Sony introduced the new low-pass filter-less Cyber-shot “RX1R” that has Sony’s unique 35mm full size CMOS image sensor Exmor. It will be released on July 5.
It has Carl Zeiss Sonnar T * 35mm F2 lens. With BIONZ image processing engine, “RX1R” is capable of processing high-load images quickly such as photo shot at up to ISO 102400, 5 fps continuous shooting, and 14-bit RAW recording.
Sony is going to release the new Cyber-shot camera “RX100 II” with 1 inch Backside illuminated CMOS image sensor Exmor R. The release date is July 5.
“RX100 II” has a 3 inch TFT LCD tilt screen so that you can adjust the screen to your favorite angle. Its lens is 3.6X zoom bright F1.8 Carl Zeiss Vario-Sonnar T Lens. By the combination of CMOS image sensor “Exmor R” and image processing engine “BIONZ”, significant noise-reduction and high ISO performance (ISO 12800) are achieved.
It’s compatible with Wi-Fi, NFC, and “One-touch Remote” that enables you to control “RX100 II” remotely using a smartphone or tablet. Other useful functionaries are available, such as “Auto Framing” that automatically trim a image being captured and “Active mode” that is an optical image stabilizer.
Model: DSC-RX100M2 Price: About ¥75,000 Size: 101.6 x 58.1 x 38.3mm Weight: 254g
On June 26, at CEA LineShows 2013 taking place in New York City, Audio-Technica revealed their new NC headphone “ATH-ANC70″, which is capable of blocking 90% of background noise.
It’s scheduled to go on sale in the U.S. in October and the price will be $199.95. Its release in Japan hasn’t yet been decided.
The design of “ATH-ANC70″ was completely changed from the previous ANC models. In the center of the headphone housing of “ATH-ANC70″, there is a control button that is used for answering/ending a phone call and playing/stopping music or video. A volume control button and NC ON-Off switch are arranged along the side of the headphone.
A low-resilience material is used for the headband and ear cushion. “ATH-ANC70″ features a great functionality that enables you to use it as a regular headphone in passive mode even when battery power is lost.
Thanko has just released a high-capacity 3,200mAh lithium polymer battery built-in smartphone case for Samsung’s Galaxy S4. It’s only 17mm thick and weights 90g.
Using a microUSB cable, you are able to sync and charge your Galaxy S4 without taking off the battery case. When you charge your Galaxy S4 with the battery case on, the Galaxy S4 gets charged first and then the battery case starts getting charged next.
LED light on the battery case tells you the remaining battery level.
Price: ¥3,280 (including tax) Color: black, white Size: 74x148x17 mm Weight: 90g Charging time: Approx. 5 hours
Of planet Earth’s estimated 1,240,000 operational industrial robots, about 230,000 were made in Japan and sold around the world by Yaskawa Motoman. Earlier this week, they opened their first overseas factory in China, which means that the Chinese are building robots for the Japanese in China to sell to China. It’s totally meta.
• • •
The Robots: Those who like robots but live their lives outside of industrial robo-geekery probably know Yaskawa Motoman not by name, but by the YouTube footprint of various machines dealing cards, making food, playing golf, assembling stuff, stacking stuff, etc. The semi-humanoid SDA10F (sometimes called Dexter Bot), for example, might be familiar:
SDA10F “Dexter Bot” Dealing Cards at IMTS 2012
Yaskawa Motoman is the industrial robotics division of the nearly 100 year-old Yaskawa Electric Corporation, a global electronics and manufacturing firm based in Kitakyushu, Japan. Until now, all their robots have been produced right here on the archipelago, but just a few days ago they opened their first factory in China. The new facility in Changzhou, Jiangsu Province is reportedly now the world’s largest-capacity industrial robot factory. The manufacturing robots to be manufactured there will be used primarily to manufacture automobiles (welding, painting, and materials handling).
“So, will industrial robots be building industrial robots in this industrial robot factory?!”
Sure, a valid question that immediately pops up among the more… robo-enthusiastic, but for actual assembly and such, the answer appears to be no (left & middle below). However, below on the right, in a screen capture from NHK coverage of the announcement, an industrial robot is spray painting an industrial robot at the facility. Cool, but not exactly all Terminator Skynet robots-building-robots pre-apocalypse or anything.
The Big Why Might Be a Big Problem: Most of the Japanese & Chinese news outlets, the vast bulk of the coverage, included some kind of cursory statement about increasing labor costs in China being the Why of all this, but no one’s just come out and said “Hey, it’s like this: robots don’t complain about low wages, they don’t get hurt, don’t take breaks, they rarely commit suicide – you know, all that stuff those soft and sensitive mammals do. They might cost a lot in the beginning, but they’ll quickly pay for themselves.” Yeah of course, there’s a lot to gain from implementing robotic labor… for those who can buy it – not so much for those to be displaced.
But this isn’t new news – about two years back, Xin Hua News reported on Foxconn’s plans to further incorporate robotic labor into its massive force of 1.2 million humans. The big-picture intention was to increase the number of robotic “workers” from 10,000 then to 1,000,000 over three years. We’ll see what next year brings, but it’s clear that human labor has become a troubling cancer in the profit stream of the World’s Factory; a once inexhaustible, malleable, cheap Chinese labor force has become a bit adversarial and increasingly expensive. Captains of Chinese industry like Foxconn’s Terry Gou, having years ago foreseen as much, are now beginning to implement work-ready, eventually profit-positive, human rights-neutral, therefore preferable robotic labor.
And that’s why Yaskawa’s getting open armed into China.
For now it’s heavy labor, but realistically, are there really a whole lot of manufacturing jobs left that are doable by human hands alone? Baxter from Rethink Robotics and Nextage from Kawada Industries, as examples, offer proof that squishy five-fingered labor is far from a growth sector – and the technology isn’t exactly standing still.
Market economics, the capitalism, it’s what we humans do, and it seems to be best economic system we can realistically implement – or at the very least it’s the least of many possible evils. Time and time again, however, we’ve witnessed burgeoning, fast-growth market economies display ferocious ineptitude when it comes to self-regulation. In that vein, could a widespread, highly profitable in the short-term, relatively sudden transition to robo-labor destroy China’s economy? That’s a big negative. Could it give China’s economy a seizure? Maybe, maybe yeah.
And maybe China’s industrial leaders, faced with the most challengingly massive human labor pool on the planet, will take it slow and safe. But, slow and safe doesn’t buy yachts and islands, as the kids these days often say – so you gotta wonder: are Terry Gou and his peers silly and profit-drunk enough to roboticize the world’s second largest economy into bubble-esque recession? Could massive manufacturing layoffs even produce such an effect? Hard to say, but unless robots suddenly start getting less effective and more expensive, we will find out.
And you know, Japan, rather recently demoted to the world’s third largest economy, yet so very enthusiastically investing in robots for its largest trading partner’s labor market (Yaskawa’s not alone), probably wouldn’t mind moving back up.
Hey… ahhhhh, ohhhh, Yaskawa! Well played, well played.
• • •
Reno J. Tibke is the founder and operator of Anthrobotic.com and a contributor at the non-profit Robohub.org.
Kyary Pamyu Pamyu, who is a Japanese female model/singer and represents Japan’s kawaii subculture, has been very popular both in Japan and overseas. Currently, she appears on a TV commercial of au by KDDI and sings a special song for the TV commercial.
Today, au by KDDI announced that they will offer presale tickets of the Kyary Pamyu Pamyu’s Autumn concert exclusively for “au Smart Pass” members. In addition, the luckiest 10 pairs (20 people) will win backstage pass and see Kyary in person.
au by KDDI will start accepting the presale order from July 5, 12:00 to July 9, 23:59.
4G LTE compliant rugged smartphone “G’zOne COMMANDO 4G LTE”, manufactured by Casio Computer and NEC Casio mobile, will be released by the American mobile network operator Verizon Wireless on June 27.
“G’zOne COMMANDO 4G LTE” is MIL-STD 810G compliant (waterproof, dustproof and crushproof). It has the G’zGEAR application built-in, and it is compatible with the cloud service LIVE G for G’zOne users and the outdoor social media map G’sWORLD. Also, new functionality “Glove Touch Mode” that enables you to control the touch panel in gloves has been added.
In addition, by pairing “G’zOne COMMANDO 4G LTE” with a Bluetooth Smart compliant G-SHOCK, you will be notified of incoming calls and messages came to “G’zOne COMMANDO 4G LTE” via your G-SHOCK.
OS: Android 4.0 CPU: MSM8960 (Dual core 1.5GHz) Display: 4 inch WVGA TFT LCD Camera: Main 8.08 million pixel CMOS, Sub 1.36 million pixel CMOS Battery: 1800mAh Size: 129.8×68.1×13.7mm Weight: 174.8g Others: GPS / Bluetooth Smart / Wi-Fi(802.11b/g/n),Wi-Fi Direct,Mobile Hotspot / DLNA / NFC
Acer is going release the 8.1 inch mini tablet “Iconia W3-810″ on July 11. “Microsoft Office Home and Business 2013″ is pre-installed so that you will be able to utilize the advantage in a business setting.
Price: About ¥60,000 Size: H11.4 × W219 × D134.9mm Weight: 500g Battery life: 8 hours Color: Silver OS: Windows 8 32bit Office: Office Home and Business 2013 Processor: Intel Atom Processor Z2760 (1.80GHz) System memory: 2GB Display: 8.1 inch (HD, 1280×800) / Touch panel/ 5 points multi-touch / 16:10 screen/LED backlight/brightness 350nit/Lustre Panel/1.67 million colors Graphics: Intel GMA Storage: 64GB eMMC Memory card slot: microSD Wireless: IEEE802.11b/g/n Bluetooth: Bluetooth 4.0＋HS Micro USB2.0 port ×1, built-in microphone x1, 3.5mm audio jack ×1, Micro HDMI port ×1
Mouse Computer has just released its new Windows 8 laptop “LuvBook K series” with 15.6 inch full HD non-glare LCD display and the NVIDIA GeForce GT750M today. The price starts from ¥99,750.
Basic model: OS: Windows 8 64bit CPU: Intel Core i7-4700MQ Processor Memory: 16GB PC3-12800 (8GB×2/Dual Channel) Hard disk: 500GB WesternDigital’s SerialATAII 5400rpm Optical drive: DVD Super Multi Drive Display: 15.6 inch full HD non-glare LCD (1,920×1,080/ LED backlight) Wireless network: IEEE 802.11 b/g/n ・ Bluetooth V4.0 + LE
Hitachi Power Solutions has developed an item management system, which helps to improve traceability in manufacturing facilities.
This system uses item IDs printed in stealth ink, which is hard to see with the naked eye. The ink is made visible and read using UV light, and each ID is associated with production data. Even in lots with thousands or tens of thousands of items, this system enables every single product to be managed individually.
“Usually, manufacturer’s codes don’t need to be seen by everyone. So, we’ve decided to use stealth codes. A feature of these is, they can be printed anywhere. So, they don’t affect product design.”
“The scanning speed is currently 78 meters per minute, but that could be increased to 160 meters per minute. The codes can be read anywhere, but what we want to do is to make it possible to read the codes, and associate them with data during manufacturing, at speeds that have so far been considered impossible on production lines.”
“Until now, products have been managed as lots, so if customers make a complaint, manufacturers have only been able to tell them the results of tests within a lot. But now, each item on a production line can be scanned, and data can be associated with its code, so manufacturers have evidence regarding complaints. For example, items can be given serial numbers, like with consumer electronics. So, if there’s a complaint, the manufacturer can immediately check where the item was made and what the problem was.”
The stealth codes are printed using ink-jet printers from Hitachi IES. This system offers lower costs than labels and RFID tags.
From now on, as well as food items, Hitachi will consider using the system for electronic and automotive components.
“We think this system could be utilized for lots of purposes. For example, you could use these codes to make small electronic components traceable, or to improve the speed of production lines. Stealth codes could also be used to prevent counterfeiting or unauthorized distribution.”
Event: FOOMA JAPAN 2013
This content is provided by DigInfo.tv, AkihabaraNews Official Partner.
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.
![Japanese Robots: Yaskawa Goes to China; Shudder the Labor Market [WORKING]](https://i0.wp.com/www.akihabaranews.com/wp-content/uploads/images/6/56/135756/1.jpg?fit=300%2C300)
