Amazon has been operating its online grocery delivery service in some areas for a while. Reports have surfaced that indicate Amazon may be ready to launch that grocery delivery service in another area. There have been reported sightings of AmazonFresh delivery trucks in the San Francisco area recently and other details flying around suggesting the […]
Shouting at your smart home like it’s the Starship Enterprise is one step closer, with the ivee Sleek internet connected hands-free digital assistant finally on sale. Born of a Kickstarter earlier this year, and headed to Staples this month, the $229.99 clock-radio-lookalike aims to be the Siri of the smart home with support for voice […]
3D Systems has unveiled its new ProJet 4500 full-color plastic 3D printer. The company says that this is the first and only continuous-tone full color plastic 3D printer on the market. The printer is able to produce ready to use and full color durable plastic parts. The printer works with a new class of sustainable […]
There are lots of reasons that people might need to take hand written notes. You might need to record minutes for a meeting at the office, or perhaps you need to take study notes for a class at school. One of the best ways to take those handwritten notes if you also use mobile devices […]
The path from Kickstarter to customers is seldom smooth, and life-logging camera company Narrative (née Memoto) knows that better than most, announcing another hardware issue today that will delay shipping for early backers. According to a message sent to early supporters on the crowdfunding site, issues with camera quality, PCBs, and some of the casing […]
Life-logging is getting to be big business, and camera company Looxcie is aiming to blend wearable recording with GoPro-style action camera technology, for the Looxcie 3. Capable both of streaming video (in 480p) to a companion iOS and Android app, streaming directly to Facebook, and recording footage locally (in 720p), the Looxcie 3 packs WiFi […]
After its successful entry into the Japanese eye wear market a couple of years ago, we were expecting the frenzy around J!NS PC glasses to run its course and die out as these kinds of hypes often do in Japan…But not only have JIN company stocks multiplied by six since the launch of the product, the company is planning on expanding to China and even entering the American and European markets. Considering the relatively short and domestic lifecycle of products in Japan, the lasting popularity of J!NS PC glasses is pretty surprising.
So what makes these glasses such a great hit?
All of this goes back to the company president. After JIN company employees heard him often complaining about how much working on his computer all day tired out his eyes, they started looking into what exactly was causing their president so much pain. Further research revealed several papers and articles about blue light emitting screens, energy-efficient light-bulbs and their link to eye stress. Determining the culprit of their president’s eye problem, the staff at JIN got to work…and approximately five years later came out with J!NS PC glasses.
Tested by eye wear professionals as well as by employees at a number of IT companies, the glasses garnered a good reputation from both word of mouth as well as through a carefully implemented promotional strategy. This included progressively lowered price adjustments, and collaborations with popular figures including ONE PIECE, Arashi’s Sakurai Sho, and even gaming hardware company Alienware.
The glasses are made out of a very flexible material and are available in a very wide array of color, styles, and sizes that suit both adults and children. Most importantly, users praise their wearability and the effectiveness of the blue-light filter in easing both eye strain and tiredness – benefits that also supposed to have the advantage of alleviating other work-related stressors including poor posture.
The distribution strategy of the glasses are also particularly interesting. J!NS PC glasses are very easy to get a hold of as they can be bought in either one of the country’s dedicated 500 stores, online, or more unconventionally at vending machines, and even at a drive-through in Gunma prefecture.
And if all of this hasn’t already convinced you that J!N kind of know what they’re doing here (and perhaps also that you may need to buy a pair), there is the price. Cheap glasses in Japan are not something that is hard to find – you can usually find something between 5000 to 20,000 JPY (50 to 200 USD). However, J!N PC glasses start at 3990 JPY (about 40 USD) and require no extra cost for any prescription single focus lenses, meaning that people can afford to own several pairs to suit their tastes.
This product offers not only real health benefits to a generation living in a world were computer usage is rapidly increasing and becoming the new office work norm, but also caters to those who want to use glasses as a fashionable accessory. In this context, JIN’s plans to export their innovative product don’t sound unfeasibly ambitious – especially since their brand has already gained a degree of popularity overseas thanks to online shops. How successful the product will be in European or American markets remains to be seen.
Unlike some of the bigger trade shows or expos which tend to exhibit relatively completed products, the Digital Content Expo puts the spotlight on prototype systems and technology that are still squarely in the R&D stage. Describing its function as being a ‘bridge for digital innovation’, the focus of this event is on exhibiting the creative potential and possibilities of technology, and communicating the efforts of research laboratories and universities exploring this to a wider audience.
We’ve already blogged a little bit about the AquaTop Display, a system which turns ordinary bath water into an interactive screen, and to follow up on that we have a two part post on some of the other technologies, systems and concepts that were being exhibited. The first of these posts is on some of the displays that were exploring the potential of simulated environments, whether it was augmented reality (AR), mixed reality (MR), or virtual reality (VR).
The Oculus Rift started gaining attention as a Kickstarter project last year as a VR headset intended to immerse gamers into a simulated environment by combining a ultra-wide field of view, high resolution display and rapid head-tracking system. The hype surrounding Oculus Rift was definitely palatable at DC Expo this year, and there were a number of displays that were taking on the challenge of creating content that would work with this immersive headset. OCULUS FESTIVAL exhibited an experience that utilised touch through hand shaking and gripping actions. The movements of the mounted rubber hand are made to be synchronised with the actions of any user wearing the Oculus Rift headset, creating a more dynamic, lifelike interaction with virtual characters like Hatsune Miku.
A group of students at Keio University also used the Oculus headset to showcase a project called the Virtual Rope Slider as part of the IVRC 2013 (International collegiate Virtual Reality Contest), a contest which focused on student projects related to interactivity and robots. Users wearing the Oculus headsets sit on a motorised seat attached to a Tarzan-esque rope, and chose from five different simulated scenarios which are projected on a screen in front of them: Jungle, Edo, Space, Fantasy and City. Each simulation works in relation with the movements of the seat to create the sensation of being propelled into the environment chosen.
Another take on the experience the experience of flying or soaring through an environment was exhibited by Solidray and their “Flight Experience” setup, which aimed to create the sensation of soaring back and forth in mid air on a swing. The experience is based around a system they call Duo Site – a setup that is based around two white screens each 2.2m X 2.9m in size, set up perpendicular to each other. Two projectors are used to project 3D animations onto each of the two displays while the user stands facing the entire setup.
The user wears 3D glasses which are attached with a sensor to track head movements. A sense of immersion is created using vection – relying on the illusion of self-motion created when a large portion of a person’s visual field moves. Although a user remains stationary, confusing the visual system by wearing 3D glasses and watching a moving environment (in this case what you would see if you were swinging back and forth mid-air) allows the user to experience different sensations of movement in a simulated environment.
The relatively simple setup of the Duo Site system allows for a flexible interaction system which could be used with additional devices such as the Kinect or other types of motion sensors and game controllers to create any number of interesting augmented or virtual experiences that feel truly immersive.
On the other hand, the University of Tokyo’s Ishikawa Oku Laboratory showcased some of their work in Dynamic Image Control (DIC), a research theme that aims to explore how dynamic phenomena – such as patterns on a flying bee wing, or a red blood cell flowing through a vein – that is difficult comprehend when observed with the human eye or even with conventional imaging systems which have a relatively slow frame-rate, can be shown in a comprehensible and intelligible way. On display was “Lumipen” (るみぺん), a projection mapping system intended for use with fast motion/high speed objects.
Currently, traditional projection mapping is mainly used with static objects and surfaces, as it is difficult to project an image or animation on a surface that is moving at high speed without some sort of misalignment between image and object due to delays in the mapping systems used. To solve this problem, Lumipen uses a high-speed vision sensor that can capture a thousand images per second to detect the movement of a moving object, while a high-speed optical gaze controller called Saccade Mirror ensures that the direction of the projected image is aligned within milliseconds.
The Lumipen system enables content-rich visual information such as videos and graphics to be projected onto fast moving objects in real-time, and could even be used in dynamic situations such as concerts and sports games in the future.
Another lab based at the University of Tokyo, Naemura Lab, presented a mixed reality interface called DeruChara which can form 3D images in mid-air that respond to user interaction. The system works through a depth sensor and projector that is set up above a flat surface laid with several physical blocks. The depth sensor maps the terrain of the surface and maps any changes and user interactions based on shadows. For the Expo display, moving the blocks caused a small chick to appear and move around.
There was generally a pretty good mix of displays both of new systems being developed to support interactions, as well as displays that focused more on using existing systems to create interesting immersive experiences. While all of the displays were not finished products per se, they do showcase some of the interesting developments we can expect to see expanded upon as content increasingly mixes simulation with “reality”.Stay tuned for next time when we focus more on some of the interesting interfaces that were exhibited at the Expo.
Livescribe has been making smartpens able to turn your handwritten notes and drawings into digital content for a while. Last year we reviewed the Livescribe Sky WiFi smartpen and found it to be an interesting little gadget. Livescribe is back today with a new smartpen called the Livescribe 3 smartpen. The device has the same […]
Always in search of new things to blog about, we went out to the Digital Content Expo in Odaiba this Thursday and we were not disappointed.This is our first post showing what we found
The Aqua top display from Koike Laboratory is one of a kind.
The idea came to one of its creators while in the bath, because of the difficulty of bringing an information device such as a personal computer or a tablet in the bathtub. The project took six months to be conceptualized and prototyped, though it’s currently still in the prototype phase.
The system is set up around a bathtub or a 600mm x 900mm x 250mm square plastic tank full of water mixed with commercially available bath milk, on which the display is projected. Both of the containers are equipped with waterproof speakers on the inside to provide greater interactivity. Above the water are suspended a projector and a depth camera (such as Microsoft Kinect) connected to a personal computer. Currently two displays can be projected on the water, a content viewer (for videos or photos) and a jellyfish shooting game.
The liquid display enables the user to become one with it, making for a truly immersive experience as the different functionalities of the display can be controlled both from above and bellow the surface level.
Though, as said before it is still in a prototyping stage, it it not difficult to take a leap and imagine this system being implemented in homes…imagining how much easier it would make a parents life when it comes to making their children take a bath makes it an interesting innovation…until said children refuse to leave the bathtub that is.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
