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technology (Page 42)

Maybe, along with the drive to to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before, we also want to explore our minds and consciousness. And maybe inevitably that sometimes comes out to be inventing new ways to mess with our own heads. And so, the eggheads at Riken Research have developed the “Substitutional Reality System“. Read More

TOYOTA Shows Off the Ultimate Family Car, Even the Kids Can Drive it!

At a recent auto show Toyota had unveiled its latest concept car, the Camatte (pronounced like latte), which they boast as the first ever true family car.  Not only can mom and dad use it for their daily transportation needs, but little Susie can get a kick out of playing dress-up with it and little Johnny can practice driving it himself in the back yard.

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Thousands are Buying Up a Toy Fan That Pumps Out Some Serious Wind Power On The Cheap

Since its release on April 28th people have been flocking to toy stores across Japan to get their hands on toymaker Takara Tomy’s Kuru Kuuuuru Eco-Fan (Round and Rooooouuund Eco-Fan), so much so that their original 60,000 units had to be upped to an additional shipment of 120,000 to meet the demand.

It seems since abandoning much of the nuclear power in Japan, people’s minds are set on alternative means of keeping cool while saving electric costs or during potential black outs.  The reason everyone wants this particular toy fan is because of the sheer wind power it has.  For every one turn of the hand, the fan blade spins 100 times.

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Karaoke’s Not Just For Singing Any More, Guitars Now Welcome at Joysound f1

Anyone who’s played one of those music based games, be it Guitar Hero, Rock Band, or even Donkey Konga, surely enjoyed it but also felt that mild pang of guilt.  The reality that if we spend the same time and effort learning a real instrument we could actually have a skill we would be proud of.

But learning a musical instrument is a long hard practice that often lacks the pizzazz and gratification the games offer.  Perhaps, karaoke company Xing’s new Joysound f1 can help in that area, as their new karaoke system offers support for guitars and bass guitars.

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Toyota announced this month that it will be a releasing a system for using your Prius plug-in hybrid as a big ol’ battery. The key feature is an inverter which will allow you to plug household electronics directly into the car through a water-proof cable. Read More

New Cyber-Attack Warning System Makes Cyber-Warfare Look as Cool as It Does in the Movies

Have you ever watched a movie where a group of unbelievably attractive looking hackers broke into some government organization by constantly typing on their keyboard like they were typing an essay? Yet according to the display they were opening and closing executable files.

Sadly when alleged cyber-attacks occured during the South Ossetia War there were probably no fancy CGI effects showing neon blue wires interacting with each other while Scarlet Johansson with a poor Slavic accent convinces a Putin-looking Sean Penn to move all the nuclear data to a back-up server – constantly typing all the while.

No, the reality is probably just a bunch of sweaty Russians crowded around a blinking DOS prompt. That is, until now, as Japan’s National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) have developed a new cyber-attack alert system called Daedalus.  And let me tell you, cyber warfare has never been sexier!

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Finally Put an End to Mobile Phones Slipping Out Of Your Shirt Pocket with K-Pocke

I can’t recall how many times mobile phones and mp3 players have slipped out of the front pocket of my shirt.  Always ending with that cringe inducing thud as my precious device hits the cold hard ground.  There was even one incident involving a turtle pond and now-gone iPod Classic that I can’t bear to go into.

If someone was videotaping all these moments in my life it would have made an excellent opening to a commercial for K-Pocke (pronounced like pokemon), a pocket designed so that nothing slips out.

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Mindreading App (Shut Up and Take More Of My Free Will Away)?

At first glance, this tech news report seems to be telling us of an intriguing augmented reality app that’s scary good. When you point your camera at an object, it can automatically read your mind about what you’ll want to do next on the internet with respect to that object, like get a coupon for it or research about it on Wikipedia. Which would bring to mind various questions, such as, is it like auto-fill/auto-complete, remembering what you or others have done before, taken a few steps further? Is it selectively taking you to a website that’s ultimately aiming to get your money? Is it inviting you to give up your free will and just be satisfied with the website it saw fit to jump you to? How does it know what you want to do? Read More

Newly Developed Memory Could Make Your Smartphone Battery Last 10 Times Longer

Good news for users of smartphones and other portable devices constantly frustrated by batteries that don’t seem to last the day.  A new type of energy saving memory has been successfully developed that can extend your battery life from 5 to 10 times.

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Smartphone Vs Wine Bottle: Can this New “Shockproof Film” Save the Mobile Device?

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsbvkOkfLYw?feature=oembed&w=640&h=480%5D

While attending Wireless Japan 2012 this year, we were able to see some offerings by the best companies of the mobile industry.  But many times, it’s the small to mid-sized businesses that really aim to make a name for themselves.

Enter Sun Crest Ltd., who shocked many with their line of shockproof screen film protectors.  Although it’s not officially released, we got ahold of a sample and put it to the test with some whacks from a wine bottle.

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  • Jun 7, 2012

Worried about power shortage? Now you can carry around your own portable solar power source!

Conservation and efficient use of energy is a huge issue these days, particularly in Japan where the nuclear power plants have been shut down and people are seriously concerned about whether we will have enough electric power in the coming summer months when electricity use will be at the highest. Well, if you’re worried about running out of electric power, here’s the perfect gadget for you – your very own portable solar panel kit! Read More

Capture Highway Wackiness, Prove Your Driving Skills with this Rearview Mirror with Camera and LED Display

Now you can capture random moments of craziness or novelty happening while you’re driving with this new in-car camera / rearview mirror from Hamwha. It looks more or less like a normal rearview mirror but has an internal camera pointing forward to record what’s happening in front of your vehicle. Read More


  • Jun 4, 2012

These cute little gadgets will keep you cool in the summer – so what are they?

Can you guess what these gadgets are? It’s hard to tell from their appearance, isn’t it? Well, they’re portable devices that are designed to keep you cool in warm weather, so they’re not just cute and smart looking, they’re actually quite functional. So what exactly are they and how are they used? Read More

Use Your Sushi … On Your Smartphone

So you want to keep your smartphone on your desktop, but you don’t want to lay it flat to get inadvertently smothered by paperwork or worry about some careless mungo putting their coffee mug on it. Or you want to watch some videos on it so you prop it up against your coffee mug but the phone slides down and you actually want to drink your coffee at some point. Read More

Softbank Releases World’s First Radiation-Detecting Phone

This week, Softbank Mobile presented the newest iteration of its popular Pantone phones, and these are some pretty smart smartphones. So smart, in fact, that they can double as a Geiger counter. Read More

Honda Unveils Uni-Cub: Segway For La Derriere (Unoriginal Title, but Oh So Accurate and Concise)

At a Tokyo press event, Honda showed off its single-rider, hands-free personal mobility device, the Uni-cub. The Uni-Cub can move in every direction  just by shifting your weight, including rotating in place, and is about the height of a chair, so you can put your feet on the ground at any time. One of the biggest advantages is that your hands are free, so you can hold a sign that says, “I believe I’m more awesome than you”. Read More

Well, the combination of the first two was working out well, apparently. (For those of you who don’t know, there are many regional dialects / accents in Japan. The most easily found is likely the Kansai dialect, due to the huge number of comedians and entertainers you can see on TV.) In any case, following the logic of [cute girls] + [dialects] = [cute], they created a late-night TV program featuring these girls doing various  things in their respective dialects (PG-rated, presumably). Due to the skyrocketing popularity of the TV show, the next natural step was to … promote men’s electric shavers. Read More

Denta-Pride’s Electronic Tooth Brushing Coach uses Bluetooth to Make Teeth White, But May Go On A Power Trip

We probably all feel comfortable with the way we brush our teeth; after meals just like we were always told.  But how long do you brush for?  Do you brush with the right amount of pressure?  Are you sure you’re giving each part of your mouth its fair share of brushing time?

A recent development in electric toothbrushes the Oral B Denta-Pride 5000 allows us to answer these impossible questions, but then hits us with another puzzle – why 5000?

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Demand for “Mini-Dam” Rain Barrels Triples in Year-Plus Since 3/11, Municipal Subsidies Available

A movement toward storing rainwater for emergency use seems to be afoot throughout Japan. Sanei Build System has reported threefold demand for its user-friendly “Mini-Dam” rain barrels in the wake of the March 11 disasters. 

The manufacturer has suggested retail prices of 50,000 yen for the 200-liter model and 120,000 yen for the 1,000-liter model, but it adds that certain municipalities will subsidize as much as half the retail price. Read More

New iPhone App Lets Users Throw Darts at Expensive, High-Tech Equipment

Want to let off some steam by throwing dangerous sporting equipment at expensive entertainment devices? Want to indulge your destructive, decadent side while testing your fine motor skills and depth perception? “Play Darts!” is the perfect iPhone app for you.

Play Darts! (“Daatsu Ni Shiyagare!”) is a new kind of game application that links iPhones to Smart TVs or computers. The user “throws” a dart shown on his iPhone to a target displayed on a distant Smart TV or PC by moving the iPhone through the air the same way he would throw an actual dart. The game is available for free on iTunes for users with iOS 4.3 or newer.

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