Two professional-grade HD digital video camera models, with removable handles, will be released by Canon in mid-June.
Compact, “run-and-gun” HD camcorders with improved optical performance from a new powerful Canon 20x HD Video Lens with a new 8-Blade Circular Aperture, capable of focusing down to just 60cm.
Approx. 3.09 total megapixels (2.91 effective megapixels), 3.5-inch OLED Touch Panel Display with the equivalent of 1.23 million dots of resolution, tiltable electronic viewfinder, – together with a choice of industry-standard MP4 (up to 35 Mbps) and AVCHD (up to 28 Mbps) codecs.
The high image quality and recording versatility make the XA20 ideal for independent and documentary filmmaking, as well as event videography and educational institutions, law enforecement and military, etc.
XA25 has multiple HD/SD recording rates – including 24p for a “cinematic” look.
Estimated retail prices: XA25 – 250,000 yen XA20 – 170,000 yen
The immensity of Tokyo still amazes me even after years of living here. But I can’t think of a better way to really get a sense of the scope of this city than by a helicopter tour over the city.
This is not clips of different areas, it is a seamless aerial tour from takeoff to landing. Take a one-hour tour of the city and see more than 50 famous landmarks.
Recorded in 50Mbps high bit rate and “4:2:2 sampling” with super wide zoom lens from a gyrostabilizer built-in helicopter. Blu-ray HD master data, HGX Codec.
Available in DVD and Download versions.
The attached pictures are some of the sites highlighted in the video (listed in the order that they are posted below):
1) Tokyo Tower 2) Shibuya (showing Shibuya station and the brand-new Hikarie Building) 3) Shinjuku 4) The Diet Building 5) Tokyo Dome 6) Akihabara 7) Asakusa (Senso-ji Temple/Five-storied Pagoda, etc.) 8) Tokyo Sky Tree
Logitec is releasing a cylindrical shaped Bluetooth speaker “LBT-AVSP1000″ in mid-April. It plays music saved in a smart device compatible with Bluetooth by connecting wirelessly.
It accommodates AAC/apt-X codec that produces high-quality and low delay sounds. Output is 15W (7.5W x 7.5W). There is a stand to place smart phone/tablet in the front, and the stand includes a USB port for recharging the speaker.
Price: ¥8,980 Size: 440 × 86 × 115mm Weight: 555g Accessories: manual book, AC adapter, micro USB cable for recharging
Toshiba has introduced a combined digital book content service and digital reader.
It’s content service, “BookPlace Cloud Innovation” was started today, and is aiming to store 100,000 digital books by this coming summer. The content service is accessible over smart devices – Android smart phone, Android tablet, iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, iPad mini (on PCs in May or later) – and purchased content can be accessed on 5 different devices with the same account.
Toshiba’s hardware, the digital book reader, “BookPlace MONO” (with contents) will be available on April 16.
It will be sold with accompanying “sets” of digital volumes as follows:
“BookPlace MONO” and 1 set: ¥13,900 “BookPlace MONO” and 2 sets: ¥19,800 “BookPlace MONO” and 3 sets: ¥24,900 1 set = 15-20 volumes
“BookPlace MONO” will be sold only with contents or dedicated points that you can use at BookPlace (http://bookplace.jp/), it’s download site.
Bookplace has partnered with 5 major book stores to sell/promote the contents and BookPlace MONO.
BookPlace MONO specs: Display: 6 inch electronic paper Resolution: 758×1024 dot, 16 gradation grayscale Touch panel: optical touch panel Built-in memory/ software capacity: 4GB/ 1.2GB microSD memory card slot: 1 slot (microSD memory card, micro SDHC memory card Communication: Wi-fi, IEEE802.11b/g/n External terminal: micro USB2.0 (microB) x 1, headphone terminal (3.5mm mini jack) x 1 Battery life: Approx. 8,000 pages (depends on reading environment) Size: Width 110 mm, Height 170 mm Weight: 180 g Accessories: microUSB cable
Optimus Prime, Hot Rod, and Ultra Magnus. These are all robot cars from the Transformers franchise rooted in early 1980s Japan. Somewhat disappointingly, here in realityland it looks like Japan’s real robot cars will have names like Nissan, Toyota, Fuji Heavy Industries, Honda, Mazda, and Hitachi.
Assume gravelly cowboy voice: “Hitachibots, transform and roll out!” Yeeaaah… umm, nope.
Okay, sadly Japan’s big automakers aren’t yet churning out sentient, anthropomorphized, purely good or purely evil all-male robot warriors. But they are very hip to developing and deploying practical versions of so-called robot cars in cooperation with domestic government agencies (Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism – MLIT), one another, and given their global reach, international partners as well. Domestically, the current aim is to deploy highly autonomous, self-driving cars on freeways within 9-10 years. If the system proves successful, a global brand like Nissan or Toyota would surely find additional markets in other, much larger national freeway systems (ex: the massive national networks of China and the United States).
Concepts and proposals for robotic automobiles have been around for almost 80 years, and functional experimentation has been ongoing since the early 1980s. Actually, when breaking it down by individual features, 0ne can see that cars have been gradually roboticizing for a long time, e.g., power steering, power windows, power mirrors, anti-lock brakes, etc., etc.
So naturally, big J-Auto’s development of self-driving, partially autonomous, and arguably robotic feature sets isn’t novel. The 2003 Toyota Prius (Japan only), for example, was the first car available with a sonar-based Intelligent Parking Assist System (IPAS) wherein the driver operates the brake and the car calculates optimal steering angles for automated parallel parking (this option didn’t make it to the U.S. until 2009). Robotic features aren’t limited to driving, as here with the 2006 Mazda Miata’s Transformer-like power sunroof:
So what else is there with the Japan/robot car special connection situation? Well, geography, as it is so often want to do, must also insert itself into this macro-cultural equation. Insofar as: Japan’s approximately 130 million residents are shoehorned onto a mere 30% of the country’s land area – and not by choice, the other 70% is either too unstable, rugged, or topographically crazy to be inhabited. So, if one imagines all those people in contiguous urbanization on an island nation about the size of the U.S. state of Ohio, or just a bit larger than Portugal, one can appreciate the extreme population density and everyday challenge of very close-quarter driving and parking.
Another big deal for robotic cars here is the very long-term continuous habitation of the habitable areas. See, when one gets off the modern, 1st world-standard, highly developed roadways, in most cases one will quickly find oneself winding through very narrow streets with little if any standardized configuration. Human beings have been living along the same trails-that-became-roads-that-became-streets for many hundreds, if not thousands of years – long before there was much regard for large-scale municipal planning or an even vague anticipation of the motor vehicle. The analog compensation here is that nearly every non-arterial, non-grid-like intersection in Japan has an array of fish-eye mirrors at each corner, and drivers either use them or risk having no idea what’s coming. A networked robotic car, however, would be able to “see” around the corners, which would be nice when navigating this Tokyo neighborhood:
And then there’s the demographics. We mentioned assistive robots’ role in Japan’s aging society a few weeks back; this country has a big-deal labor shortage coming up in a generation and a half or so. In addition to the role robotics will very likely play in augmenting a dwindling human services labor force, a day spent in any Japanese city futilely looking for taxi or bus driver under 45 will clearly reveal another pending labor shortage. Who’s going to fill those jobs in 25 years? Yep.
Japan is approaching a perfect-storm state of necessity for practical robots, and if proven effective, reliable, and safe, increasingly robotic automobiles are likely to get an early foothold here. Besides, piloting a car in Japan is objectively difficult, licensing and compulsory driving schools are quite expensive, and despite its world-class public transportation system, Japan does experience considerable roadway congestion (networked, self-driving cars are anticipated to greatly reduce traffic jams and the effects of human error). Add in safety benefits, a potentially positive environmental impact, and POW: if it can, big J-Auto will put J-robots on the road ASAP.
Japan’s current repertoire doesn’t include anything ready for public consumption, but there are some very advanced and promising projects underway. Nissan’s modified Leaf, introduced last October as the NSC-2015, as in the year 2015, is an ambitious and innovative offering – complete with smartphone connectivity:
Toyota is also keeping pace with the Lexus-branded Advanced Active Safety Research Vehicle that debuted at CES in January:
Bringing things down to the personal, Hitachi recently unveiled their latest version of the Robot for Personal Intelligent Transport System – Ropits. This autonomous, obstacle-avoiding, user-friendly personal transport is intended to one day assist the elderly or disabled:
Japan’s MLIT was scheduled to produce an update to their ongoing robo-car feasibility studies by the end of last month. While not yet public, it’s safe to assume that their assessments and directives probably won’t result in big J-Auto’s production of a transforming robot car that will protect you, your family, and the galaxy from those other, eeeevil robots – but within a few decades, it’ll probably be reasonable to expect one’s very own private chauffeur to be… well, basically just software.
For now and the near future, think of robotic cars as you might think of powered robotic exoskeletons, i.e., they’ll help you do what you need to do with greater strength, precision, and efficiency, but they aren’t going to walk out to the driveway and help you up the stairs all by themselves.
The robots are coming, but for now and a while to come, humans are still going to have to push a few buttons. _________
Reno J. Tibke is the founder and operator of Anthrobotic.com and a contributor at the non-profit Robohub.org.
LG Electronics Japan is releasing a wireless sound bar system “NB4530A”, a wireless connection and 3D sound compliant blu-ray disk player “NB4530A” and a compact model “BP125″ soon.
NB4530A NB4530A can connect to an accompanying woofer or LG TV wirelessly. It’s only 35mm thin and you can hang it on a wall as well. Built-in 3D sound processor gives you a rich and realistic sound experience when you watch a 3D movie.
Expected price: ¥45,000 Release date: mid-May Size: main unit 1038 × 35.4 × 75mm, woofer 221 × 351.5 × 281mm Weight: main unit 2.4kg, woofer 7.3kg
BP630 3D sound compliant Blu-Ray player, BP630′s “Private Sound Mode” is a useful function especially when you cannot play loud sounds, such as late night. Equipped with Miracast – download a dedicated application to your smart phone, and then you can listen to the sounds that BP630 is producing with your smart phone. Equipped with an HDMI terminal.
LG Electronics Japan announced that they will release 7 new series of their “LG Smart TV” – 17 models in all – in chronological sequence starting in late April. The “LG Smart TV” will feature regular TV broadcasts and various smart content, apps, SNS, etc. These new models are the second “LG Smart TV” series. LG developed them by putting more importance on operability than previous models. Examples of newly added functions are “Voice …
New aluminum slick headphone models “MDR-XB920″ and “MDR-XB610″ from Sony’s “EXTRA BASS” series will be out soon.
MDR-XB920 Price: ¥24,675 Color: red, black Weight: 305g
– Impressive deep bass sounds; 50mm driver unit, power handling capacity 3,000mW, advanced direct vibe structure to help to make expansive clear sound – Connection cord for audio and connection cord with microphone built-in, remote control for smartphone control or handsfree call come with the headphone – High-adhesion ear pad
MDR-XB610 Price: ¥12,390 Color: orange, white Weight: 224g
– Impressive deep bass sounds, 40mm driver unit, advanced direct vibe structure to help to make expansive clear sound – High-adhesion ear pad
Buffalo is releasing Bluetooth 3.0 wireless keyboard “BSKBB16″ series for iPhone 5 and “BSKBB17BK” for iPad in mid April.
BSKBB16 series for iPhone 5 Color: Black (BSKBB16BK), White (BSKBB16WH) Price: ¥8,400 (including tax) Size: 126 × 21.5 × 60.5mm Weight: 105g Charging time: 1.5 hours Battery life: 1.5 months (when it’s fully charged)
– You can slide and store the keyboard on the bottom of iPhone 5 when you carry it around – The keyboard is removable so you can take it away and use the case as a regular iPhone 5 case – You can adjust the iPhone’s angle to an easy-to-view angle – Backlight LED for making the keyboard more visible in a dark place
– When not using the keyboard, you can attach it to iPad to use it as an iPad cover – By fitting iPad to the rut, it enables you to type comfortably as if you were using a laptop
Seiko is going to release 2 models of new feminine watches for Mother’s day in a limited quantity.
An elegant model collaborated with popular apparel brand “MICHEL KLEIN” has a round shape with a ribbon motif design and 3 diamonds on it. It comes with a handkerchief in a special box. It’s ¥14,700 (including tax).
Another model that is from one of Seiko’s watch series “ALBA INGENU” and has a salmon pink colored dial and 10 Swarovski parts on it. It’s 10,500 yen (including tax).
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