Tag: Japan
Projectors in phones coming soon… Irritating yoofs already excited by the prospect
Japan’s NTT DoCoMo has taken up one step further towards the future and are developing a phone that comes with a built-in projector. Though still in the prototyping stage, this is the sort of thing we could be seeing in phones in three years time….
Jailbreak into your car with the first car-key/mobile phone hybrid device
We’ve seen the phone/oyster card hybrid, and the barcode scanner/phone hybrid, and we’ve long had mp3 cameras and cameras built into our phones. Enough? Not for Japan. Their attitude is “let’s see what else we can cram in there!”. They’ve put your car key into your mobile. At the moment it only works with Nissan vehicles, but it can remotely lock or unlock your car, as well as starting or stopping the engine. It’s not on the market yet, but they’ll be demonstrating it at the CEATAC conference in Tokyo on Sept 30th.
Japan set to cross another invention off Arthur C. Clarke's list – sets aside £5bn for "space elevator"
A mere 30 years after Arthur C. Clarke first mooted the idea of running super-thin, lightweight cables into space and tethering them to a satellite in his book The Fountains of Paradise, Japanese scientists reckon they’re ready to bring all the parts together and make it happen.
For a relatively low in space travel terms bill of £5bn, the boffins think they’re close to solving the carbon nanotube technology issue that could make the existence of 22,000 mile-long cables possible. That amount of rope or even Ethernet cable…
Concept music phone transforms into a small box
I’s weird seeing crazy concept products – there’s a “whoa! how awesome is that?” rush, followed by a quick “oh. It’s just a concept.” realization. This phone – the “Box To Play” from Japan’s KDDI AU Design Project – looks amazing but will likely never see life outside a laboratory…
UPDATED: Xbox 360 outsells PS3 in Japan… Climate scientists watching carefully to see if hell freezes over
The XBox 360 finally has something to be happy about in Japan, as for one week only it has managed to outsell the PS3 after adopting a new marketing strategy thought to be known as “making games that Japanese people actually want to play”…
Banish stinky suits with the Farago Aircool suit: only in Japan?
For the man with overactive sweat glands comes the Farago Aircool suit, designed to neutralise the nasty niffs associated with stale sweat before they develop and ensure that you’re the only person in every meeting you attend.
Available in Japan, the suit has special “antimicrobial silver ions power” sewn into the lining, which helps to deodorise the material and the wearer…
Sony saving us money for once – adds local garage petrol prices to its satnav displays
With it now costing more to drive to the shops than you spend on food when you get there, this little GPS innovation from Sony could be the answer to saving literally several pence a month.
Sony’s taken its Japanese PetaMap system and added support for local petrol price data – which can then be viewed on your Sony GPS system, letting users shave fractions of a yen off the price of each litre – just like the UK-based…
gCubik: put a virtual 3D person in a box
How would you like to put your girlfriend in a box? Hmm, that doesn’t sound quite right, but Japanese researchers have developed a prototype which could allow you to do just that — at least, with a virtual representation of your girlfriend.
gCubik would allow people to hold a 3D image of a person in their hand. “Suppose you have a picture of your girlfriend smiling on your desk. She could be smiling as a 3D image in a cube,” said Shunsuke Yoshida from Japan’s National Institute of Information and Communications Technology…
Special Feature: iPhone 3G Launch Day Fun Part One: East of London
I know, you're sick of the iPhone 3G launch already, aren't you? You knew it was going to happen, though, didn't you — most technology sites did exactly the same thing last year. Still, before near-normal service is resumed on…
Pioneer getting in on the Blu-ray burner scene – launching home recorders this year
The TV specialist has been getting rather innovative recently, what with all its new LCD TVs, fancy discs and that pile of Blu-ray players it’s bringing our way – now Pioneer’s planning to launch home Blu-ray recorders as well.
Pioneer’s teaming up with Sharp to develop the devices, which already makes Blu-ray recorders of its own…
