Apr 03
The World’s Best Ever picked up this great photo series by Michael Wolf. Titled Tokyo Compression, it shows snapshots of passengers captured at Tokyo’s subway stations at rush hour. If you’re claustrophobic, don’t look at these.
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Apr 03
Enjoy this reversed footage of a man walking backwards across Tokyo, proof that a simple, seemingly silly idea can result in something strangely confusing and attractive.
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Mar 09
The Awesomerer found this impossibly mesmerizing time-lapse video taken in Tokyo’s Yurikamome train. It’s also the weirdest and trippiest time-lapse video I’ve ever seen. It’s called Hyperdrive, and it looks like they are traveling in the Millennium Falcon in Tron universe.
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Mar 04
Legendarily unaffordable Tokyo is no longer the priciest metropolis in the world—it has been supplanted by another, far more inaccessible city. Want to take a guess who it is? It’s not New York. It’s not San Francisco. The world’s most expensive city is…
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Feb 27
This video, shot and made by Scott Gold, plays like a dream. It depicts Scott and his wife’s trip to Japan in January but to me, it shows how Japan is maintaining its illustrious history and mystical culture amidst the fast paced, beep beep, every person cross the intersection right now modern world.
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Oct 25
A coalition of Japanese architects have said what everyone else was too polite to say: That Zaha Hadid-designed stadium is just too big, too expensive, and too impractical. Japanese officials have announced plans to scale back the design, which would cost $3.1 billion to build according to a recent budget update.
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Oct 01
NTT DoCoMo’s vision of ‘5G’ wireless: 100x faster than LTE, but not until 2020
Posted in: Today's Chili
We knew good and well that Japanese carrier NTT DoCoMo would be divulging details about its 5G wireless plans at CEATEC, but the claims that we’ve stumbled upon here in Chiba are nothing short of bananas. Granted, the operator is making clear that its vision isn’t intended to reach implementation until 2020, and it confesses that a 5G standard has yet to be ratified. That said, it’s dreaming of a world where its network offers “1000 times the capacity and 100 times the speed as the current network.”
Representatives for the company told us that the challenge is going to be dealing with range limitations in higher frequency spectrum, but it plans to employ “high-frequency bandwidth by transmitting with a large number of antenna elements.” The goal for looking so far forward? It’s already seeing an insane appetite for video on networks that can barely maintain poise under the load, and the notion of transferring 4K content to the masses is going to require a substantial upgrade. CEATEC’s known as a place that allows companies to dream big and aim for the fences, but we’ll be honest — we’d really, really prefer that 2020 arrived sooner rather than later.
Mat Smith contributed to this report. %Gallery-slideshow99596%
Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless, Mobile
Sep 30
Google launches Android game vending machines, puts first ones in Tokyo (naturally)
Posted in: Today's Chili
In a country that has no shortage of vending machines, Google Japan has decided to join the fray. The company has announced three dedicated Google Play machines that will sell 18 different gaming titles which are a mix of free-to-play and paid-for titles. To use the machines, you’ll need a smartphone running Android 4.0 and NFC — and that’s about it. You rest the phone on the tray below the screen, and NFC pairing takes care of the rest. We put the machine to the test with our LG G2 on hand, and had no troubles choosing and downloading a free game through the machine. There’s a slick unified animation from the giant touchscreen (which looks almost identical to drinks machines elsewhere in the country) to your Android phone of choice when the download kicks in. Also, for trying out another Google app, you’ll get a ‘present’ which ‘drops’ down from the screen and into the vending tray once your download is complete.
Not an Android user? Don’t worry, because the vending machine will offer up a Nexus 4 for you to try out, although you do have to give it back, however. Several boiler-suited Google employees will man the machines when they’re switched on tomorrow in front of the Parco department store in Shibuya. For now, it looks to be a Japan-only promotion — but it’s another great excuse to hit up the country’s vending machines. %Gallery-slideshow99512%
Filed under: Cellphones, Misc, Gaming, Software, Mobile, Google
Sep 19
Daily Roundup: PlayStation Vita hands-on, HP SlateBook x2 review, iOS 7 lockscreen bug, and more!
Posted in: Today's Chili
You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours — all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.
Sep 09
Soon enough, if you leave something in one of Kokusai Motorcars Co.’s Tokyo taxis, you’ll know it before the cabbie drives away. Cameras under the front seats, in the trunk and on the ceiling record what the passenger and cargo area look like before a fare gets in. If the cams notice an item that wasn’t there when they get out, an alarm sounds so you get your stuff back sooner rather than later. Handy, right? If you’re worried about privacy, this apparently won’t capture clear facial images and the equipped cabs will have signs denoting the system’s presence, according to The Wall Street Journal. At ¥50,000 (roughly $500) this relatively cheap idea could keep you from losing a cellphone to a cab ever again. Kokusai hopes to have its fleet of 3,100 cars outfitted by next spring, but we can’t help but wish it was in place before this month’s Tokyo Game Show.
[Image credit: Wikimedia Commons]
Filed under: Transportation
Source: Wall Street Journal
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