Hasta La Gadget!

Starbucks opened up a new concept store in the upscale Tokyo fashion district of Omotesando today. Designed by “The Godfather of Harajuku” Japanese designer Hiroshi Fujiwara

The “B-Side” Starbucks looks uniquely different from the ubiquitous designs of its other branches. Situated in his very back yard where Fujiwara came of age and gained inspiration, it is his first shop design project. Stepping inside it immediately feels different from the many other Starbucks shops around the city.

Tying in earthy materials with a long wooden counter the bench and stools add a distinctly metropolitan city feel to the cafe. Upstairs the brown stools and sofas also show off the main theme of the concept cafe, “natural” and “relax”. Combined with the large wrap around glass windows allowing natural lighting and looking out onto the surrounding trees, not always a common sight in concrete Tokyo, the store has a cosy atmosphere.

The upstairs is nicely designed although the seating doesn’t lend itself exactly to group relaxation, possibly to deter the would be university kids who take up residents nursing a single small coffee all day.

The most noticeable difference is the actual B-Side area of the shop which has a large sliding door and some stylishly designed furniture, a lot more in keeping with the “relax” theme.

The store has also incorporated some playful neon tube lighting signs that play on the mug wording and a selection of design and fashion books on shelves for customers to browse while sipping.

In the future the store plans on selling mugs and limited goods only available at the B-Side concept Starbucks and will host a number of live events.

This article was written on August 28, 2007 by CyberNet.

The message to auto-makers has been made clear – hybrid does matter and the more affordable, the better. With the unbelievable success of the Toyota Prius which has been labeled as the car that put hybrids on the map, other auto-makers have been looking to develop a car that can beat the success of the Prius, and become the “next big hybrid.” One of those auto-makers that is hoping to challenge Toyota’s Prius is Honda.

Honda is no stranger to hybrids, however, their hybrid models thus far haven’t proven to be successful. First they offered the Insight back in 99, and then they took their already successful non-hybrid vehicles, the Civic and Accord, and offered those in a hybrid version as well. As with the Insight, the hybrid version just never took-off. Now they’re attempting the hybrid route again with a brand new car with a unique look that they say will have better fuel economy than the already impressive fuel economy of the Prius.

And because price does matter, they’ll be offering it for a price below $22,000 which will place it under the Prius’s MSRP of $22,175. America hasn’t been able to get enough of the Prius, and Honda is hoping that will be the case when their Hybrid vehicle debuts sometime in 2009. Honda’s senior Vice President, John Mendel says “The Prius has become synonymous with hybrid; it’s the Kleenex of hybrids. We feel Honda should be synonymous with the most fuel-efficient company in America.”

A little competition is never a bad thing and with Honda known for their quality vehicles, I’m curious to see what they come up with, and if their version will really challenge the sales of the Prius. While Honda’s version will be priced lower than the Prius, it would still be nice to see an auto-maker come out with a reliable hybrid for under $15,000. Think it’s possible in the near future?

Source: DailyTech

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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It’s no secret that Netflix has grand plans to expand its global footprint that now feeds media to some 20 million North American subscribers. Hell, the company was boasting of the “significant dollars” allocated to its 2011 international expansion plans just four months ago. While nothing’s official yet, we’ve unearthed a few tantalizing openings posted to the Netflix job site over the last few days that could point to an imminent launch. Notably, Netflix’s customer service call center in Hillsboro Oregon is gearing up to expand its scope of operations beyond North America. Two new job postings for a Training Supervisor and Quality Assurance Analyst both mention the need to prepare for “rapid” international expansion and “will support a specific country / region outside of North America.” The Training Supervisor is being hired specifically to educate customer service reps in preparation for that future international growth. Neflix is looking for fluency in English in addition to Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese (Brazilian and European), and Spanish (Latin American and European), leaving things pretty wide open with regard to the countries targeted for initial launch.

We do know that Netflix had plans to launch in the UK way back in 2004 — plans that were ultimately scrapped in order to focus on its core US business (and later Canada). But if not the UK then we should at least expect to see Netflix target the European continent first if a statement attributed to CEO Reed Hastings from way back in January of 2010 still rings true: “the big market for Hollywood content (after the U.S.) is Europe…Third is Asia. Fourth is the rest of the world.” Can’t let Amazon have the market to itself now can we Reed?

[Thanks, Chico]

Netflix beefing up service center in preparation for global launch originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 31 Mar 2011 02:57:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Cancer’s not slowing its march to ruining as many lives as it possibly can, so it’s always pleasing to hear of any new developments that act as hurdles. The latest in the world of disease-prevention comes from Harvard University, where researches have created a dime-sized carbon nanotube forest (read: lots of nanotubes, like those shown above) that can be used to trap cancer cells when blood passes through. A few years back, Mehmet Toner, a biomedical engineering professor at Harvard, created a device similar to the nano-forest that was less effective because silicon was used instead of carbon tubes. Today, Toner has teamed up with Brian Wardle, associate professor of aeronautics and astronautics at MIT, who together have redesigned the original microfluid device to work eight times more efficiently than its predecessor. The carbon nanotubes make diagnosis a fair bit simpler, largely because of the antibodies attached to them that help trap cancer cells as they pass through — something that’s being tailored to work with HIV as well. Things are starting to look moderately promising for cancer-stricken individuals, as hospitals have already began using the original device to detect malignant cells and ultimately prevent them from spreading — here’s hoping it’s qualified for mass adoption sooner rather than later.

Carbon nanotubes used to more easily detect cancer cells, HIV originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 31 Mar 2011 01:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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They said they would do it, and by golly it’s nearly here — Samsung just revealed that its assembly lines are starting to churn out see-thru computer screens that don’t require power-sucking backlights to function. Unfortunately, it looks like the amazing AMOLED variety is still on the drawing board, but ambient light-powered LCDs are on the way, with Samsung offering a 22-inch, 1680 x 1050 resolution panel with a 500:1 contrast ratio to begin with. Sammy suggests we’ll see it in HDMI and USB-compatible monitors and suspects it’ll be used in advertising and teleconferencing first — which suggests this display won’t come cheap — but we all know the true killer app will be a nice big frameless laptop screen. We’ll take two, please. PR after the break.

Continue reading Samsung mass producing 22-inch transparent LCD, your desktop monitor seethes with jealousy

Samsung mass producing 22-inch transparent LCD, your desktop monitor seethes with jealousy originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 31 Mar 2011 00:29:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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