Nick: Windows 7 is here, a 3D display that can be seen on all sides, and we got the latest from the Tokyo motor show, all that news and more on this week’s World Tech Update. Thanks for joining us here on World Tech Update, this week I’m in New York city were just a few minutes ago, Steve Ballmer announced the availability of Windows 7, let’s take a look.
Steve: There’s not much that gets me more fired up than the chance to start selling, delivering, and letting customers enjoy Windows 7, so today Windows 7 is available. 45,000 stores around the world, it’s available on new PCs, the upgrades are available, and it’s just out there for all to, to start, hopefully to appreciate and enjoy as much as our 8 million beta testers have done.
Nick: The company had an area set up at the event to try out different features of the OS on different types of machines. Some were tablets to demonstrate the Windows 7 touch interface, and others were high powered graphics machines. There are four different versions of Windows 7, starter, home premium, professional and ultimate. Ranging in price from about 120 US dollars to about 220 US dollars and if you bought a PC after June 26, 2009, you’re entitled to a free upgrade to Windows 7, but availability and ship dates differ by PC manufacturer, so check with them. Now it’s over to my colleague Martyn Williams in Tokyo with the rest of this week’s news. Martyn.
Martyn: Thanks Nick, indeed the Tokyo motor show began a two week run this week and I went along to find out the latest in autotech. This is Nissan’s Land Glider, a single person all electric vehicle designed for city driving. It leans when cornering, just like a motorcycle, but check out the dashboard, the concept has a wrap around LCD panel with a second center panel for the navigation display. Equally shiny was the dashboard of Mitsubishi’s concept PXMIEV, the car, a plug in hybrid, surrounds the driver with information on LCD’s and there’s a fourth display on center with an interface to the entertainment system. But for LCD size, nothing beat Daihatsu’s Dekkadekka small van, there’s a 35 inch LCD in the rear. Daihatsu hopes it will appeal to photography hobbyists who can use the desk in the back and also check out pictures they’ve taken on the big screen. You might have done it on the computer game, but imagine driving by joystick for real, Toyota’s concept FTEV2 electric vehicle replaces the stirring wheel with twin joysticks. The cars stirring, braking and acceleration could be controlled by hand, so the foot pedals aren’t needed. Toyota’s iReal transporter back at the show after it debut last year also uses twin joysticks. But perhaps the most advance control system of all was on Honda’s U3X Mobility device. Riders control the device by simply leaning in the direction they wish to move. An inclined detector inside the device senses shifts in upper body weight and responds by moving forwards, backwards or sideways or turning. Now it seems like hardly a week goes by when there isn’t a new rumor about Twitter being sold to someone, well, that’s not going to happen according to co-founder Biz Stone, who is in Japan last week to launch a new mobile site.
Biz: Twitter is not interested in being acquired by a bigger company, we wanna build an impressive company on our own, and we believe that we can.
Martyn: Knowledge game from the new Twitter mobile site here will be put to use on future Twitter mobile efforts around the world. Google’s done a great if controversial job of photographing cities for street view. But its lens only goes where cars can go, well, not anymore. The Google trike is a pedal powered extension, Lego land California, San Diego state university, Santa Monica pier and Monterey bay bike trail have all been added and Google is asking for suggestions if other places in the US. Nominations are being accepted until October 28th. Ever since those flaming lithium ion battery problems a couple of years ago, scientists have been working on making the battery safer. Well, researchers in Taiwan say they’ve managed to do just that. The scientists have developed a polymer that substantially reduces the risk of fire or explosion when lithium ion batteries are damaged. The polymer called Stoba was developed by the Industrial Technology Research Institute and keeps batteries from overheating. Here’s what happens when a normal lithium ion battery is punctured, and here’s what happens when the same thing happens to a Stoba battery. The new material is expected to add no more than 3 percent of the price of a battery when its development is finish. And now, a glimpse of the future, Sony unveiled a new 3D display this week that can be seen all around without special glasses. Although you don’t get the full 3D effect on this video, the image displayed on the prototype screen appears to have depth to it. It can be viewed to 360 degrees around the device. All of the objects displayed on the screen were either created in 3D on a computer or kept still while photographs were taken from all around, so 360 degree data exist. Therefore it’s possible to walk around the display and view each object from any angle.
Ryoji: But this is a very good 3D display for educational purpose and it has designs, there are so many design application, over there you check through this, you know, this kind of display.
Martyn: The screen has a resolution of 96 pixels by 128 pixels which wouldn’t sound like it make for a very good image, but it’s surprisingly good when seen for real, for now, there are no immediate plans for commercialization. And that’s it from Tokyo, now it’s back to Nick in New York.
Nick: Thanks Martyn, well that’s it for this week’s show, next week I’ll be back in Boston and to find out what’s coming up on every weeks show follow us on Twitter and check out our Facebook fan page. I’m Nick Barber and for all of us here at the IDG News Service, thanks for watching, and we hope to see you next week.
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