ceatec 2007

Had a great evening with Umihiko Namekawa (front and center), a translator who writes TechCrunch Japan and Serkan (sitting to my right), a grad student living in Japan who is working on a Web 2.0 proj

I’m going to take this opportunity to say something that has been bothering me all week here at CEATEC: Japan is no longer the home of innovation. Sure, they kicked our asses for years in terms

Ready to power your iPod with clean, delicious hydrogen? I got a chance to see Horizon fuel cell technologies up close yesterday and I’m pleased to report that soon we all will be using our pent

This is totally gross. I was walking by the Fujitsu booth when I saw the vein-scanning PalmSecure mouse that uses the veins in your hand to log you into a PC. I figured it wouldn’t look that bad

http://progressive.playstream.com/playstream/progressive/flashplayers/FLVPlayer.swf Sorry this video is a little long, but you get the drift. This little bastard can ride a rail all by himself and is

A strange amalgam of Uhuru and Sulu Ever since the U.S. basically outlawed Booth Babes, I think our trade shows have become more serious, intelligent, and valuable. In unenlightened regions like Europ

http://progressive.playstream.com/playstream/progressive/flashplayers/FLVPlayer.swf Fujitsu’s MediaTop is kind of like Microsoft Surface but with blocks. You use a Bluetooth-enabled cube that le

Can you guys see this? I ate four pieces of potentially bad sushi last night and now this thing has been following me around all morning asking for quarters.

Sony’s XEL-1 is pretty impressive. It’s only 27 inches wide and costs $1,500, so it’s not that impressive but if you want to be an early adopter and feel like your TV can get blown o

http://progressive.playstream.com/playstream/progressive/flashplayers/FLVPlayer.swf One thing CEATEC has a surfeit of is robots. They come in all sizes, from a twee bike-riding robot whose visage I ca

http://progressive.playstream.com/playstream/progressive/flashplayers/FLVPlayer.swf Here’s a quick look at some of the huge Sharp screens. There was a really nice 102-inch model — you know

Check out Darth’s Platform Sith Boots …you start seeing Sith Lords and their entourage wandering the halls of a Japanese tech trade conference. BONUS – Click through to see me in 3D

http://progressive.playstream.com/playstream/progressive/flashplayers/FLVPlayer.swf Another concept device using a very cool system of see-through rollerballs and a back button to do just about anythi

http://progressive.playstream.com/playstream/progressive/flashplayers/FLVPlayer.swf This video of the Sony Rolly MP3 player sums up everything that is wrong with the former electronics giant — a

http://progressive.playstream.com/playstream/progressive/flashplayers/FLVPlayer.swf I was wandering around the show floor when I came upon this little gem. It’s a gesture-based 3D system that le

http://progressive.playstream.com/playstream/progressive/flashplayers/FLVPlayer.swf I got a chance to circle the new ultra-slim sharp LCDs. They look amazing and they’re so damn thin it’s

I love the Qosmio line of Toshiba laptops and this collection of Gigabeats, phones, and cameras made me pee a little. Essentially the entire laptop line is very slick with unique touches like HDDVD pl

Our first stop was a huge announcement by Panasonic about their line of DIGA Blu-Ray/DVD recorders. The recorders — BW700/800/900 on the Blu-Ray side and XW200V/100/300 on the DVD side — i

Hello, true-believers. I just landed in Narita last night and I’m getting ready to wander the halls at CEATEC, one of the biggest CE and component shows in Asia. Not sure what I’ll see her