $2,000 to manufacture, but I'm kind of hypnotized by this live video stream of one in action.
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Anobar Set-Top FED Display Scrolls Otaku's TV Discussions in Real Time
No doubt inspired by the Japanese video site Nico Nico Douga that overlays scrolling comments over videos during playback, the Anobar sits on top of a TV and scrolls messages from others watching the same channel in real time, along with emails, Twitters, news headlines, or any other feed. The Anobar uses a pricey 640 x 96 FED display, which ensures zero motion blur on all of the dick jokes whizzing by. For now it's Japan only, and the prototype cost nearly $2,000 to manufacture, but I'm kind of hypnotized by this live video stream of one in action.
More »
flash
Japanese Scientists Extend Flash Memory Lifespan to Hundreds of Years
Scientists in Japan have worked out a new technique for improving the lifespan of flash memory devices from around a decade currently to hundreds of years. The new ferroelectric NAND flash technology can do rewrites 100 million times, versus the 10,000 or so of existing tech, and can be scaled down to 10nm—one third the size of next-gen conventional flash. Furthermore, the ferroelectric chips use a "wear leveling" system to even-out the usage of memory cells, and can even disable bad cells without killing the whole chip. Plus it uses a rewriting voltage of 6 volts versus the 20+ volts of current chips. Sounds like a promising, long-life, low-power future for solid-state drives. Though as with all these advances it'll be a good while 'til we see actual products. [VNUNet]
Japanese TV show not really
This week's ridiculous I Survived... challenge ran contestants through a relatively simple obstacle course. The catch? They've been dressed as babies, dizzied on a playground carousel and given two cups of milk to take along with them. The objective is to fill the team baby bottle at the end of the course.
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I Survived a Japanese Game Show: Spinning Babies, Spilling Milk
This week's ridiculous I Survived... challenge ran contestants through a relatively simple obstacle course. The catch? They've been dressed as babies, dizzied on a playground carousel and given two cups of milk to take along with them. The objective is to fill the team baby bottle at the end of the course.
More »
top gear
Top Gear Races Nissan GT-R Vs. Bullet Train In Japan
The Top Gear crew is in Japan for this week's episode and they've got another heated race for us: A Nissan GT-R R35, a gadget car by dynamic handling and Playstation inspired dashboard vs. a bullet train, running both from Japan's northern Hakui-Shi coast to Tokyo. With no surprise ol' Clarkson is driving the fiery beast while Hammond and May are left traveling Japanese public transportation. I'm not gonna spoil the race for ya though, but Jalopnik has the results for you. [Jalopnik]
Bath fountain
AquaRain Bath Fountain Puts on a Show Using Your Bathwater
I've never found bath time boring enough to need a water fountain and a light show, but in case you hate not being reminded of the Bellagio every time you step into the tub, the AquaRain is here to allay your washroom ADD. The AquaRain floats in your bathtub and pumps bathwater through its jets to create a fountain effect. Four LED lights—red, purple, blue and white—can be remixed to turn your shower into a rave. On sale at Japan Trend Shop for $49, hilarious Engrish included. [Japan Trend Shop via Gizmo Diva]
japan
Telerobotic Shopper Lets You Hit the Malls Using a Cellphone
Japan, the land of using technology to solve problems we didn't know we had, has come out with a new robot that will let people shop at malls without ever leaving their home. Robot developer tmsuk revealed a telerobotic shopper that can be controlled using NTT DoCoMo's cellphone technology. More »
eee pc 701
Japan Has Subnotebooks For $1 With Data Plans
I've thought for awhile that the key to selling the super cheap yet very underpowered sub-notebooks that are exploding all over the place would be carrier subsidization, and now a carrier in Japan is taking the the idea and running with it, selling the Eee PC 701 for less than $1 American with a data plan contract, much like how we get cell phones. These devices often feature 4G—in this case with an external wireless modem—networking, which means you get an always-on Internet connection for your tiny laptop for less than $65 a month. American carriers, are you paying attention? [JK On The Run, via Liliputing]
japan
Crawling Businessman Robot Is a Critique On Japanese Salarymen
Japanese Performance artist Momoyo Torimitsu built a crawling Japanese businessman robot and took it to the streets of Australia to creep out little kids and turn on weird dudes with camcorders. The bot is her critique on the Japanese salaryman lifestyle and the apparent upcoming Asian economic crash. All we know is that dressing up like a nurse and pulling down an old man's pants in the middle of the street is going to attract some lookey-loos. Oh, and I wouldn't want to scrape along the street with my undies down. Ouch. [Diagonal View via Dvice]
psp
PSP Update: It's Dominating Japan
Remember the post we had late last year pondering how the PSP could overtake the DS (and the companion piece pondering why it wouldn't)? Well, it's done just that for the first six months of 2008. Famitsu's publisher claims that the PSP has sold 1.9 million units in Japan so far this year, leading the Wii with 1.7 million and the DS with 1.6 million. This is partially due to Monster Hunter Portable 2nd G, which is a Japan-only RPG that has been moving PSPs like cakes that have been heated somehow. Will Sony be able to keep up the momentum, or will Nintendo be able to churn out a few more Pokemon and Mario titles to reclaim the lead? [Mainichi via PSPhyper via Kotaku]
japan
Politicians Gifted Swank Nintendo DS Lites
After attending the last G8 summit in Japan, politicians didn’t leave empty-handed or with one of those “your parting gift will be a better, more peaceful world” cop-outs. Oh no, instead they got custom double-lacquered Nintendo DSs depicting a pagoda and breeze of cherry blossoms. And as if that weren’t enough, they received Manga-style caricatures that almost make Condoleezza Rice look personable. Lucky! [MSN via Kotaku]
electric kettle
I've been thinking of getting an electric kettle for some time, and I think I've found the most simple, beautiful one I could ever hope for. The small container's power cord is stored inside the base, explaining that one seam you see running around the base of the unit. I'll have to pick this up in Japan or ask Doug to send one back on his next trip. [+- via Core77]
The ±0 Electric Kettle From Japan
I've been thinking of getting an electric kettle for some time, and I think I've found the most simple, beautiful one I could ever hope for. The small container's power cord is stored inside the base, explaining that one seam you see running around the base of the unit. I'll have to pick this up in Japan or ask Doug to send one back on his next trip. [+- via Core77]
robots
At Impress they've posted a review of a recent show titled Anima Machines by artist Choe U Ram that contains some of the most bizarre robotic exhibits you can imagine. Choe's work includes things like sophisticated glowing robotic flowers that respond to each other's behavior, and whirling bladed sculptures that look organic in their complexity and spin up when people pass nearby. It's pretty hard to describe actually... the metal, electronic and LED structures that were shown at the Japan's SCAI The Bathhouse Gallery are best ogled at in the photos below, and in the video that follows them.
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Anima Machines Robotic Art is Freakishly Organic
At Impress they've posted a review of a recent show titled Anima Machines by artist Choe U Ram that contains some of the most bizarre robotic exhibits you can imagine. Choe's work includes things like sophisticated glowing robotic flowers that respond to each other's behavior, and whirling bladed sculptures that look organic in their complexity and spin up when people pass nearby. It's pretty hard to describe actually... the metal, electronic and LED structures that were shown at the Japan's SCAI The Bathhouse Gallery are best ogled at in the photos below, and in the video that follows them.
More »
laptops
What Doesn't Break a Toughbook Makes It Stronger: How They Test the Hell Out of Them
Deep in the northwest corner of Kobe, Japan, there's a factory hidden away among green rice paddies, and sleepy farming villages of tiled roofs. If you were to travel here, to Takatsukadai—the middle of nowhere—you'd find Panasonic's Toughbook plant quietly making notebooks with the world's lowest failure rate. Well, not so quietly, actually. They employ a regimen of over 500 different tests, smashing, dropping and soaking Toughbooks, with over a thousand sacrifices each year. This is where I learned how the old computer plant manages to pull it off, miraculously, almost all under one roof. More »
4:00 PM on Wed Jul 2 2008
By Tim Hornyak
20,057 views,
47 comments
Latest by n/a: I dropped one from my kitchen counter onto the floor and the plastic cracked in 3 places. So much for being tough. I was reviewing the product for a magazine, and when the PR people found out they asked why more »
death trap
Topia One-Seat Electric HUVO Prototype Might As Well Be Shaped Like a Coffin
With the arrival of Topia's one-seater prototype, I think it's finally safe to say the SMART car has something it can take in a fight. Called the HUVO, this diminutive electric car forgoes features like "well-being" and "sanity" for "lightweight" (330 lbs.) and "Jesus Christ watch out for that MINI Cooper!" To save weight and development costs, the HUVO is made out of materials that would make any contemporary golf cart proud; mainly plastic, ceramic, more plastic, and a bit of high-tensile steel plate. Although, as the headline implies, if HUVO goes into production Topia should probably just make the thing out of a nice, sturdy wood, and save your immediate family a step at the funeral parlor. More »
kids
Konepan Bread Maker Turns Your Loaves into Bunnies
Going one better than the Jesus model (the original, not Giz's resident LEGO freak and sexy boy Diaz) is the Konepan, a bread maker from japanese toy manufacturer Megahouse. The kitchen gizmo, aimed at kids and recently-retired Giz writers, can turn your dough into 14 different shapes, most of them crazy, all of them fabulous. Teddy bears, elephants,
42gb dvd
Dudes in the Institute of Multidisciplinary Research for Advanced Materials in Tohoku University just developed a 42GB DVD that's backwards compatible with nothing. The new tech uses a V shape in the pits—current pits are just pits—which allows nine times more information to be held on the same sized disc. The downside is that current CD and DVD drives cant' read it, so you'll have to purchase all new tech in order to use this. It's also not capable of being adapted to Blu-ray drives, so there's little to no incentive for the industry to add this in to this generation either. But nice work (in theory), Japanese researchers! [Crunchgear]
Japanese Researchers Make 42GB DVD That's Compatible With Nothing
Dudes in the Institute of Multidisciplinary Research for Advanced Materials in Tohoku University just developed a 42GB DVD that's backwards compatible with nothing. The new tech uses a V shape in the pits—current pits are just pits—which allows nine times more information to be held on the same sized disc. The downside is that current CD and DVD drives cant' read it, so you'll have to purchase all new tech in order to use this. It's also not capable of being adapted to Blu-ray drives, so there's little to no incentive for the industry to add this in to this generation either. But nice work (in theory), Japanese researchers! [Crunchgear]
