Male: Toshiba unveils a TV with a powerful self processor, Fujitsu helps to make your golf swing better, and a singing robot serenades us, all that news and more as we’re on location in Japan for this week’s world tech update.
Nick: Thanks for joining us here on world tech update, I’m Nick Barber. This week we’re coming to you from Mekaharimasa in Chiba, Japan, home of Ceatec, the country’s largest gadget and IT trade show. We’ll start our news this week with Toshiba and the announcement of the company’s Cell Regza TV. The 55 inch TV is based on the powerful cell multimedia processor, the same chip used in the Playstation 3.
Shigenori: Cell Regza kinda record the 8 channel simultaneously. So we call it the function time shift machine, yes, a time machine.
Nick: The simultaneous recording function uses 2/3rds of the space on an internal 3 terrabyte hard disk drive to provide the last 26 hours of television on demand for 8 channels. Users can also schedule programs which they would like to record. The TV will go on sale in Japan in December, and will cost around 1 million yen, that’s more than 11,000 US dollars. It will first arrive in the US sometime in 2010 with a European release set to happen sometime after that, but no other details on international availability were announced. Nissan showed off prototype technology that it hopes will reduce traffic accidents and congestion. Called Opuro, these 6 robots coordinate their speeds and shift lanes to avoid obstacles like broken down cars or me.
Kazuhiro: In this robot, we put the laser range finders to see the outside and also the communication, telecommunication between the robot to robot.
Nick: The robot’s have three main tasks when travelling along the makeshift roadway, the first is to avoid collision both among themselves and with obstacles along the road. The next is to travel side by side at a coordinated speed, while maintaining a safe distance. The third task is to close gaps between the robots in a group. Nissan said the prototype technology will take about 30 years before it’s found in any cars. Two displays are better than one, that’s the thinking behind the new laptop from Japanese computer maker, Kohjinsha. The company plans to ship a laptop that packs dual 10.1 inch LCD screen. The machine is based on 1.6 gigahertz athlon neo MV processor form AMD. Kohjinsha said the aim is to pack as much screen real estate in to a small form factor. The machine can also convert into a tablet after one screen is pinned behind the other and both are folded down. It will go on sale in Japan before the end of the year, but international launch plans haven’t been finalize. The laptop should cost, roughly 800 US dollars. Yamaha’s develop a prototype speaker made of cloth that’s only one millimeter thick, they’re very directional, so if I stand here, I hear one sound and over here, is a completely different one.
Kunimasa: It is a kind of old air to static speaker system, but it’s very thin and it’s made of very light material.
Nick: A one square meter speaker weighs 250 grams, when standing to one side the sound cannot be heard, but move in front and it quickly becomes audible. Yamaha has yet to decide whether or not to turn the prototype speaker into a commercial product. Sending an email is now as easy as throwing a baseball, here at NTT Docomos booth, the company’s showing off the throw mail application. Designed for android base smart phones, throw mail uses the phones camera to determine the direction of where your friends are located. You can look through the camera until you see a small icon superimpose in the camera’s viewfinder that tells you where your friends are and how far away they are. By clicking on the icon, you can send the message to your friend. Once you’ve selected your recipient, pitch them the message and remember to hang on to your phone. There’s no word on when or if the application will be release. Sending data via Bluetooth is one thing, but, sending it wirelessly through your body is another, that’s the idea behind the electric field communication modules here at Alps electric. First I selected an image in this mock cellphone and then when I touch my hand to the receiver panel, it’ll send the data wirelessly through my body instantly on to this screen.
Hitoshi: So, that is by using surface of the human body. Data signal now is going through the body to a receiver, so this is a basic technology.
Nick: One drawback of the technology is that it can only send data at a hundred kilobit per second, much slower than bluetooth’s two megabit per second transfer rate. The company plans to launch the technology commercially in 2010 and hope to see it use in a number of industries including consumer electronics, gaming and healthcare. If you’re a golfer, surely it’s happened to you before. You’re out in a golf course, hit a shot, it slices in to the woods, but you don’t know what you’ve done wrong. Fujitsu’s develop a cellphone application that analyzes your golf swing and pinpoints problems, let’s give it a try.
Girls: Nice shot.
Nick: Called ETGA golf lesson, the application ranks each of your swing with a score from one to 100 and then will give you an overall score after you’re done playing.
Ying: Basically it measures your body motion, when someone does the golf swing, it kinda automatically measures your body motion, transmit it to the 3D sensing engine. And the engine kind of maps it with the 16 point check point and it determines if your motion is correct or not.
Nick: The company kept secret what type of phone the application was running on, wrapping the phone in black plastic. But the engineers said the app will be in the Japanese market near the end of the year. This week wasn’t all work though, I met up with Hiroko Nakamura at Shibuya Crossing, Tokyo’s busiest intersection to learn some japanese, let’s take a look. So, when I first meet someone, what will I wanna say to them?
Hiroko: You probably wanna say hi, right. So, konichiwa.
Nick: Konichiwa.
Hiroko: Yes. And you probably wanna to introduce yourself in Japanese, so, watashiwa, Nickdas.
Nick: Watashiya, Nickdas.
Hiroko: Watashiwa, Nickdas.
Nick: Watashiwa, Nickdas.
Hiroko: Right. And you wanna say, and you? Right? So, anatawa.
Nick: Anatawa.
Hiroko: Watashiwa, Hirokodas. And then nice to meet you. Hajime mashde.
Nick: Hajime mashde.
Hiroko: Yes, hajime mashde.
Nick: Well that’s our show for this week, thanks for joining us here in world tech update. If you wanna see more of my video diary, check out our facebook fan page at facebook.com/worldtechupdate. I’ll be back in Boston next week with more Ceatec news, so be sure to tune in. I’m Nick Barber and from all of us here in the EDG news service, thanks for watching and goodbye from Japan.
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