Taspo FAIL – Japanese Reject Scarlet Letter of Smoking

We’ve written before about Taspo, the RFID-chipped ID card that allows “of age” (20 or older) smokers to get their smokes through any of the nations 420,000 tobacco vending machines. Mostly the campaign has been a disaster for folks who own vending machines, a boom for convenience stores (where you don’t need the cards), and and a burden for smokers who just want to buy a pack without registering themselves with Big Brother.

Taspo originally began their campaign to get people to sign up by providing application packets at vending machines. These required applicants to submit copies of identification, fill out a form, and provide pictures in specific sizes before mailing it all in. When this didn’t work, they began to set up stalls in conventions and train stations (like this one) to get folks signed up without having to pay for a picture.

Clearly, this hasn’t worked either, as a Taspo service center has even opened up in Yoyogi to provide instant ID checks and card creation within 30 minutes.

taspo fail

Out of 27 million smokers in Japan, only 33.7% have signed up for the card, a significant amount if you consider that the rest have nearly no chance to use vending machines at all. In fact, convenience store sales have jumped to record highs in the last year thanks to the “Taspo Boom” in the midst of recession.

Going by purely anecdotal evidence and personal experience, even the heaviest smokers want nothing to do with the card. For most, however, it’s not a privacy issue, but one of pride: They don’t want an official “smoking license”, complete with a picture of themselves, to buy something that is their choice. In order to protect a small minority (teenagers) the rest of society must bear the burden of Taspo.

taspo fail 2

If tobacco makers are actually interested in selling their products and not just submitting to what will surely become complete regulation, they would be embracing vending machines with facial recognition, rather than making their customers file with the authorities. Of course, facial recognition doesn’t always work, but it’s a relatively non-invasive way to solve a problem that isn’t such a big deal to begin with.

In the meantime, convenience stores should beware: Increased sales in your sector mean that you’re next on the chopping block. Expect a full-on Taspo reader integrated into cash registers in no time.

Microsoft’s beta My Phone service for Windows Mobile now free to all

Go ‘n get it! Microsoft’s My Phone service is now ready for all Windows Mobile users to test. The beta service syncs any Windows Mobile 6+ phone to Microsoft’s 200MB per person cloud. That includes contacts, calendars, tasks, photos, text messages, music, videos, and more. In essence, anything on the My Phone website is on the phone and vice versa. Hey free is free and this is a goodie.

[Via SlashPhone]

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Microsoft’s beta My Phone service for Windows Mobile now free to all originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 19 May 2009 04:18:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sharp AQUOS SHOT 933SH offers 10 megapixels on a silver cellular platter

Is it a phone? Is it a camera? Does it really matter anymore? If neither the mirumo 934SH nor the Solar Hybrid 936SH are quite to your liking, feast your eyes on this other wonder from Sharp that’s hitting SoftBank Mobile in Japan this summer, the AQUOS SHOT 933SH. The headlining feature on this sucker would be the massive optics combined with a 10 megapixel low-noise CCD sensor, which is made infinitely easier to use as an actual camera thanks to a rotating touchscreen display — just flip it around, snap it facing outwards, and voilà, your old point-and-shoot is on notice. Otherwise, you’ve got a 3.3-inch WVGA display (perfect for viewing one-seg television) and global roaming capability, so don’t be surprised if we try to smuggle one of these stateside when it launches in late May, alright?

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Sharp AQUOS SHOT 933SH offers 10 megapixels on a silver cellular platter originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 19 May 2009 04:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Palm Pre counting down to a June 6th launch?

Know what happens in the run-up to a major product launch? Rumors are mongered and advertisements are sold, lots and lots of ads. So we’re not surprised to find the two colliding in the shape of an un-calibrated (not Pre calibrated, it’s not yet in sync with the calendar) countdown timer that’s destined for every tech and consumer oriented website on these here Internets. Since Engadget maintains a strict editorial separation from advertising, there’s no way for us to know for sure if this is legit. However, we reached out to Notebook.com who gave us a very convincing backstory for how they came up with this timer (that we saw working) showing a June 6th launch — smack in the middle of the June 5th and June 7th dates rumored. Still, a Saturday? How very un-Sprint-like. Come on Palm, out with it already — make the date official.

Update: Notebook.com pulled the original story. No worries, we now know it’s true anyway.

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Palm Pre counting down to a June 6th launch? originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 19 May 2009 03:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Animation with Excel Spreadsheets, via Barcamp Tokyo

Last weekend I had the pleasure of attending Bar Camp Tokyo with 94 of my geek and aspiring geek brethren. Perhaps I’ll go into this more in a further blog post, but suffice to say it was a great experience with people who were open to all sorts of conversation about the present and future of our digital world.

With Nob Seki of Six Apart via dshack

One of the more interesting presentations was made by Fumi Yamazaki. Fumi talked about Japanese geek culture, something we’re clearly fond of around here, and introduced some of the more creative examples to the attendees. You can see her presentation here.

Fumi’s presentation also had something that completely slipped by my radar, despite my being a regular at NicoNico Douga, Japan’s top streaming video site. We wrote about NicoNico here a bit, and Serkan Toto of Techcrunch does a nice job summing it up here.

The video below is an example from Fumi’s speech and puts together three of the most interesting user generated animations I’ve ever seen. Not being so great at Excel myself it’s hard for me to understand how it’s done, but all three clips are created purely within Excel spreadsheets and then animated frame by frame(you can see the counter in the corner going like crazy). The attention to detail is absolutely amazing, and I’m simply in awe. This is exactly the kind of creativity that makes me love Japan.

Just for comparison, the original opener for Maria Holic (the first clip) is HERE. There are 3 clips in the video below, and the third one is especially amazing.

UPDATE: Somehow Media Factory submitted a copyright claim on these videos, which they clearly had no part in making to begin with. Thanks, Media Factory, for stopping the free spread of other people’s creative activity online.

Originals can be found here, here, and here

Interestingly, I uploaded this video two years ago simultaneously on YouTube and NicoNico. The first went on to get over 4.5 million views (and counting!), while the NicoNico video has lingered at 1,500. Clearly it’s a different kind of community.

While at BarCamp I also got to have a nice chat with Mitch Altman (inventor of TV-B-Gone, made famous by Gizmodo) and played around with his soon-to-be-released Trip Glasses. Hard to explain, but here’s a video of me at Bar Camp reliving my college days through LED lights timed to my brainwaves. You can meet him as well this weekend at the Make Tokyo Meeting.

Via dshack

Check out some more pics from Barcamp Tokyo at Flickr with iMorpheus and jimgris

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Dell 20-inch ST2010 HD monitor pops up Stateside in Studio XPS desktop bundle

And once again, Dell’s website earns its informal title as the number one source for all Dell leaks. Though still not official for the US, the company’s 20-inch ST2010 HD monitor has reared its widescreen head in the customization options for the Studio XPS desktop. Comparing its additive fees with the others on the list, we’d wager the retail price will end up somewhere in the $130 to $150 range. No indication on when we can pick up the monitor sans gaming rig, but it can’t be too far off now.

[Thanks, John]

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Dell 20-inch ST2010 HD monitor pops up Stateside in Studio XPS desktop bundle originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 19 May 2009 03:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sharp’s solar 936SH and 934SH with “memory LCD” headline latest SoftBank lineup

As you might expect, Japanese carrier SoftBank’s summer 2009 lineup contains the usual science-fiction array of ridiculously well-equipped handsets — plus 3G photo frames and a Lenovo IdeaPad S10 with embedded WWAN — but the real news here might be a pair of lovelies from Sharp. The mirumo 934SH (pictured left) features a 3-inch external display that can display time, date, weather, news, and other information without consuming any power between changes; sounds like E-Ink, though Sharp describes it simply as a “memory LCD.” You’ve also got an 8 megapixel camera, a waterproof shell, and a UV sensor that can help you determine just how quickly you need to slather on the SPF 30. Next up is the Solar Hybrid 936SH, a phone suspiciously similar in concept to the device Sharp is working on for SoftBank competitor KDDI au. Clearly the big draw here is the big solar array up front that’ll give you one minute of call time or two hours of standby per 10 minutes of charging, but you’ve still got IPX7 water resistance, an 8 megapixel camera, and a full wide VGA display at your disposal. Look for the 934SH in June and the 936SH in August — if you happen to be in Japan, anyhow.

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Sharp’s solar 936SH and 934SH with “memory LCD” headline latest SoftBank lineup originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 19 May 2009 02:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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LG world’s thinnest LCD is only 0.23 inches thick

Looks like we’ve got a new record holder for world’s thinnest LCD, as LG pegs its new 42- and 47-inch models at only 5.9mm thick. Apparently lacking an iPhone for the accepted measurement of thinness, this model was reduced to holding up a coin for an example of LG’s edge LED lit prowess. Though you may prefer local dimming LEDs, DisplayBlog is hopeful we’ll see a combo of the two lighting schemes bringing thinness and high picture quality next year. Meanwhile, compare these to JVC’s magnetically mounted former champ, measuring a now-widebody 7mm thick, but at only 5kg, still holding a weight edge over these two at 6.1 and 7.3kg, respectively. LG promises 120Hz refresh technology and 80% of the NTSC color gamut, up from 72% on standard models, on these, but we’ll wait for them to go from the demo stand to the store shelf before revisiting the question of whether thinner and more energy efficient is actually better.

[Via DisplayBlog]

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LG world’s thinnest LCD is only 0.23 inches thick originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 19 May 2009 01:04:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Video of the Day: Frozen in Grand Central Station


This article was written on February 21, 2008 by CyberNet.

For you enjoyment, the YouTube Video of the day:

Now this is what you call a prank! And what a perfect place to pull such a prank in busy Grand Central Station in New York. Those who weren’t part of the act were obviously confused and couldn’t figure out what was going on. Whoever thought up this one, what an idea!

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Dell debuts colorful new Latitude 2100 netbooks for education

Dell’s done good things for the mainstream of the netbook market with its Mini 10 series, keeping prices low and quality relatively high, and now it looks like that ever-alluring educational market is next on the table. The new Latitude 2100, which we’ve spotted previously, harbors traditional netbook internals, with kid-friendly perks like colorful lids and a rugged rubberized design, along with options for a carrying handle, shoulder strap, antimicrobial keyboard, touchscreen LCD and a Dell Mobile Computing Station docking cart (which can manage and store 24 of them with a single Ethernet cable and single power cord). The netbook is going to be available today with options for Vista, XP or Ubuntu 8.10, and the base configuration retails at $369 — though we’re unsure how much cost the options like SSD, a 6-cell battery (3-cell is standard), touchscreen or Vista will be. In a perfect world, no child would have to suffer with one of those “spinning hard disks,” corrupting all their Kid Pix masterpieces with every bump.

Update: Video added after the break.

Continue reading Dell debuts colorful new Latitude 2100 netbooks for education

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Dell debuts colorful new Latitude 2100 netbooks for education originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 19 May 2009 00:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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