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Technology

Cool Japanese Gadgets You Can't Have 167

Posted by CmdrTaco from the aint-that-sweet dept.
CitizenC writes "C|Net is running a story on really cool gadgets that we don't get here in the US or Canada. (At least, not yet anyway.) Included are an in car, dashboard mounted DVD player (VERY bad idea), a digital camera that stores images on a MiniDisk, the PlayStation 2 (Although we WILL be getting it this fall), colour LCD cell phones for web-surfing, and finally (my personal favorite), a digital fish tank!"
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Cool Japanese Gadgets You Can't Have More

Cool Japanese Gadgets You Can't Have

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  • Unless I'm in Japan. Some of us are you know.
  • There a difference between being a Luddite and stopping and thinking about technology from a rational perspective.

    Show of hands: How many people have been almost killed by people who were so distracted by the conversation they're carrying on that they failed to notice something simple? Red light, checking a blind spot, the list goes on and on - I've seen them all.

    Now you're talking about in-dash DVD players as being a luddite issue. Uh huh. So when your eyes are on the screen, what happens when I brake hard in front of you to avoid some idiot who just changed lanes without checking his blind spot?

    Allowing yourself to be distracted while driving is one of the most dangerous things you can do. I don't care if you're carrying on a heated conversation with a passenger or watching Pulp Fiction - it's dangerous to yourself and everyone else on the road.

    While you can rattle on and on about how stupid it is for folks to be against radios, I've been in situations where I took one hand off the wheel and my eyes off the road to tune in a station at the wrong time. No accident, but close enough to make me more careful.

    So you can continue on in your nice cushy Navigator, watching DVDs and talking on your cell phone. Just don't expect to get an easy sentence when you take someone's head off in an accident.
  • I work in asia developing web sites for those little phones. Mainly NTT-DoCoMo , and starting WAP, soon j-phone.

    These phones use packet based networks so you only have to pay for data transmitted, not air time, so they are cheaper to cruise the web. NTT-DoCoMo has a micropayment system so people can make money ( US$1 - US$3 ) a month just by letting people read your websites. And a lot of websites are free.

    It is REALLY popular. 5 million users so far for NTT-DoCoMo, and they all can send e-mail and cruise the web.

    Also, talking on the phone in the subway is considered rude, so people cruise the web or send messages on the long commutes.

  • Yeah, I saw one in Nashville last week. 7" LCD screen, something over $1,000 if I recall...
  • Lets just pray it hits the States before us Canucks have to deal with it.

    The independence of the United States is a myth! It's really just a buffer zone, protecting Canada from the rest of the world.

  • Yup, bits of it all exist.

    Now I want the whole enchilada in one comprehensive, compatible, co-operative package.

    --
  • Go yo your local car audio shop and look at the dash mounted DVD LCD stereo players. Also, goto Circuit city and look at the MD video cameras. Color cell phones are just a coming attraction. Well, and OF COURSE the PS2 is going to be making an appearance at my house :)
  • Does the GNOME Fish count? Mine's called Wanda. She's swimming in my panel as I type.
  • My highschool [sprise.com], in new hampshire, bought a digital video camera, which records onto mididiscs, a few months ago, I think.
  • It's the cute invasion!

    Lets just pray it hits the States before us Canucks have to deal with it.
  • Apparently Apex is doing just that. The MD-100 -- which fits in a standard dash -- plays DVDs, cds, and mp3s.

    They say it'll be out next month for about $499.

    e;
  • I've thought about the troll issue too. IMHO, a good troll does not deserve to be moderated down (or up, because then it would be marked as a troll, ruining the joke) and a bad troll is better described as flamebait. I suggest the "troll" option be retired.

    --
    grappler
  • I've seen these things in ads in Asahi. Its more normal in Japan than anywhere I know of. The thing is the ones I've read about aren't purely DVD. its closer to a computer with a DVD drive, so, what the hell, lets have a player. PS2 probably got it for the same reason. all the hardware was there.

    The big thing about these though, they are called "Car Navi". Yes, this is short for navigator, but knowing this and watching 'Lain', you must realize that the term "Navi" is not geek. its a normal adopted word, and that Car Navis seem all the less techno and more normal. A world where kick-ass computers are not geeky, but just another appliance. 'Lain' looks all the more disturbing now, doesn't it?

    êá
  • Well, since everyone else has pointed out that the MD camera is available in the US, I guess I'll point out that there is a car DVD player available, too. I wasn't able to find the manufacturer, but a local car audio chain stocks it. I'll stop by after work today and post the manufacturer/model when I get home.
  • One of my favorite geek attractions over here is the holographic Buddhist (Shinto? I still can't tell the diff...) Shrine near Yurakucho station. It's on the ground floor of Hankyu Department Store and has a 2ft*2ft holographic religious image...
    There's even a little coffer for you to toss coins when you say your prayer.
    It's a short walk from Sony Plaza in Ginza, which is another Mecca of geekdom. You can walk through the building and see the prototypes of many of Sony's products, built with clear plastic cases, so you can see the innards.
    Akihabara is just too extreme to describe here - Let's just say that if they decide to film Neuromancer there, they won't have to change anything...
    Cheers,
    Jim in Tokyo
  • It's funny that they mention watching the godfather series, considering it is one of the major missing series of movies not on DVD.
  • I recently took pictures of Docomo P502i along with my bulky Nokias:

    http://www.geocities.com/keitaishashin/ [geocities.com]

    Quick Spec:

    • Model: Digital Mover P502i HYPER [nttdocomo.co.jp]
    • Height: 130mm
    • Width: 46mm
    • Thickness: 16mm
    • Weight: 69g
    • Battery Charge Time (AC adapter): 95min
    • Battery Charge Time (DC adapter): 95min
    • Contiunous Talk Time: 125min
    • Continuous Stand-by Time: 300hours

    I want one!

  • Some notes:

    This is not the color version which is mentioned in the article. (still, impressive monochrome graphics). Here are links to color versions:

    http://www.nttdocomo.co.jp/i/l ineup/d502i/d502i.html [nttdocomo.co.jp]
    http://www.nttdocomo.co.jp/i/l ineup/f502i/f502i.html [nttdocomo.co.jp]

    It has most of the feature that Nokia 6162 has (memo, calender, etc). In addition, you can customize it: ringer tone, mail receive tone, background picture during stand-by mode, etc. You can download songs off the net, or exchange those data via IR port.

    Typing is bit hard, but I guess people get used to it. More and more people are not talking on the phone, but typing email on these little toy! That's amazing.

    Joy stick that allows you to move between menu is another plus. It only took me few seconds to learn how navigation worked. Much more intuitive than Nokia's.

  • People have beem modifying Alpine CVA1000's (their in-dash navagation system) for over a year now. By default they're supposed to be installed so that the parking brake must be engaged to operate, but there are several hacks to get around this.
  • Before everyone forgets, Japanese working in Tokyo area spend hours commuting because of traffic jam. In those cases, a DVD player would actually keep the driver from thinking, "damn, I'm stuck again! Look at that car next to me! It's moving an inch ahead now!"

    ... ok, that was just my imagination...

  • However, there are important distances being ignored here:
    Radio vs DVD:

    Audio cues while driving are not as important as visual cues. There have been cases where people have not heard sirens, and have caused problems as a result, but the frequency with which you must respond to audio cues is sufficiently low to make driving with a radio relatively safe.

    Visual cues are fairly important. If you are driving in bumper to bumper traffic watching a dvd, and don't notice the brakelights, you have trouble. If you are driving in bumper to bumper traffic listening to the radio, and don't hear the brakes squealing in front of you, hopefully you notice the brake lights.

    Radio vs handheld cell phone:
    With radio, you take one hand off the wheel, and press buttons. This can lead to accidents, and occasionally does. Statistically though, the odds that you'll reach out to change channels at a critical moment are reasonably low.

    With a cell phone, you may have your hand off the wheel for the entire commute. In urban areas, that can often be in the 30 minute to 1-hour range. In addition, unlike with a radio, most people won't feel free to jerk their hand back to the wheel in an emergency, for multiple reasons:
    a) you'll drop your phone (you won't drop your radio).
    b) you're holding your phone in a grip (you don't hold your radio the same way).
    c) you're more involved with your phone (in the midst of conversation).

    Even more serious is the likelyhood that you won't put your hand back on the wheel during moments you need to make steering adjustments in non emergencies. This can lead to an increased statistical risk that you'll be the cause of an accident.

    I'll allow people to have hands-free phones in their cars with no complaints, but just like with motorcycle helmets, as a public policy, it just makes more sense to legally force people to not have dvd players distracting the driver, and not have phones or other electronics occupying the driver's hands.
  • I can't get to the site because I'm doing a big download.

    Is the fish tank digital or just electronic? If the later, you can get the same thing a lot cheaper (probably) here in the States and have been able to for many years. Just pop a tape in your VCR and you can have fish, a fireplace, forest scenes, etc.
    --
  • If you are in Silicon Valley, you can see an NEC "FishClub Jr." in the lobby of Accrue Software, in Fremont. It's an HTDV monitor. The fish programs are on some kind of flash card that looks like PCMCIA -- it's definitely not laserdisc or DVD. You can turn on/off the bubbles. This is particularly useful if you want to plug in your laptop to the video input, say to give a presentation (although nobody at Accrue uses it for presentations). The remote control is very cute .. it's in the shape of a fish.

    There's an optional carousel that holds multiple cards -- I think five or six. The 'tank' is currently programmed to rotate the fish program every hour throughout the day. Also, it's programmed to shut itself down between about 7pm and 7am, since there usually isn't anyone in the lobby.

    The 'new tank every hour' routine can be confusing for visitors who see the fish tank on the way in to the building, and see a different set of fish (and backgrounds, etc) on their way out. Only then do they go close enough to the tank to realize it's an HTDV monitor.
  • I've seen the dash mounted DVD player for sale in the U.S., at a high end A/V store over 6 months ago.
  • xfishtank on a laptop. Cats can see an LCD screen and they will be interested for a while...but make sure they can't reach it with their claws.
  • See MiniDisc.Org [minidisc.org] for a list of sources. There's also a page on MD data devices [minidisc.org].

  • On another note the phones don't seem to have many new features compared with what we are used to in europe anyway, except for the colour screens, which are new features anyhow.

    Really? I thought we had some pretty hot stuff in Japan...
    Docomo has their I-Mode phones, that have internet access as well as NTT's information network (things like movie schedules, train schedules, weather information, entertainment guides and such).
    Tsuka has their own network called SkyWeb which is fairly similar.
    Most phones now offer internet e-mail, as well.
    The color phones just came out at the end of last year and they are pretty cool, though a bit expensive (like almost $40!! ouch!). I'd rather get a free phone, myself. They're a bit older and bigger (mine weighs in at a hefty 7x15x1.5cm!), but they're free so what the hell.

    I'm waiting for them to get the navi systems small enough that they can fit them on the phones. Now THAT will be cool!

    As far as freedom of speech goes, we have a lot more of it in Japan than the USA does.
  • Hoo-rah, more pocket philosophy.

    A thought-free way to promote regularity.
  • Wanna know something really funny?

    It's illegal to talk on a cel phone while driving in Japan, but it's not illegal to watch TV while driving =)
  • They're digital AI fish.

    You can feed them and do fishy things.

  • Has anyone actually seen these things or are they some urban legend? I've been to Japan twice, actively looked for them both times, and could never find any.

    There's a sex shop just around the corner from Akihabara station that sells them. Go out the main North entrance and go into the covered area across the street and through a corridor.
    You'll see a porno shop entrance to the right as you walk through. Go up to the 4th floor (the SM and other weird stuff section).
    Beware, most of them cost upwards of $100, so it's a pretty expensive novelty item.

    ...

    Er umm .. that is I *heard* that's where you can find them.. ahem..
  • Correct!

    North America and Europe come up with new technology.
    Japan takes the technology and does it right.

    Example: All major roads have reflector posts along both sides and in the middle. On the face of each reflector is a fan with bristles on each of the three blades. When the wind blows (and it blows often), the bristles clean the surface of the reflector.

    Japan has a very long history of copying and improving what they like in other countries.
    With the exception of Chinese characters, they seem to have done pretty well.

  • I've always whanted to store data on MiniDiscs.
    Think of it:
    1)7x7cm (2x2 inch.) could store 100-150MB worth of data*
    2)The discs come in a plastic case which is (mostly) dust and scratch-proof
    3)They can be read/written using the same technique as usual M/O discs.

    I'd rather store data on my smartmedia cards.
    Think of it:
    1) 2x2cm (and 1.5mm thick!)
    2) the cards are solid state, so they are dust and scratch proof
    3) They are flash storage, so access is almost instantaneous

    I'm thinking of buying one of the new 120MB versions so I can load that much more music into the mp3 player I bought in Akihabara for $80.

  • usual mo disks don't exist... there are grips of standards for them. for practical intents and purposes, md's *are* mo disks.

    They do in Japan, and have for years.
    There's one in the machine right beside me at work.
    They are now up to 640MB MO drives (you can get 640MB disks for about $30 and the player is about $350).
    The standard for MO drives in Japan is called (surprise) MO

  • Ex: Toyota has a car that has a electric/gas hybrid engine called the Prius that gets something like 70mpg in town. This vehicle has been available in Japan for at least five years.

    The Prius was released in Japan at the beginning of this year.

    I should know, since I'm building the ECU reprogramming system for it.

    Get your head out of the sand.
  • Precicely, and it's a real bitch to meet up with the nitpicking requirements of the US govt.

    Take CARB for instance. We had to develop a special on-board-diagnostics protocol (CARB-OBD) specifically for California before they would let Toyota continue selling cars there.

    Fortunately, they later agreed on the OBD-II protocol.
  • I was at Hi-Fi Buys last week, and they have an in dash dvd player in stock. It fits in a normal stereo slot and has a movable flat panel lcd display on the front of it. I don't remember how much or who made it, but it is available.

  • heh heh heh, I wonder if there is a market for such a service outside of Japan?

    Lord, I hope not. If I have to hear just one more pager playing Pachelbel's Cannon I'm going to scream.

    Could you imagine going to a mall filled with teeny-boppers with all their cell phones tuned the the latest boy/girl band of the minute? The sheer horror of it is hinted at in the article by the mention of the most popular song being that godawful thing from "Titanic." Over and over again no matter where you go. AAAAAA!!!!!!

    By the way, did anyone else get the pun in DoCoMo? ("doko mo" == Japanese for "everywhere")

  • 1. If you've ever been stuck in a Golden Week traffic jam (over 100km long to the resorts or back to Tokyo), then you'd realize why even drivers need DVD players.

    2. I'm not so excited about MD used as a recording medium. It only stores about 140MB and you need special DataMDs that are hard to find. If they free up the specs so you can use cheap $2 music MDs, then they're great.

    3. PlayStation 2: in regards to all the bugs in the first revision, perhaps its good we're getting them a bit behind the times. Although the $169 Apex DVD player does take the edge off of buying a PS2 just to watch DVDs in my bedroom.

    4. The color LCD cell phones are a toy. Only 256 colors and a tiny screen. They are also harder to read than normal ones. But they're rev 1, so we should hope to see better ones in the future. The great thing about them is that they're so small (half the size of american cell phones) and cheap.

    5. Digital fish tanks are tres cool. They have some at subway stations in Tokyo. They also sell some great fishtank software for Macs. I've wanted to get one, but they're expensive (about $90 + more for the fish). But they'd look great on my LCD display. Fish are certainly more calming than looking for aliens!

    Sigh, I wish I were back in Japan. :(

  • I've always whanted to store data on MiniDiscs.
    Think of it:
    1)7x7cm (2x2 inch.) could store 100-150MB worth of data*
    2)The discs come in a plastic case which is (mostly) dust and scratch-proof
    3)They can be read/written using the same technique as usual M/O discs.

    *) Iv'e heard that MiniDiscs uses a compression algorithm similar to mp3 (lossy), altough 4:1 not 12:1, makeing it able to hold 650/4=162.5MB (~150).
  • Here in the US you can already get in-dash DVD players for GPS navigation or movie watching. Check out Alpine's website [alpine1.com] I've seen them at a local car electronics shop, very cool and very expensive. ;->
  • go oog go...

    what we need now is an OOGAL...
  • its called SCMS, or Serial Copy Management System. Some sheilded Monster cables and do analog norm-speed rip and no SCMS. Theyre are stripper boxes tho.
  • 1. Well, you can do double-speed playback in mono extended-play (74min * 2). No quality lowering, however. ($200 for a Sharp MD-MT15 search E-Bay. $2 per MD at MiniDisco.com)
    2. Car Audio decks exist, although dunno where (check Sony?) (Probably $300-$400)
    3. Sharp and Sony both make component decks, and Panasonic makes boomboxes. ($300-$2000)
    4. MD cameras exist. See this discussion and one is mentioned somewhere, but cant remember, sorry. ($400 i think)
    5. RARE! Sony made one MD-Data deck. Discontinued, and uses much more expensive (but holding the same) MD-Data discs. Search EBay. (Saw one on EBay for $200)
  • This kind of thing is done on purpose. The Japanese don't let us have these things until they have been in use there for several years and we are behind the curve, so to speak (and as it's their products that's their right). It's one way to keep American industry behind Japanese and was done really bad back when Japan had their economy ramped way up.

    Ex: Toyota has a car that has a electric/gas hybrid engine called the Prius that gets something like 70mpg in town. This vehicle has been available in Japan for at least five years. It gets released next year in the United States. Honda is releasing the Insight which has the same tech as the Prius this year. Go here [toyota.com] and enter a search for the Prius for information about it.Go here [honda.com] for information on the Insight.

    In summary... this is nothing new and will continue as long as the Japanese feel that we need to be kept behind them in these things. Nothing evil about it. Just business.

  • When I was in Fukuoka, (on Kyushu, Japan's southern island)the taxi cab we took from the airport had a tv and dvd in it that the driver was watching. It was terrifying. There were no traffic lights, just mirrors at each intersection, and the driver was driving very fast and WATCHING TV!!!
    One of the other things you forgot is bathroom technology. Japan is decades ahead of us in bathroom technology. The toilet seats were HEATED. The mirrors were fog proof, there was a television in the huge bath tub! With a remote control! (Waterproof of course.) Not to mention the many different alternatives to bathroom tissue. You can BLOW DRY YOUR ASS WHILE YOU ARE STILL ON THE TOILET!!! I wanted to stay in the bathroom the whole trip. I wanted to cry when I had to come home to my cold toilet seat and tiny tub with no tv.
  • Hey, if you want Japanese fish, just get Seamen for your Dreamcast:

    The Horror, The Horror: Seamen [dailyradar.com]

    It'll give you nightmares...

  • If a fish tank doesn't do it for you, you can buy a tape of a fire to put in your TV. It adds a really great atmosphere to any room without a fireplace. em hm.
  • You can buy Albums on MD. Just go to Best Buy, they have an album MD section.
  • I think the first out were amazing ideas on how to get Hi-Vision (HDTV) sets into the market. But you also get a lot of just digital NTSC with top trimmed off for wide tube. In train stations in Tokyo you sometimes see *real* fish tanks with information/advertising display in ordinary ntsc behind it so you have to watch tv if you want to look at the fish. Some let you navigate.. personally I'd rather just see the live fish.
  • At least two companies make in-dash DVD players for the U.S.:

    Available today are:
    Panasonic CX-DV1500 [panasonic.com]
    Alpine DVA-5200 [alpine1.com]

  • The items mentioned in the article here are simple devices that we can understand. Typically we don't see alot of these things because North Americans are too big and clumsy to use them. The cellphones that they were talking about have been out for ages, I was there over 6 months ago and these devices were in mass uses. I have a digital audio player that I bought there that puts the current mp3 players to shame (all instructions were in japanese, and took me a while to figure out). It's footprint is smaller then a credit card and it's about 1/4 inch thick. On top of that it uses Smartmedia cards to store the data so you can swap the chips in and out with different tunes on them. It weighs next to nothing, and it does have an LCD screen on it to give track info. Other items that caught my eye were the tv goggles (multiple models) ranging from about $300 to $600, the phones, language converters (they love to learn english), GPS for cars (like 50% of the cars I saw in Tokyo had these). North Americans fingers are too big, we tend to break the delicate items and we are generally not very good to our electronics.

    Oh.. buy the way, the cellphones, you think that we have lots of models, well they have 100's of models.. walls filled with cellphones in every shape and colour, and not one bigger then the smallest phone we have here.

    Akaihabara is the gadget-ophile's wet dream, if you ever go to japan, this is a must see for slashdot readers.

    b

  • If you live in certain areas of Canada (e.g. Markham, Richmond Hill), the cute invasion is already in full swing.

    On another note, some of these so-called "not available in America" products can be readily purchased at malls in the city's suburbs.

  • My cat gets wound up enough with the tv, no way am I getting one of those digital fishbowls.

    Definitely proves Japan makes it as one of the top geek heaven countries though, up there with Finland and Antarctica...the Japanese keep producing these most excellent mad technotoys.


  • The implementation and availability of MiniDisc in the US is the same as everywhere else. Hell, the price is lower than in Europe. And yet the format has really taken off in some parts of the world. I'm afraid your "argument" doesn't really hold a lot of water...
  • My Dad works for a subsidary of NEC Australia, its offices are off the NEC .au headquarters. They've had the NEC digital fish tank - FishClub - there for as long as I can remember there (at least 2-3 years). I spent the first 9 months trying to work out if the bloody fish were actually real or not.


    -
  • It depends. I hang around the DJ scene and I've seen many an MD recording of a live set.


    -
  • Actually, it's not really anything like the Fish Club, I can easily tell the difference between Mopy and real fish. The only thing that set the Fish Club apart from real fish was the fact that a fish tank wouldn't be about 2cm deep.


    -
  • if you read the one about the MD scanner, you'll notice a bit of background info..

    apparently, many stereos have one-button CD-ripping capability to facilitate piracy, and if you go to a CD-rental place, a common line is 'would you like some MiniDiscs with that?'

    ahh, it must be nice to live in a country without a damn RIAA. now, if we could only get CD-players that could also do mp3s, i could burn a CD with 650 of music...
  • You can buy Albums on MD. Just go to Best Buy, they have an album MD section.

    If you're looking for a copy of Michael Jackson's Thriller or The New Kids on the Block's most recent release, Best Buy is the place to go (based on my experience in Phoenix Arizona). If you want something released in the late 90's, the only place i've found is Sony's Online Store [sonymusic.com]. I haven't looked that hard, though, so there are probably one or two other places to get pre-recorded discs..

  • Minidisco.com imports a lot of cool new minidisc players and gadgets from Japan to the US. Now if only they imported some of the other items mentioned!
  • I think you could fill an entire Slashdot article with things Sony makes for Japan and nowhere else. The slim Vaio, the CX-1 with a camera, etc. were all on sale here in Japan about a year before they hit the streets in the US.

    But for a huge wow-factor, check out this mini-tower computer [sony.co.jp]. I nearly fell over when I saw this a couple of weeks ago.

    In case you're wondering, the three slots on the front panel are for slot-in DVD, 3.5", and MD. As far as I could tell from the demo model, the MD cannot be used for digital data recording from the computer (only audio); but it's still a pretty cool piece of work.

  • Can you still get one? I want it....
  • I saw one being demoed in a local A/V store here in Colorado. I assumed it was available for sale, but didn't check, because why in the world would I want that? :)
  • some sort of paper-eating fish

    Yeah. And I think it lives better when you print a four-page poster in full color on your HP Laserjet 5000c color laser printer. :)


    And don't forget to make copies for your friends!



    Welcome to Slashdot. Please do not feed the trolls.
  • I suggest that trolls get negative karma scoring, while the positive karma scoring remains the same, and then all other truly useless stuff just get scored absolutely down to zero. If it's a good troll, the karma point get more negative. If it's insightful and interesting positive. Then we can set our thresholds for absolute of the karma point to get either really insightful posts or really artful troll posts. There have been some really classic ones, we need to have a best slashdot troll posts of all times contest or something. All that creative energy go to waste - it's a shame, I tell you.
  • Can you imagine what freeways would be like if people running off the road because they were watching the TPM dvd? Hmmm, ok maybe that would never happen :) But it's nice to hope.
  • Remember all those car companies like Renault, Sterling, and Alfa Romeo that used to sell cars in the US. They all pulled out because the overhead expense of having a US sales channel was more than the expected sales could support. The same is often true for these cutting-edge Japanese electronics.

    The Japanese consumer electronics market is much more competitive, while the US market is more value-oriented. Take walkmans: in Japan they have expensive tiny high-tech walkmans, but in the US people want a cheap walkman for $30 or less. Also, Japanese companies are wise to test market their products so by the time they put up the money to market them in the US, they have already been successful in Japan. Thirdly, it takes a while for manufacturing volumes to ramp up, especially in Japan where they are concerned with ensuring the quality of their products before they sell them. It's natural that they would sell only in Japan until the factories can produce at full capacity.

    It's simple economics and practical business strategy, not some conspiracy to deprive Americans of the best technology.

  • easy really
    check the files is creates and watch the one that changes date every time you print.
    Do a quick diff on a couple and you will work out what to do.
    I can't tell you explicitly because it was a couple of years ago and it's been long since deleted and forgotten btu i just remembered how we cracked it.
    The things you buy it are bit crappy for all that supposed printing you would have done.

    .oO0Oo.
  • If you ever tried driving in downtown Tokyo, you would realize that not only are the streets resemble a tangled up lump of spaghetti, but that this is a place where, as U2 once said, the streets have no name. Even taxi drivers who've spent over 10 years in the area would still have a problem taking you somewhere based only on an address if they've never been there before. So of course, ANY help that's available to get one through this urban jungle is greatly appreciated!

    And if we can also watch remastered Godzilla movies while we're doing it, all the better...

    The keitai scene is nuts though. It's not unusual for high school girls to have MULTIPLE portable phones, to keep some assemblance of order with their varying levels of tea-colored hair platform booted dark tanned skin with ghost white makeup wearing friends while loitering in Shibuya or Harajuku. If they only spent half as much time learning English as they do making themselves look stupid, they'd all be fluent bilinguals by now.
  • About summer '96 I tried to get some prices from NEC UK for LCD's - they sent me instead some beautiful brochures offering HDTV widescreen aquariums. £25,000 (c$40,000?) Ouch! I really wanted one
  • they must be getting updated these days to DVD - IKNA DVD but isnt DVD line resolution *much* less than a laserdiscs i.e. DVD just tries to be VHS+ not 500 lines + Anyone?
  • For the past two years, I've been dying to buy a MiniDisc package.

    One (1) MiniDisc Recorder/Player -- capable of recording compressed voice at AM, FM and CD quality (so that I can get 1 to 10 *hours* transcription recording) with variable-speed playback

    One (1) Car Audio deck -- capable of playing back my audio MDs

    One (1) Home Audio deck -- capable of ripping CD to MD, with options for AM/FM/CD quality. If I'm out downhill skiing, I frankly don't really care if I'm getting CD quality sound... I'm not actually gonna be listening all that closely to the music!

    One (1) megapixel Digital Camera -- saving its pix to the MD.

    One (1) Computer Interface -- capable of storing data and creating music MDs... and reading my pix, playing my transcriptions, playing my music, whatever.

    Hell, I'd be happy to pay a fair schwack o' change for that package.

    --
  • Jeesh, that's one of the FIRST [rpmfind.net] things I ran on linux, must be 5 or 6 years ago already. Of course it's not as good as the modern one's ....:)
  • You've never come close to being killed by some asshole on a cell phone. I came off a light one day and some jerk ran the red and sped right in front of me. He was wearing a shirt and tie with a cell phone on his ear and looking over in his passenger seat at something (papers I suppose). Had I gotten off the light faster I would have had a Lexus symbol embedded into my skull. Lets analyze the phrase "watching a DVD". You are "watching" which is defined as paying attention to. What are you watching? A DVD movie in the dash of your car. Now correct me if I'm wrong but it is generally good form to "watch" the road in front of you rather than your dashboard. I would assume one wants to watch the area in front of your car being that the dangerous things are out there and not on the DVD screen. Geeks like gadgets, not being crippled from car accidents.
  • you can already get dashmounted dvd players in australia, i saw one at the car stereo shop while buying a cd player, i think the dvd holds 6 disks and goes in your boot, i dident get to see it, only the screen
  • Slashdot this : ashleypowers.homepage.com [homepage.com].

    This guy put in a DVD drive in his Nissan 300ZX along with an 8.4" screen (and loads of other stuff: it functions as an MP3 stereo, a gaming machine, et. al.).

    He's my hero.

  • For now we will just have to live with Mopy fish [193.129.255.102] and Aquatica [clubaquatica.com].
    Combine these with the tv-out feature on many video cards to display the fishtank on a TV set and Voila! Instant fishtank, no hardware needed. You could feed the fish and change things (background, fish, "treasures") via the computer.
    Who needs those "Cool Japanese Gadgets You Can't Have", anyway!

  • For that matter, why didn't the minidisc take off here in the states?

    The same reason that Beta died.
    Hint: Both are made by Sony and both have restrictive licensing.

    Update: To continue the long line of Dumb Sony Things, Sony has released their Memory Stick, with restrictive lisencing, and in the face of Compact Flash and Smart Media! Way to go, Sony!

    In other news, I just bought a scsi reader for my 32MB smartmedia and compact flash cards...
  • And people said the same thing about radios being dangerous and distracting in cars 80 years ago.

    It's relatively obvious that people learn to adapt to higher information bandwidth, and have been doing this successfully for decades now. We know that people are capable of correctly processing volumes of information orders of magnitude larger than the most geekified car could provide because we see jet pilots do it every day. Certainly the amount of information to be processes in a modern fighter's HUD (head up display) is considerably greater than what would be in a DVD HUD. (I do agree that it's necessary to see where one is going, so HUDs beat in-dash screens badly. [grin])
  • I'm really surprised at the number of people on /. that are so adamantly opposed to the use of personal electronics while driving. (You sound more like Luddites than geeks...)

    Seriously, there was a huge debate early in this century about whether or not *radios* should be allowed in cars because they were so distracting to the driver and would surely lead to hair, teeth, and eyeballs all over the road. After all, who could possibly concentrate on driving while they were listening to music?

    A recent issue of American Heritage's Invention and Technology magazine (required reading for geeks, IMHO) carries a story on the numerous technical problems involved in getting radios to work in cars and a reference to the anti-car-radio) forces. There were even laws passed in some locales prohibiting car radios in an effort to prevent the inevitable roadside carnage. Fortunately cooler heads and the eventual availabilty of factory car radios prevailed. (It was the radical idea of a factory car radio that Bill Lear (later the father of the Lear Jet, and the 8-track tape) used to start a company you may have heard of: Motorola!)

    In spite of the doomsayers, we've managed to survive reasonably well with not only radios, but also tape and CD players in our cars, and few people consider this to be an undue hazard. Hopefully, this attitude that bashes cellphones and other personal electronics use in cars will die off just as did the bias against radios. In a few years, the idea of not being able to talk on the phone while driving will seem as ludicrous as not being able to listen to your tunes while driving. (And to many of us, it already does...)
  • It also has built in ethernet. For a camera it's pretty cool. Although the video capture is only crummy at best.

    More than that: It has a built in IP stack for that Ethernet (actually in the battery replacement power supply) and...wait for it...a Web Server!

    I know, because I demoed this unit for an audio-video store in Kansas City. You can set the IP to anything you want, and serve an intranet with the sucker. Works passably well, though I wouldn't want to actually put it on the big, bad Internet (H3y d00D!!!! I 0wN y3r Cam3ra!!!!!!!)

    Sony has released a special Digital Camera that uses the format. (In the US even). Check it out at http://www.sel.sony.com/SEL/consumer/ mddiscam [sony.com]

    It's one of those "what the..." products that the Japanese seem to come out with as trial balloons. It's a poor choice for a video recorder, but a killer video-res still camera...2600 stills on one disc should keep even the snap-happiest happy. The idea purchaser is a person who needs to shoot loads of 640 x 480 images and share them quickly. A real estate agent is a logical buyer.

  • somebody please tell the RIAA! It is obvious that the in dash DVD Player is used to smuggle DVD's out of the region for which they have been manufactured.

    we definitely need DVD checkpoints at all major metropolitan areas to make sure that the in dash dvd player has no dvds in it.

    extending on the same logic, it is obvious that the in dash dvd player is actually used to copy and pirate DVDs and it is mounted in a car so that you can escape from the RIAA!

    ...my 2 yen
  • Probably the SONY Discam. Here some links to more info it:
    SONY's spec sheet [sony.com], a page from MiniDisc.org [minidisc.org], and a ZDNet Review [zdnet.com].

  • You can order your very own Iron Chef [ironchef.com] to cater parties. That's ok...we have Emeril.

  • At least in the state of Oregon, it is explicitly illegal to have a television screen within view of the driver, even if turned off. In-dash displays would definitely illegal to drive with, and probably even illegal to sell. IANAL, but it's in the Oregon Driver's Manual. Similar laws probably exist elsewhere.
  • I'm involved in a project to distribute music over fiber or isdn to kiosks where they are written on minidisc. It is Linux based with a (don't ask why, it just is) lisp-based custom VRML browser, and is in operation.
    We developed a faster MD writer and liscensed it back to Sony. For the U.S. I wanted to get a CD version (2 yrs ago) but MD was done first. MD is actually a very good medium, there is even another gadget probably not yet in the U.S. a boombox with LAN connection so you can edit your MD title data on your computer easily. I believe there is a computer peripheral.. MD Data format. My guess is Sony is pushing their own secure music initiative standard with DVD instead now.
    Coolest gadget I've seen so far are the magnesium versions of Sony products (MD player, camera, etc). You should be able to order these things from web shops in Japan though you might need someone who can read kanji characters.
  • heh heh heh, I wonder if there is a market for such a service outside of Japan?

    Actually this is a pretty big thing in Finland(for those of you who don't know the relative number of cellphones is largest in the world). I should know since I go there about half a dozen times a year(have a passport too).

    Basically you just send a sms-message to a special number and it gives you an index of the latest tunes and then you can download your choice to the cellphone automatically.. All for about 0.50$. Or you can always look your favourite tune up from operators website and have it sent to your phone(yup, this really works).

    Practically all of the current cell-phone models on sale support this feature and it is very widely used(you wouldn't want to have the same melody as someone else?) This has been around from at least 1997 and the special tunes in cellphones at least from 1995. And by special tunes I mean melodies.. Special ringing tones have been around since early ninetys for sure..

    It certainly is wierd to hear a cellphone play just about any popular tune there is(as I don't spend much time there it certainly is even more so). Probably get used to it by time but with the non-stop ringing of cell-phones it actually gets kind of annoying.. Being a third party I might even prefer the more traditional ringing tones..

  • Its sort of ironic to see mention of "in dash
    DVD players" when about an hour ago a friend of
    mine called me on the phone to vent about his
    problem...

    Today some hooligan threw a brick through his
    car window and stole his CD player while he was
    at an apointment.

    Yes, I would imagine in dash CD players can be a
    very bad idea.
  • I heard a while back that one device available for sale in Japan (which was in fact a best seller) was a little electronic jammer that you could turn on to disrupt all cel phone traffic within a range of about 100 feet. Great for restaurants (and obnoxious gabbers) or for driving.....
  • technology is progressing faster than mans capacity to fully understand the consequences of its use. only in retrospect do we notice the damage technological progress has inflicted on the world at large. Japan is out there...on the very cutting edge of technological development. I can only hope that their discipline and responsibility plays a major role in further development of technology.

  • Re:MiniDisc (Score:3)

    by Francis ( 5885 ) on Tuesday March 21, 2000 @10:18AM (#1186283) Homepage
    These peripherals DO exist. Unfortunately, they are outrageously expensive.

    MDs are cool, but they're not that well suited to using as general purpose storage devices. MD music sounds so good, because it is ATRAC compressed - an MD only holds about 150MB of information.

    Other disadvantages:
    - Throughput/latency isn't that good, either. I think it's aproximately equivalent to a 2-spin CD drive.
    - The media is expensive. To store general purpose data, you need higher-quality minidiscs that cost more than 5 times what regular music MDs. ATRAC encoding can compensate for bit errors, wheareas to store general purpose data, bit-errors are not tolerable.

    --

  • MiniDisc (Score:3)

    by Pike ( 52876 ) on Tuesday March 21, 2000 @09:50AM (#1186284) Journal
    I've often wondered why there are no minidisc peripherals for computers. They would make great data storage devices if a standard format could be decided on. For that matter, why didn't the minidisc take off here in the states? If you've ever tried one you know that they can record incredible digital audio, they're rewritable, you can insert track markers and tap in your own labels for each track. It's also compact. Maybe someone else has more information.

    (Offtopic): It seems many moderators misunderstand the meaning of "Troll". Many of you mark a post as Troll when it is really "Flamebait". To quote the Jargon file: "The well-constructed troll is a post that induces lots of newbies and flamers to make themselves look even more clueless than they already do, while subtly conveying to the more savvy and experienced that it is in fact a deliberate troll. If you don't fall for the joke, you get to be in on it. "

    Moral: Don't dignify a stupid post by labeling it a troll unless it really is subtle and clever enough to deserve it. Mark it flamebait or offtopic instead.

    -JD

  • Undestated list (Score:3)

    by LuckyJ ( 56389 ) on Tuesday March 21, 2000 @09:49AM (#1186285) Homepage
    Having lived in Japan for three years, I know this list is DRASTICALLY understated. There were things out in Japan before I arrived there which STILL are not available in the States. Take a vacation there sometime, I think you'll be very surprised....

  • N.America & the rest of the world. (Score:3)

    by psergiu ( 67614 ) on Tuesday March 21, 2000 @09:54AM (#1186286)
    In the article please read "Are not available anywhere in this world except Japan" instead of "Are not available in .us and .ca".

    The europeans have nukes too! Try to comprehend that the world is round and bigger than .us, .ca and .jp.

    Someone give CmdrTaco a map :)

  • Re:Undestated list (Score:3)

    by mOdQuArK! ( 87332 ) on Tuesday March 21, 2000 @03:13PM (#1186287)
    Oh man, I spent a day in Akihabara (on a two-week work visit to Japan) - I drooled so much I nearly died of dehydration.

    Not only were their consumer electronics selection incredible (and MUCH flashier than anything I've seen in the US), but they had these HUMONGOUS electronics-part "flea markets" crammed into these multi-floor warehouse buildings, where you could buy Intel Pentium (loose!) from one booth (which was about 5 feet wide), and then go to the next booth & pick up a couple of DIMMs, then go to the next booth & pick up a handle of transistors/capacitors/surface mount resistors & a robotic arm, etc...

    I was highly amused when I saw a 5-year Toddler talking to somebody on a Pokemon cell phone (these things are so small, you could hide them in the palm of your hand...)

    One of the main things I noticed is that, for any given product type (like a watch or a cell phone or whatever), there were HUNDREDS of different variations of that product sitting right next to each other in each display case - some of the variations were pretty damn tiny. That seemed to be a fairly consistent pattern - for any given type of product, you could easily go into decision-paralysis trying to decide what was "best for you".

  • Re:Pseudo digital fishtank (Score:3)

    by ahaning ( 108463 ) on Tuesday March 21, 2000 @10:12AM (#1186288) Homepage Journal
    You have to PRINT stuff in order to keep it alive. I tried this. HP's really sneaky, eh? You have to print gobs and gobs of stuff so you can keep your fish alive. Then you go and buy more printer cartridges. Thus HP gets your money....HP, sneaky sneaky.

    Welcome to Slashdot. Please do not feed the trolls.

  • Japan's Gadget Heaven (Score:3)

    by DeepDarkSky ( 111382 ) on Tuesday March 21, 2000 @10:01AM (#1186289)
    The Japanese seem to have an intense fetish for gadgets in the culture. Those who's never been to Japan could never truly appreciate Japan's influence in the world of gadgets.

    Very often, historically, U.S. invents or creates some very useful or cool technology, and Japan put its touch on it - basically ultra-commercialize it for consumer use. They add a bunch of really cool features, switch a few more things around and come up with some pretty innovative stuff. Then it gets copied by the other Asian mass-producing copy-without-regards-to-anything countries like Taiwan, Korea, Hong Kong. These countries have creative energies of their own, but is strongly influenced by Japan. And then everything is Made In China (nowadays), because it's so cheap and there are so many people there.

    Japan has tremendous cultural influence in the world of commercial technological consumerism. The way it most often played out is in the gadgets and appliances. They keep some of the most outrageous or cool stuff in Japan, because very often, they are the only ones who can really appreciate it.

    If anything, I would expect Japan to come out with very cool Internet gadgets, because that is what they are great at. They are a force to watch in the rapidly moving world of Internet technologies, because they can commercialize and consumerize anything.

    A lot of Japanese products may seem utterly frivolous and useless, but nothing is ever really totally useless. There's always a lesson to be learned in creating completely computer generated fish tanks, etc.

  • Minidisc and Digital Camera (Score:3)

    by Kagato ( 116051 ) on Tuesday March 21, 2000 @10:30AM (#1186290)
    Sony has recently released a second gen minidisc format. It stores 640 Megs (like a cd-rom) but keeps the small minidisc form factor.

    It also has built in ethernet. For a camera it's pretty cool. Although the video capture is only crummy at best.

    Sony has released a special Digital Camera that uses the format. (In the US even). Check it out at http://www.sel.sony.com/SEL/consumer/mddiscam
  • I have a quantum CD evaporator. (Note use of quantum here because it just *has* to enahnce the coolness factor of whatever your talking about!) Alright im sitting there installing FreeBSD munching some Oreo's mudding and doing some C code for binary tree's thinking this is great!.

    Then my CD player evolved without telling me. Suddenly the FreeBSD install stops and goes "I/O error, there was an error parsing some binary information" or something like that. So I scratch my head and pop the CD open and low.. the CD has disappeared. Im like hmmn maybe I took it and did something with it. So I gather up my posse (my cat's) and send them on a CD hunt. No such luck so I break out my devolution tools (screw driver) and begin to de evolve my cd drive ,after a 2 hour unsucesful CD hunt you tend to de devolve with prejduice.

    So I peek at my highly demolished CD drive and there it is! The Golden FreeBSD CD. I gently lift it out and with the casing off of my CD drive I pop it back in.. My cat seemed to find it highly entertaining to SLAP a cd spinning in a 40X drive. *mutters* Anyways its not really a quantum CD evaporator thingie but it was damn frustrating! :p



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