These 1GB lightsaber flash drives may have been imported from Japan and they may light up when plugged in, but they still don’t feel quite right without some woosh-woosh-zzwoommm-zwing sound effects. Worth $20 without those? [ ThinkGeek via Nerd Approved ]
Modern gadgetry (you know, as opposed to “ancient gadgetry,” such as the abacus and the hour glass) lives and dies by its batteries, so it’s no surprise that lots of time and effort is spent researching both wacky alternatives to the tried and true power cell , as well as ways to make existing cells better. Among the latter, Nikkei is reporting that Eamex in Osaka, Japan, has developed a lithium-ion battery that will last some twenty years of regular use — that’s 10,000 charges! The secret to the long-lasting lithium-ion? In current designs, the tin that’s used for the battery’s negative electrode weakens through continual charging and recharging. The new design, however, calls for tin-coated resin that stabilizes the electrode and prevents deterioration…
Mobile advertising is poised to become a huge growth area, with research firm Kelsey Group seeing the market grow from just $160 million in 2008 to $3.1 billion in 2013. eMarketer projects mobile advertising spending in the US will balloon from $648 million in 2008 to over $3.3 billion in 2013. While some believe search will account for the biggest chunk of the market, others expect geo-aware advertising, another way of bringing “relevant” ads to users, to have a bright future, too. This is where AdLocal , a location-based, self-service mobile ad platform that (re-)launched yesterday, comes in. Offered by Sunnyvale-based Cirius Technologies USA , the platform has been around in Japan since 2006, currently commanding the largest share …
We can’t say that we’ve ever heard of PaPaLaB, but all it takes to get on the consumer electronics radar is doing something that no one has ever done before. It’s one of those “easier said than done” things, we’re guessing. Anywho, the Japanese outfit has just rolled out a camera system that has been proven to see the same colors as the human eye , a feat that was previously only achievable via huge, impractical camera rigs. The YC-3300, however, is far smaller and manageable than prior systems, and it has already been dubbed a “full-visible-color-gamut camera” by the powers that be. The creators expect it to primarily be used for photographing digital …
I’m not an RC gadget expert, but modding static model kits of space ships so that they’re water-proof and can be RC-controlled to make them then “fly underwater” seems like a very, very geeky thing to do to me. Take this 1/350 scale replica of the USS Enterprise NCC-1701-A space ship from Star Trek, for example. Some person [JP] in Yokosuka, Japan, bought the static kit and transformed it into a space ship that can move and be RC-controlled underwater. The people belonging to the “underground” circle of these self-made gadgets call themselves “Aqua Modelers” and meet up on…
The world needs humanoids, and Fuji Soft is heeding that call. It just unveiled its new humanoid line at the ever-popular All Japan Robot Tournament, and while the robot doesn’t have a model name yet, one of the delightful personalities pictured above is named Sakura-Chan and both seem pretty keen on a bit of robo-Sumo. The mobility and capabilities of the bots seems pretty standard, with an LED visor for facial expressions, speech recognition and a camera for taking in this odd carbon-based world it finds itself in. What’s more interesting is the Robovie-style off-the-shelf parts inside: Atom CPU, Ubuntu OS and WiFi, all of which are compatible with the Eclipse development environment. The robot should be hitting the streets …
The fact that the iPhone grabbed 46 percent of the Japanese smartphone market is certainly a nice headline, and there’s no denying that it’s an achievement. The only thing that dampens this mood slightly is that the smartphone market in Japan isn’t all that big, as the cell phone scene is dominated by cell phone lineups from carriers that have a whole range of different offerings ranging from mobile TV, perfume holders and all sorts of weird stuff that you generally only see in Japan. If you take a look at the cell phone vendors’ market share in Japan, you’ll see the giants such as Sharp, Panasonic, Fujitsu…
Sony and Square Enix have sure taken their time building up anticipation for this one, but the new limited edition Final Fantasy XIII PlayStation 3 is now finally available in Japan, and our pals at Joystiq were lucky enough to wrangle one for an unboxing. As you can see, this one definitely takes things further than the rather understated Final Fantasy VII limited edition PS3 , with it boasting a stylish matte white finish and a slightly glossier rendition of the character Lightning in pink — and, of course, a matching white controller. Hit up the link below for the full unboxing. Limited edition Final Fantasy XIII PS3 gets unboxed originally appeared on Engadget…
Hello Kitty, the dream cartoon cat of millions of teenage girls around the world, regularly gets a lot of love from the gadget world , too. But Hello Kitty TVs were relatively scarce so far. Last time we blogged about one was in June 2008 . While that one was pretty cute by itself, this new model announced today [JP], a 13.3-inch LCD TV, is much, much cuter (at least in my view). The device is made by a Japanese company called Dynaconnective and, if anyone from the target group cares, has the following specs: 1,280
It’s been a good while since we’ve seen an unboxing as thorough as this, even if the quality of the recording could be better. The chaps over at Wow Pow have sourced one of them dual-screen Kohjinsha DZ netbooks, which have had us intrigued since we saw them at CEATEC earlier this year . What we find from their cardboard adventuring is that the DZ comes with a LiteOn charger, a 6-cell 5,200mAh battery with endurance rated at four hours (though they’ve suggested that might be for only one screen), a 1Seg tuner that works only in Japan, and a multitouch trackpad. Powered by a 1.6GHz AMD Neo and 4 gigs of RAM, this machine …
