Gareth Edwards
Articles by Gareth Edwards
Cellphone auctions
Yahoo! Japan, which rules the roost for online auctions in Japan, is adding a logical extra feature that snips the last shackle binding budding auctioners to a PC. You can now upload product snaps from your cameraphone along with the details of the junk—sorry, treasure—you're trying to shift, meaning that schoolgirls of an enterprising bent can start disposing of that latest present from their sugar daddies without delay. You can also use all the other auction features, too, so "down-to-the-wire bidding frenzy" now joins the list of surreptitious cellphone activities you can use to while away tedious meetings.
In-car thumbdrive dock and FM transmitter
A neat but frustrating device from Japanese firm MIB: a USB-ported FM transmitter that plugs into your car's cigar lighter. Slot in a USB thumb drive with some mp3s on it and you can beam them to your radio using the Cigar Song Lighter? FMP3's simple play and cue buttons. (The question mark in the name is apparently intended, presumably to flag the Lost In Translation-style pun on "lighter" and "writer".) You can also plug in a USB card reader and play back stuff on whatever flavour of memory card pleases you most. At Y12,800 (about $115) it's an uneasy pricing point, though at least you don't have to worry about battery life.
Get your kanji on
Japanese-language afficionados and manga otaku may be interested to know that someone's come up with a Java app that lets you send and receive email in Japanese from your inferior Western cellphone. What possible use is that to you? Have a Japanese friend email you that kanji character you're getting tattooed on your arm next week—then at least you'll know it (a) exists and (b) is the right way up. (Made by Omronsoft, though they don't divulge any info on their site; K-Tai Watch claims they're going to sell it to handset makers rather than us individuals, which if true means Omronsoft is so off our Christmas card list.)
The GT Turbo of guard robots
One thing that tends to prevent us taking guard robots seriously is that they're mostly lumbering beasts that won't do much more than stream you some pics of an intruder's rapidly retreating back. Secom's Robot X, however, takes a different tack, being essentially a radio-controlled car the size of a kiddy fairground ride that zips around at about 10km/h, with smoke and lights to disorient anyone who's up to no good. It also has a 360-degree camera and can be set to patrol on its own or taken over remotely to chase down bad guys. There's a bar for attaching "forthcoming optional add-ons", too—spiked club? Chain cannon? Somehow, we don't see them adding teamaking equipment. <>[PC Watch has pics and MPEG videos of the Robot X in—surprisingly fast—motion]</>
Cooling PCs with a heartbeat
Japanese firm Eamex has developed a pump that they say could form the basis of anything from artificial hearts to liquid cooling systems for laptop computers. It uses a plastic that expands or contracts when a small amount of electricity is passed through it, on the same principle as artificial muscles. In a laptop, it achieves cooling performance that's 2X-3X better than conventional pumps, creates no sound or vibration, and can be made smaller and cheaper than anything around at the moment. And as the manufacturer notes, the operating frequency of 1Hz is close to the pulse of the human heart. Despite our status as willing passengers on technology's heady voyage toward the future, the idea of our laptop sitting there with its innards pulsing creeps us out just a bit. [Via Slashdot Japan]
DoCoMo worldphones to come out in Europe?
It's no secret that DoCoMo plans to have dual-mode FOMA/GSM/GPRS phones out at the end of 2004. The big news, if the very wild and hairy rumours we're seeing around the Japanese web are true, is that the first of these, NEC's N900iG, may be going on sale in both Japan and Europe. We can't pin down whether it would work on European UMTS/W-CDMA 3G networks—sounds like it might have to be triple-mode to do so, because FOMA's based on a non-standard spec that DoCoMo tweaked to get better power consumption—but apparently Japanese users will be able to access i-mode and email while roaming as well as making voice calls. If the news about the Europe release is true, we hope DoCoMo's other handset makers get in on the act too; NEC's FOMA handsets are competent, but they don't strike the sparks that Panasonic and the rest do. (Link below in Italian.)
American Airlines tests cellphone service
Looks like it could take a couple of years to get government approval, but American Airlines yesterday tested out a cellphone service on one of its jets. The technology comes from Qualcomm, who supplied a rig consisting of a laptop-sized device called a picocell that relays signals from up to 20 phones to a dish antenna on top of the plane. The problem with the whole idea, of course, is that it will bring prices down compared with the satellite phones currently in planes, meaning a greater chance of having to listen to your neighbor gabbing. This is already a problem with satellite phones on planes despite the exorbitant rates, so airlines may want to think twice about pricing their airborne cellphone service within range of every pocket. We'll settle for WiFi, thanks.
A new summer pastime: the virtual bughunt
Japan seems intent on tracking its kids with RFID tags recently (will the enthusiasm wane when the kids discover the properties of tin foil, we wonder?), but it doesn't stop there. Latest idea, hatched by Hello Kitty creators Sanrio, is to show kids the joy of bug-hunting while avoiding the creepy-crawlies. The child gets a butterfly net with an RFID tag in it and has to hunt for placards with pictures of insects on them. The placards contain RFID reader/writers that send the data for the pictured bug to the tag on the kid's net, showing that it's been "caught". The vaguely unsatisfied child is then fobbed off at the exit with some sort of fakey certificate that shows pics of the day's specimens. In fifty years the entire populace will have been raised like this, and grown men will run screaming at the sight of a real live butterfly.
Getting fuel cells into planes (inside your gadgets, that is)
Following the news the other day that KDDI is planning to have fuel cells in its phones by 2007, Nikkei BP is carrying a (Japanese-only) article that claims, unsurprisingly, that fuel cell makers are starting to lobby governments to overcome a big stumbling block: the fact that you can't take methanol cartridges onto planes (or, theoretically, any form of public transport where "dangerous articles" are banned; so all of them, then). It will supposedly take until 2007 to get the ban revoked (which may be where KDDI gets its target from), though international bodies should give the nod in 2005.
Toshiba gives Sony a hint?
Toshiba has announced a chip for audio equipment that handles both MP3 and ATRAC3 formats. Is this a subtle way of telling Sony (the innards of whose PCs Toshiba has famously supplied) to get with the program and offer MP3 support in their products? While the initial chip is apparently for CD players, usage in other types of player (hint, hint) is on the way. They're shipping samples for Y2,000. A dual WMA/MP3 version is also in the offing.
Seiko Epson's WiFi printer station
Not much of a looker, but Seiko Epson has an 802.11b/g box coming out in Japan this month that'll hook any unwired PC up to one of their Colorio printers or Offirio scanners. Friendly folks that they are, they've made it support AppleTalk and NetBEUI as well as TCP/IP. They also helpfully note in the specs that in 802.11b mode you can use it up to 180m away outside, which is great if like us you're sick of running out to your boss' lounger because he's dropped another copy of last month's sales figures in the pool.
Closeups of the Sony PlayStation Portable
Impress AV Watch got their sweaty mitts on a working PSP at Sony's PlayStation Meeting press bash, and have several decent closeups of the little critter. Even if our enthusiasm takes a hit each time we read disturbing reports about things like the PSP having a battery pack that has to be worn on your wrist and only supporting ATRAC3 (yes, Sony appears to be trying to mess up even its flagship product), it still looks chilly cool. Can someone get some of those right-wing Japanese guys in the black speaker trucks to camp outside the bit of Sony that's responsible for ATRAC and have them yell something about MP3 being more in accordance with the way of the Samurai, though? At this point it seems about the only thing that'd snap them out of it.
DoCoMo ready to take on the world again?
We were just writing up something about DoCoMo and Renesas announcing they're to develop a W-CDMA/GSM/GPRS chip, and speculating about DoCoMo renewing its designs on global domination, when along comes news that the big D is hooking up with Texas Instruments as well to build something similar. After a failed attempt at investing in carriers outside Japan in the hope of getting them to roll out W-CDMA, and a somewhat more successful period of licensing its i-mode service, it seems DoCoMo may have hit on the approach that it's best at: hardware. The high development costs of Japan-only FOMA phones must start to seem more bearable to cellphone makers when they're dual-mode from the get-go and can be rejigged for other markets more easily; and what better way to convince carriers outside Japan to speed up their W-CDMA rollout than by giving them an installed base of cool dual-mode Japanese handsets to play with? Right, we'll take our conspiracy theorist's hat off now.
Earhorns!
Just what we always wanted: earphones that you can turn into speakers. Japanese firm Elecom's Earhorns (there's a subtle pun on "earphone" there that doesn't quite work in English) are your usual inner-ear speakers, but come with what are known technically as "squareish white plastic things" that use the (don't laugh) "Horn Load" format to amplify the sound on the same principle as the trumpet. Jam your earphones into them and, hey presto: an Earhorn is born. They come in eight fruity colours and will set you back about Y3,000 ($28). [Via Ascii24]
DoCoMo's WiFi cellphone announced
DoCoMo has announced the much-rumoured NEC N900iL, its first attempt at a cellphone with wireless LAN included. It's aimed firmly at the corporate user, and shaves off a few functions common to the rest of DoCoMo's FOMA 900i series (large-sized Java apps, videophone avatars, infra-red remote control). However, it adds a browser that can be used either over WiFi or the packet network, a "presence" function to indicate whether a person you've registered is around or not (this only works with DoCoMo's corporate Passage Duple service, which doubles the number of your passages), and an instant messenger. The usual gear—such as a megapixel camera and videophone functions—are unharmed, and the standby and talk time are impressive for a wireless VoIP handset, at 230 hours (150 in dual cellphone/WiFi mode) and 160 minutes, respectively. Comes in one colour, silver, because silver is the colour of the future. Looks like we're going to be seeing more of these, so it seems like the time to ask: what would you want from a WiFi cellphone?
More Bluetooth audio headphones
These get their ass firmly kicked in the visual coolness stakes by Bluetake's offering, but Taiwanese firm Air2U has a pair of meaty Bluetooth audio headphones with built-in mike that it's hawking on an OEM basis. These aren't as roadgeek-friendly as the Bluetake unit, coming with either an AC-only audio adaptor that sits next to the stereo, or a sleeker USB dongle (about the size of a USB flash drive) for laptop use. The latter seems to be the better deal, since you can be listening to tunes while working on your laptop and then pick up cellphone calls by tapping a button on the headphones. Still, we're a bit sceptical about the promise of "crystal clear audio". [Via K-Tai Watch]
Had to happen: First clamshell WiFi phone
Japanese firm Rikei has come up with what they claim is the world's first clamshell WiFi phone. It looks vaguely reminiscent of some of NEC's recent Japan models, which we suspect isn't an accident, and comes in at a very cellphone-like 98g. Battery life is, as you'd expect, not up to cellphone standards, at 3 hours of talk time and 60 standby, and they say it'll cost "under Y50,000", which sounds rather pricey (our DoCoMo F900iT set us back Y5,000-Y10,000 less than that even throwing in the Bluetooth headset). Another vaguely ominous thing is the bit in the press release where it says "[a] telephone directory, Internet browser, mailer or other application software can also be loaded, if customers demand them." We do. We most definitely do. [Via ITmedia, which also shows what it looked like in the mind's eye of the designer]
The return of flower power
Nagoya firm Let's Corporation (sounds like a Japlish exhortation to start your own company) has come up with a sort of organic counterpart to those fakey sound-activated dancing flowers that were popular for a minute or two a few years ago. Their patented Flower Speaker Amp uses a coil in the base of a flower vase to send sweet musical vibrations through the water and have them emanate from the flowers and leaves themselves. The vase is insulated to stop it buzzing and skittering across your desk, and there's apparently some system to stop big bass tones from shaking the flowers to pieces (we hear it's an exciting new innovation codenamed the "graphic equalizer"), though at normal volume they do shiver visibly. No dancing, though, and definitely no sunglasses. Prices range from Y5,000-Y50,000 depending on the variety. The upper end of the price range is steep enough to make us wonder if top-of-the-line models come with sequoia woofers and orchid tweeters or something.
KDDI's spacephone
Latest phones from Japan's KDDI have hit the wires. Kyocera's W21K may come in a colour called Amazing Blue, and Sony Ericsson's W21S has stereo speakers and GPS…but king of the hill is definitely Sanyo's W21SA. It has the rotatable screen which is fast becoming de rigeur in Japan, plus a 2-megapixel camera (which can reference the internal dictionary via character recognition, and shoots QVGA video at up to 384kbps), FM radio, TV output, GPS, and the ability to act as a voice recorder or USB mass storage device. It also looks like some kind of pod from either Space: 1999 or 2001, we're having trouble deciding which.
RFID tags to keep Japanese kids in line
Scarcely a day goes by in Japan without some new story about schools introducing RFID tags to keep tabs on their pupils in one way or another. The idea of checking them in and out via readers at the school gates is old hat by now, but one school in Wakayama prefecture has teamed up with Japan's telecommunications ministry to go a step further: they're planning to fit tag readers to "dangerous locations" around town. Should pupils stray into range of the reader, the school and parents will get pinged by email. This all seems a trifle excessive, particularly if it means a future in which everyone's grown up acclimatised to being chipped and tracked; but given that Japanese schools already take an abnomally close interest in their pupils' conduct both on and off campus, it's hardly surprising.