Bringing you yesterday's news from Japan and Asia, today.
technology (Page 36)
It’s IT Month in Taiwan right now, and the annual IT trade show just made its stop at the Taipei World Trade Center this week, boasting 350 exhibitors rolling out 1,765 booths showing off the shiniest tech-gadgets in town.
Sure, it’s nice to be in touch with the latest technology trends and stuff, but it’s even better when cute peachy girls are involved in the process, ain’t it! Who’s with me?
In Japan, only the largest of streets have names. Addresses aren’t sequential either, so as you walk down the road the numbers may go from 12 to 5, and then back up to 23. Since making it from point A to point B isn’t as simple as “turn left on Main Street, then right on Arrow Highway, and if you see the 1600 block, you know you went too far,” for most people, a good map is essential for getting where you want to go.
But what if your map-reading skills aren’t the greatest? Or how about if you’re looking for a person, like the girl you asked out to dinner and are supposed to meet up with in five minutes?
Thankfully, there’s now an app for that.
Scientists must often have a hard time explaining deep scientific concepts to the general public without resorting to a lot of wild gesticulating and exasperated sighs. We know we’d get around five minutes into a college physics lecture before giving up and drawing cat doodles in our notebooks for the remaining hour of class.
It’s no wonder, then, that Japan’s RIKEN national comprehensive research institution resorted to making this totally awesome anime to enthrall and amaze our stupid civilian minds with flashing lights and hot robot girls, so we’d sit still long enough for the institute to introduce its new and totally sci-fi sounding SPring-8 Angstrom Compact Free Electron Laser (SACLA).
We all do it, and we’ve all been irritated by others doing it: walking while checking something on your phone. You know that it’s dangerous, but when you are in a hurry and need to check an urgent mail or see if anyone liked your witty status update yet, it’s hard not to just give the screen a quick gander on the go.
Japanese mobile provider Docomo has developed a service to remove that very temptation from your life, though. By setting your Android smartphone to “safety mode,” it will give you an error message if you try to use it while walking. That’s right, cruise control for pedestrians is finally here!
Like a migratory bird made of carbon fiber and engine blocks, every two years the Tokyo Motor Show returns to give us all a glimpse at automakers’ visions of the future. RocketNews24 visited this year’s event, and we’re here to share with you our impressions and photos of the massive crowds, newest concept cars, and hottest current models (both automotive and female).
For many of the world’s greatest cuisines, there is a fine line separating a stellar example of a particular dish from a loathsome, gag-inducing failure. In the case of the humble french fry, that fine line is a few extra minutes from fryer to your eager food hole; let the fries sit for just a little too long and they transform before your eyes from hot, crunchy guilty pleasure to disgusting, squishy, limp waste of calories.
Apparently deeply affected by a soggy fry incident, the folks at China’s Beyondte Electronics Co., Ltd. set out to perfect a french fry vending machine that would produce hot, crunchy fries on the spot whenever you got a craving, eliminating the need to order them at your favorite fast food joint and carry them home and – a happy side effect – also eliminating the need to actually speak to another human being to get your fry fix.
The good people at Honda, seemingly having read our minds, introduced at the 2013 Tokyo Motor Show this beautiful luxury chair-vehicle hybrid that we never knew we’d always been waiting for.
Gone are the days of actually having to get out of your seat to retrieve the remote, or that last broken chip from the Pringles can that somehow found its way into the seat cushion of that chair you never use. In fact, with the new UNI-CUB the only reason you’ll ever need to get out of your seat again is to give a standing ovation to Honda’s brilliant – and probably equally lazy – engineers.
Smartphones are great and all, but they require your hands, which can be a problem when doing work, sports or raising the occasional barn. Then, along came Google Glass, a brand of smart glasses with promises of a more hands-free future. Unfortunately, it’s hard to interact with people and not have them stare at your right eye the entire time.
There must be a way to combine the discreet practicality of a smartphone with the hands-free functionality of smart glasses. According to an invention filed with the U.S. Patent Office this year, Sony appears to be interested something that just might do that with the “Smart Wig.”
Every dog owner has experienced it: you want your dog to sit, speak, roll over and maybe shake, but your pooch has other ambitions. Bigger dreams. He wants to join the fire brigade (you know this because you taught him to speak), but you’re worried about your little buddy’s safety.
Finally, though, you can let your doggy chase both his tail and his dreams with this adorable doggy flame-retardant suit. Join us after the jump for more adorable photos!
While in recent years opinions have become increasingly divided on the gameplay in long-running video game series Final Fantasy, there’s not much room to criticize the franchise’s artistry. New installments of Final Fantasy are consistently among the most visually and aurally pleasing games at their time of release. Each title has a huge team of designers and software engineers who spend untold hours making sure the cut scenes are gorgeous, the interface slick, and the soundtrack stirring and crystal clear. And also, apparently, that the heroine doesn’t inadvertently flash her panties.
Protecting your privacy can be a difficult task in today’s world of information technology. With surveillance cameras on every corner and a recording device on every smartphone, there’s a good chance your image has been captured somewhere without you even knowing it. Safeguarding your mug in the future is set to become even more difficult with advancements in facial recognition technologies and wearable computers like Google Glass.
So what can you do to ensure your identity remains intact? In Western countries the answer would be simple: put on a pair of sunglasses. In Japan, however, sunglasses are a much less common sight, and many consider them to be worn only by those trying a little too hard to look cool, and in more extreme cases associate them with the yakuza lifestyle. Researchers at the National Institute of Informatics in Tokyo have addressed this issue by designing a non-threatening pair of white shades to protect both your identity and your public image, dubbing them the “Privacy Visor”.
There’s nothing particularly wrong with RocketNews24’s “.com” domain name. We haven’t declared ourselves an autonomious principality (yet), so .gov is out of the question. And while some (me) might argue that .handsomeandwittyreporterswhowritesuchgreatarticlesthatmenareinspiredandladiesswoon is the most accurate description of what we do around here, for some reason that’s not available for official use.
So we ended up with plain old .com, our only logical option out of the top-level domains recognized by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN. But if only RocketNews24 had come into existence a little later, we could have taken advantage of ICANN’s recent approval of .ninja as a domain name.
Sometimes ideas are too ahead of their time and get forgotten over the years. In 1978, Kawasaki released the Z1R TC, the first motorcycle to use a Turbocharged engine which gave it noticeably more power that other engines of the same size. However, after a brief love affair that lasted into the early ’80s, Japanese bike manufacturers turned their backs on the technology.
Now at this year’s Tokyo Motor Show from 23 November to 1 December, Suzuki is looking to bring it back with their new concept Recursion sports motorcycle which promises to go back and rectify all the problems that dogged turbocharged bikes of the past.
We here at RocketNews24 are no strangers to the lengths people will go to for the latest Apple product. And when we first heard about the new iPad Air, we knew we wanted to get our hands on one. But since merely buying the newest iPad was not enough of a challenge, we set out to buy an unlocked model that could be used on any wireless network in Japan.
Unfortunately, it seems like that is not an option in Japan, which led one of our reporters from RocketNews24 Japan, Takashi Harada, on a trip to Hong Kong to try to get one of the hottest devices of the season! It turned out to be quite the adventure.
As someone who feels lonely when his car doesn’t have a clutch pedal, the seemingly inevitable march towards self-driving automobiles isn’t exactly my favorite technological trend. Convenience is all well and good, but I can’t help but feel sorry for future generations that may never know the joy of a crisp-shifting manual transmission, or the amazing stress-relieving properties of a quick blast to redline.
Of course, there’s no pleasure to be found in navigating through a crowded parking lot hunting for a space. That’s why Honda is looking to take this task off drivers’ hands with an automatic valet parking system.
Despite having a name that induces chuckles in many English speakers, Kinki University (Kinki being the name of the region around Osaka) is a well-respected school, with roots stretching back to 1925 when it came into existence as Osaka Technical College.
In keeping with the school’s long history of pursuing technological advancement, a team at Kinki University has recently developed a mouse that allows users to operate their PC with nothing more than their breath.
Since its release in 2007, the iPhone has taken the world by storm, garnering a massive following thanks to its simplistic design and sleek interface. Along with the gradual changes of its appearance, its operating system, iOS, has also made subtle changes with each update since the first version.
iOS 7, which was rolled out a couple of months ago, surprised users with a revamped look and feel which seemed to challenge the limits of simplicity with a flat user interface and bold colors. Doing away with excessive ornamentation, the explicitly simple design set some people thinking, was iOS 7 created in Microsoft Word? Václav Krejčí from the Czech Republic worked his magical skills with the word processing software to create an image replica of unbelievable quality, and you should really see it with your own eyes.
It’s been almost a year since the Windows 8 operating system was released to the general public. Its aim was to combine the convenience of downloadable apps with the familiarity of a PC desktop in a touch-focused environment, giving us what could have been the best of both worlds. Instead, the Win8 app store struggles against its primary competitors, iTunes and the Android app store. It’s doesn’t help that developers focus the majority of their programming prowess on developing apps for the older and more trusted operating systems, iOS and Android.
However, there is one branch of the computer app market where Win8 has a distinct advantage, and that’s its library of highly recognizable rip-offs. Just look at this list of free game apps which make nefarious use of Nintendo’s most popular video game characters!
Cars sure are great. They look cool, they go vroooom really loudly, and they can even get us around to different places much faster than just walking. But there are a few drawbacks, too, perhaps the chief of which is that they’re incredibly dangerous! Zipping around at high speeds reduces the amount of time we have to react to dangerous situations and this can turn even small mistakes into giant disasters.
Of course, that’s just a problem with everyone else, right? I mean, I know I’m a great driver–this wouldn’t be an issue without everyone else on the road. Fortunately, Nissan is working on just the thing to help keep me safe: autonomous cars!
Panasonic announces the release of a digital cordless phone, VE-GDW03DL, which allows the use of a smartphone as a sub-handset over a wireless internet connection. The domestic chat device is set to hit stores on 14 November, and has an open price tag.
Foreigner’s request for help in Tokyo makes us sad for the state of society
Red light district sushi restaurant in Tokyo shows us just how wrong we were about it
Osaka governor suggests lowering voting age to 0 to curb population decline
Historical figures get manga makeovers from artists of Spy x Family, My Hero Academia and more
Suntory x Super Mario collaboration creates a clever way to transform into Mario【Videos】
Akihabara pop-up shop sells goods made by Japanese prison inmates
Ghibli Park now selling “Grilled Frogs” from food cart in Valley of Witches
Smash Bros. director Sakurai stabs Kirby in the face, has delicious justification for it
Studio Ghibli unveils Mother’s Day gift set that captures the love in My Neighbour Totoro
Japan’s massive matcha parfait weighs 6 kilos, contains hidden surprises for anyone who eats it
McDonald’s new Happy Meals offer up cute and practical Sanrio lifestyle goodsForeigner’s request for help in Tokyo makes us sad for the state of society
Japanese ramen restaurants under pressure from new yen banknotes
French Fries Bread in Tokyo’s Shibuya becomes a hit on social media
Studio Ghibli releases new action figures featuring Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind characters
New private rooms on Tokaido Shinkansen change the way we travel from Tokyo to KyotoRed light district sushi restaurant in Tokyo shows us just how wrong we were about it
Tokyo Tsukiji fish market site to be redeveloped with 50,000-seat stadium, hotel, shopping center
All-you-can-drink Starbucks and amazing views part of Tokyo’s new 170 meter-high sky lounge
Beautiful Ghibli sealing wax kits let you create accessories and elegant letter decorations【Pics】McDonald’s new Happy Meals offer up cute and practical Sanrio lifestyle goodsForeigner’s request for help in Tokyo makes us sad for the state of society
Studio Ghibli releases Kiki’s Delivery Service chocolate cake pouches in Japan
New definition of “Japanese whiskey” goes into effect to prevent fakes from fooling overseas buyers
Our Japanese reporter visits Costco in the U.S., finds super American and very Japanese thingsStudio Ghibli unveils Mother’s Day gift set that captures the love in My Neighbour TotoroJapanese ramen restaurants under pressure from new yen banknotesAll-you-can-drink Starbucks and amazing views part of Tokyo’s new 170 meter-high sky lounge
More foreign tourists than ever before in history visited Japan last month
New Pokémon cakes let you eat your way through Pikachu and all the Eevee evolutionsMcDonald’s new Happy Meals offer up cute and practical Sanrio lifestyle goods
Sales of Japan’s most convenient train ticket/shopping payment cards suspended indefinitely
Sold-out Studio Ghibli desktop humidifiers are back so Totoro can help you through the dry season
Japanese government to make first change to romanization spelling rules since the 1950s
Ghibli founders Toshio Suzuki and Hayao Miyazaki contribute to Japanese whisky Totoro label design
Doraemon found buried at sea as scene from 1993 anime becomes real life【Photos】
Tokyo’s most famous Starbucks is closed
One Piece characters’ nationalities revealed, but fans have mixed opinions
We asked a Uniqlo employee what four things we should buy and their suggestions didn’t disappoint
Princesses, fruits, and blacksmiths: Study reveals the 30 most unusual family names in Japan
Akihabara pop-up shop sells goods made by Japanese prison inmates
Ghibli Park now selling “Grilled Frogs” from food cart in Valley of Witches
Smash Bros. director Sakurai stabs Kirby in the face, has delicious justification for it
Studio Ghibli unveils Mother’s Day gift set that captures the love in My Neighbour Totoro
Japan’s massive matcha parfait weighs 6 kilos, contains hidden surprises for anyone who eats it
Anime girl English teacher Ellen-sensei becomes VTuber/VVTUber and NFT
We try the Jack & Coke canned cocktail to see if it’s any better than mixing one yourself
Utada Hikaru explains “why getting over someone is so painful”
Ghibli fans show their devotion by making live-action prequel to Princess Mononoke【Video】
Is Japan’s massive Shizuoka steak sandwich really as delicious as it looks in promo photos?
When “yes” means “no” — The Japanese language quirk that trips English speakers up
Pokémon Sleep camping suite and guestrooms coming to Tokyo Hyatt along with giant Snorlax burgers
Toilet slides and turd hats: welcome to Tokyo’s crappiest exhibition