Hasta La Gadget!

In the U.S., we get boring elevator music piano players in mall atriums. In Japan, they get an awesome robotic Santa. Someone is getting the short end of the stick here, and her name is America. Too bad your own presents won’t come alive as sinister Santas tomorrow morning. Or will they? More »

We have laughed more than a few times at the oddball product from NeuroSky called the Necomimi brainwave cat ears. The ears are designed to move back and forth depending on your mood based on reading your brain waves. Out of the box, the head-worn system comes with a large pair of white ears.

If you like the idea of wearing these odd cat ears, you might appreciate having some different ear styles to wear. NeuroSky is now showing off accessories to go along with the brainwave cat ears. Accessories include four different ear tips that can replace the default snowy white units.

The accessories include minky brown ears, leopard ears, obsidian black ears, and devil’s horns that would have been perfect for Halloween. There’s always next year, I suppose. Each accessory ear pack costs $19.95 (USD) over at the Necomimi shop.

In the old days, people can tell what someone is feeling by their facial expressions or by using special mouth sounds like “I’m sad. I don’t have anyone to talk to, which makes it sadder that I’m talking right now.” But apparently people these days are lying cowards who don’t want to express what they really feel. So now we have this.

The device is called the Tailly. It was invented by Shota Ishiwatari, the same man who came up with the brain-controlled cat ears and tails. The Tailly on the other hand looks at the wearer’s heart rate.

It’s a testament to how long I’ve been writing for Technabob that it’s the boring outfits of the people in the video that I find to be really weird and not the fake tails they’re wearing. Pledge at least £60 (~$96 USD) Kickstarter page to reserve your own Tailly. I’ll jump on the bandwagon when they come up with something that lets me run as fast as a cheetah.

Japan has unveiled the prototype to their new maglev train that promises speeds of around 310 MPH. After more than five months of beginning work on the new train, the Central Japan Railway Company has finished the prototype and are ready to begin testing. Due to go into service in 2027, the train will be first used on a route between Tokyo and Nagoya, where it will travel 160 miles in just around 40 minutes.

Maglev trains, or more commonly known as “bullet trains”, travel on superconducting magnets under the tracks to levitate the train and allow it to travel with much less friction, allowing the trains to achieve much higher speeds, while also providing passengers with a smoother and quieter ride than conventional trains.

It’ll obviously be a very long time until the new trains get put into full service. The first line won’t be ready until 2027, and the Central Japan Railway Company plans to expand the route to serve Osaka by 2045, and will cost around $102 billion. The new trains will have 14 cars plus the cab car, which can accommodate 24 passengers, while the other cars will hold 68 each for a total of just over 900 passengers per train.

Currently, Japan’s maglev trains travel around 150 MPH and it takes around an hour and a half for the current-generation trains to complete the journey between Tokyo and Nagoya, but the new trains will be able to complete the trip in over half the time. Japan is looking at its train technology’s export potential, and says that there’s currently a maglev train system operating in China. However, no word on whether or not the train technology will spread to other parts of the world.

[via Phys.org]

Japan unveils prototype of new 310 MPH maglev train is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

There’s a whole host of techy tools that will let you log your 10k personal best, and break down your splits into minute detail, but what about poor old Rover? Fujistu spotted this gap, and created Wandant — a sensor-laden neck tag for dogs complete with cloud-based service for tracking your pooch’s wellbeing. The hardware will log your pet’s footsteps, amount of shivering plus temperature change, and upload it automatically via your smartphone or PC. The software will present you these data over time, with the option of manually inputting further details such as food amount, a diary with photos and — for those with stronger constitutions — stool condition. Like human-focused equivalents, there will also be provisions for sharing your dog’s efforts, but thankfully only with vets and research institutions. There’s no details on hardware pricing just yet, but the online component is free for the first year (JPY 420 / about $5 per month there after). Money no object for your mutt? Sadly only available in Japan for the time being, so you’ll need to include a return ticket in that splurge too.

Filed under: Misc, Wearables

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Source: Fujitsu