In July this year, TDK announced BDXL Blu-ray discs with 100GB capacity. And now TDK is working on optical discs that even boast 1TB capacity. The company says the current prototype has 16 layers (four times more than on a Blu-ray disc), each with 32GB on each side (equaling 1,024GB). → Read More
One thing that’s really missing at this year’s CEATEC 2010 exhibition is robots, at least from the bigger companies. One exception is Fujitsu whose so-called “Social Robots” may not look like much from the outside but are actually quite sophisticated. Even though the teddy bear robots sounded pretty creepy (they keep making weird noises, which you can hear in the video embedded below), I was brave… → Read More
We reported yesterday about Toshiba’s plans of bringing Android-powered tablets to the US next year, and here at CEATEC, big T gave all attendees the chance to try out the Folio 100, a Europe-only device. The Toshiba employee at the booth told me it will probably hit Japan and other markets next year though. → Read More
One of the “sub trends” of this year’s CEATEC exhibition (that’s currently taking place near Tokyo) is augmented reality, especially among the telecommunications companies. Japan’s biggest mobile carrier NTT Docomo is experimenting with an AR technology (developed by Olympus in 2008) called AR Walker. → Read More
One of the hit products at Fujitsu’s booth at this year’s CEATEC exhibition (that’s currently taking place near Tokyo) was the so-called “Dual-Touchscreen Mobile Phone”. As the name suggests, it has no physical keyboard but boasts two screens instead, and it’s designed like a typical Japanese clamshell cell phone. → Read More
A pleasant surprise at this year’s CEATEC: TDK’s two passive matrix mini OLED panels, one of which is transparent and the other bendable (like the one Sony showed earlier this year). What’s cool is that both prototypes are showcased as black-and-white and color models.
You can see both displays in action in the videos I took at the exhibition below. → Read More
CrunchGear is at CEATEC 2010, Asia’s biggest technology and electronics exhibition, which takes place yearly in Chiba (one hour away from Tokyo). Sharp’s booth was (next to 3D devices) all about Android, with its so-called Galapagos e-reader/tablet hybrids being not only the biggest attraction there but also one of the biggest of the entire exhibition. → Read More
Panasonic was all mysterious when it announced a “Lumix Phone” last week, teasing it with a special website (now updated, but still in Japanese) that contained neither pictures nor solid information about their newest cell phone. But the company today unveiled the handset at CEATEC 2010, Asia’s biggest technology and electronics exhibition, which takes place yearly in Chiba (one hour away from… → Read More
The Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute — the same Fraunhofer that holds many of the patents on MP3 — have a booth at CEATEC exhibiting some of their research efforts, shopping them around for potential licensees. Their Virtual Mirror display is, I think, a great example of augmented reality done right. It uses a camera, a display, and their special software to dynamically alter the image… → Read More
USB media represents a double-edged sword: on the one hand, data portability is an extremely useful thing; but on the other hand, data portability can be a gigantic liability for your business operations. You can try to train your users not to put sensitive data on USB drives, but chances are that convenience will win out over security, and your data will slip out on USB media anyway. And then… → Read More
One of the more interesting booths at CEATEC is that of the Tagged World Project. It aims to deploy many RFID tags around an elderly person’s domicile, and then equip their slippers (or other house clothes) with RFID readers that will read the tags in its proximity. Then a variety of analyses can be performed on the data collected to determine, ostensibly, how healthy and active an older person… → Read More
John mentioned TransferJet briefly during the Toshiba press conference at IFA in September. It’s a wireless data transfer system. It’s different from Bluetooth in that there’s no pairing required. It’s also extremely limited in range — like, two inches or less — so there’s less need to worry about someone sending pr0n to your mom’s TransferJet-enabled television. Sony’s got a live demo of… → Read More
How much energy do you think is wasted every day powering devices that aren’t actually being used? I’m not talking about stand-by power consumption, but actually on-and-in-use without a user there. I know a lot of people who turn their TVs on just as “background noise”, without ever actually looking at the screen. Hitachi’s cooking up a system to place TVs in power consumption mode if it detects… → Read More
Boy howdy could I use this thing at CEATEC today. Running on a Windows Mobile handheld, Toshiba has a real-time voice translation demonstration. It worked quite well. How much longer until we get the Star Trek universal translators? Video inside! → Read More
Sony, and just about everyone else, has been fooling around with OLEDs for quite some time, and they’re starting to come up with some pretty clever applications of the technology. Flexible OLEDs have been in the news this year, and Sony’s getting into that game, too. In this short video we see a 0.2mm thin OLED display being gently bent back and forth, while actively showing content on its… → Read More
Sharp has on display a number of fun new gadgets at CEATEC. As is all too often the case, these things are for Japanese release only (at least for now). Maybe we’ll see them in a couple years. Read on for details on a dial-by-photo phone, newspapers on TV, solar-charging cell phones, and the Sharp Netwalker! → Read More
ALPS, the folks that mainstreamed the touchpad way back in the day, are continuing to innovate. Now they’re playing with electric field transmissions, which allows the human body to act as a communication medium. Video inside! → Read More
All the big players are here at CEATEC showing off their latest iteration of 3D televisions. They’re bright, and colorful, and pretty, and impressive. And it looks like they all require the use of special viewing glasses. Come on, guys, I saw this stuff last year at IFA: have you really made no substantial progress on easy-to-watch 3D displays? I almost walked past the Holoart booth, and I’m glad… → Read More
Augmented reality is all the new buzz, I guess. I don’t know, because I only have an iPhone 3G — mine’s missing that important “S” indicating it’s the new model on which augmented reality can actually execute. But at CEATEC today I saw some Sekai Camera examples in the real world. My experience wasn’t entirely positive: find out why. → Read More
Matt wrote about Wink Glasses a couple of months ago. He was skeptical of their value. I found them on display at CEATEC 2009, and just had to try them out! In the photo above, you can see them in the “active” state, helpfully reminding me that it’s time to blink. Click on through for a thrilling video of Wink Glasses in action! HOT! → Read More
This new Wooo camcorder, on display at CEATEC right now, eliminates the need for an HDMI cable when reviewing or showing your footage — as long as you have a compatible Hitachi TV. I’ve never been a big fan of the in-camera viewing and editing, but a lot of people use it and you know you can always use less wires around the house. And I know you’re thinking it, so yes it works as… → Read More
If you’re going to be in Japan this week, I suggest that you head over to Chiba to visit this year’s Ceatec. Ceatec is Japan’s largest electronics show and this year should be a pretty exciting event. Sony is set to open the show with some sort of new Blu-ray product that they’re not telling anybody about. Toshiba and Canon are both going to show off new SED screens. HD… → Read More
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