Tag: Japan
YouTube Hits: Is the G-Dog Japan's new Sony Aibo?
Continuing our obsession with robots here at Tech Digest, this G-Dog is Japan’s second chance at creating a successful dog-robot, after the demise of Sony’s Aibo back in 2006.
Measuring in at 14cm tall and 40cm long, it should be on sale in Japan this July, for around £500, a far cry from the number of notes the Aibo commanded…
Japanese technology can measure your smile… cheer up!
Possibly a predecessor of the computer which can measure attractiveness, new Japanese technology is able to measure someone’s smile on a scale of nought to 100.
Firstly, video images are scanned to detect faces, and then the computer analyses the curves of the lips, eye movement, and other facial characteristics, to decide how much a person is smiling…
Sony to launch new Blu-ray PVRs: BDZ-A70 / BDZ-T90
As part of its commitment to increasing Blu-ray market share, Sony is to roll out a couple of Blu-ray equipped PVRs to the Japanese market at the end of this month…
Wii outsells PS3 by three-to-one in Japan during March
Latest sales figures for March show that Nintendo sold 265k Wiis in March, compared to Sony’s rather poor 81k PS3s. And the gap is widening – just last week, Sony sold slightly over 11,000 PlayStation3s in Japan, while Nintendo shifted nearly 49k Wiis.
Poor old Sony just can’t turn things around for PS3…
Japan finds a new concept for QR codes – mobile-based epitaphs
QR codes (barcodes which can be scanned using a mobile phone) are on everything in Japan, from magazines to cereal boxes. In fact, the only place you’d struggle to find them is the local graveyard – although that’s likely to change in the near future.
Japanese Internet firms join forces to kill net connections of illegal file sharers
While the British Government’s plans to tackle illegal file sharing remain at the Green Paper stage, Japanese telecoms companies have jointly implemented a scheme to cut off the Internet supply from known offenders.
According to the Daily Yomiuri Online (one of my daily reads, don’t you know), Internet users who repeatedly use popular file sharing sites such as Winny to download music and video will be sent warning emails which, if unheeded, will result in a loss of Internet connection…
Inevitable newsflash: Pioneer announces end of production of Plasma panels
Pioneer has gone and announced exactly what everyone’s been expecting for the last month or more – that production of their Plasma screens will be ceased, with third-party (likely Matsushita) panels being rebranded for their Kuro range.
According to a news release from Pioneer this morning, “we have judged that maintaining the cost competitiveness of plasma display panels at projected sales volumes will be difficult going forward. Accordingly, we have decided to terminate in-house plasma display panel production and to procure these panels externally, after panel production for our next series of models is complete.”
To reduce the amount of job losses…
Sony's colourful Bravia M1 series of TVs
Think Sony Bravia is all about black and silver? Think again – the colourful M1 series of TVs could be heading our way soon.
Japanese art Chindogu – taking pieces of technology and making them 'inconvenient'
I’ve stumbled across the Japanese artform of Chindogu, which directly translates to ‘unusual tools’, devices which aim on making life easier, but just end up being more inconvenient.
The inventor, Kenji Kawakami, has created ‘inconveniences’ such as an electric fork, a toilet roll dispenser hat for people with “serious sniffles” and double-sided shoes, which are all shown under the jump.
Wonder if LG took inspiration from Kawakami when they designed the MP3 player washing machine?
Mini solar panel phone charm keeps your mobile charged whilst you gossip
This is a brilliant idea, and so much simpler than carting about a portable solar-charger. Sadly it’s only available in Japan though, meaning the rest of the world will have to continue guzzling electricity when charging our mobiles. What’s up Strap-Ya? Help out the rest of the world, won’t you?
Just charging the mini solar panel…
