Hasta La Gadget!

We’ve seen plenty of building-sized televisions — like the 80,000-square-foot ceiling screen in Beijing, or that record-breaking monstrosity that the Cowboys installed in Dallas — but those single-dimension LCD’s have nothing on this “5D” cube opening on Friday. Constructed from 156 Sharp 60-inch HD displays, the 5D Miracle Tour can only be found at Huis Ten Bosch, a “residential-style resort built after a medieval 17th-century Dutch town” located in Sasebo City, Japan. The unique attraction accommodates 32 guests at a time, and consists of one main front screen, surrounded by additional panels on the top, bottom, left and right. Lasting eight minutes, the tour presents the story of a mermaid named Sirena, though content will occasionally change — given the transient nature of mermaids, of course. We’ve only been able to dream of the modern-day curiosities we’d encounter while visiting 17th-century Holland, but we certainly hope this magical place won’t elude us the next time we’re near Nagasaki.

Continue reading Sharp walk-in display over-stimulates 32 guests at a time in Japanese theme park

Sharp walk-in display over-stimulates 32 guests at a time in Japanese theme park originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 27 Apr 2011 22:52:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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At its “Spectacularge” press conference today Sharp announced its new 70-inch LC-70LE732U is the largest LCD HDTV on the market . It sports Quattron four color pixels, full LED backlighting, Netflix, CinemaNow, Vudu Apps and DLNA access among its list of features, but no 3D. That will be remedied by one of the three additional models of 70-inch LCDs Sharp says it will ship this summer but in the meantime we’re just enjoying a throwback to the heady days of 2006 when consumer LCDs were last found in this size range. Interested parties with enough green to cover the $3,799 MSRP should be able to order these at their local retailers, while the rest can gawk at the specs in the press release and hands-on shots. Oh, and as for those adjectives you’ll see just past the break — a preview of Sharp’s marketing campaign, whose target customer has an “emotional” connection to the word big — well, somewhere Freud is having a field day.

Continue reading Sharp’s new 70-inch LCD HDTV is definitely bigger than the one your friend just bought

Sharp’s new 70-inch LCD HDTV is definitely bigger than the one your friend just bought originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 13 Apr 2011 17:33:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sharp isn’t apt to sell but 15,000 of its Touch Wood SH-08C handsets, but after watching the ad below, you can bet there will be demand for more. It’s a bit baffling to think of the trouble Drill, Inc. went through in order to assemble the pieces necessary for a wooden ball to trickle down a homegrown marimba, particularly in the midst of Kyushu, Japan’s woodlands. Kenjiro Matsuo was responsible for the creation of the instrument, while Morihiro Harano is being handed credit for the idea itself; in fact, he confirmed to The New York Times that no artificial music was added whatsoever, with only the background levels being adjusted up for effect. You may have never listened to a piece of classical music in your life, but you’re sorely missing out if you ignore Bach’s Cantata 147, “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring.” Or, at least the version in that video below.

Continue reading Mesmerizing Touch Wood SH-08C ad showcases Japan’s beauty, mankind’s ingenuity (video)

Mesmerizing Touch Wood SH-08C ad showcases Japan’s beauty, mankind’s ingenuity (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 31 Mar 2011 13:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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So, you’ve got your government-issued solar panels and you bought a plug-in EV, but being both a budget-minded and green-conscious geek, you’re concerned that your home’s power generation and consumption isn’t exactly optimal. Put your worries aside, because Sharp has created the Intelligent Power Conditioner (IPC) to max out the electrical efficiency of your abode while working in conjunction with public utilities. It operates by temporarily storing the unused solar-generated juice from the daytime — using both the system’s batteries and the cells in your shiny new EV — to deliver a steady stream of electrons at night. In tests with a Mitsubishi i-MiEV, the system was able to use the EV to supply 8kW of power to a home, and doled out enough electricity (4kWh) to recharge the car in a scant 30 minutes. The IPC is still in the development phase, but Sharp is looking to make it commercially available “in the near future” — which means the finishing touches on your ultimate eco-house will have to wait.

Sharp’s Intelligent Power Conditioner works with EVs to make your house a lean, mean, solar-powered machine originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 23 Feb 2011 13:13:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Here’s an interesting little note from Apple’s record-breaking Q1 2011 financial sales call: according to CFO Peter Oppenheimer and acting CEO / COO Tim Cook, the company’s made a two-year, $3.9 billion deal with three suppliers to secure a “very strategic” component for its products. Cook wouldn’t identify what the component was, citing competitive reasons, but he did say the arrangement was much like Apple’s famous deals to source iPod flash memory that date back to 2005. According to Tim, “We think that was an absolutely fantastic use of Apple’s cash, and we constantly look for more of these, and so in the past several quarters we’ve identified another area… these payments consist of both prepayments and capital for processes and tooling, and similar to the flash agreement, they’re focused in an area that we think is very strategic.”

Importantly, Apple paid out $650m under its agreements for this mystery part this past quarter, and it’s planning to spend another $1.05b in payments next quarter, so this is already happening in a big way — and frankly, we’re dying to know what it is, since Apple has a long history of squeezing the market for components it wants. Our best guess? High-density displays for the iPhone and iPad — we’ve heard some rumors of deals with Toshiba and Sharp, but that’s just conjecture, and we don’t know who the third vendor is. We’re digging, but in the meantime listen to Peter and Tim in the clip after the break.

Continue reading Apple’s invested in a ‘very strategic’ $3.9b component supply agreement, but what is it?

Apple’s invested in a ‘very strategic’ $3.9b component supply agreement, but what is it? originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 18 Jan 2011 19:16:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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