Hasta La Gadget!

Akihabara is home to some rather unorthodox wares, but Japan’s certainly seen it’s fair share of ion generators over the years. Though, we have to say — we’ve yet to see or hear of one with a name this good. Sharp’s IG-CM1 is better known as the Plasmacluster Ion Generator (or Virus Buster, if you will), and so far as we can tell, it’s a portable Ionic Breeze. In other words, this thing somehow cleans the air around the owner and rejuvenates their skin, and when the day’s done, it’ll recharge over USB. We know, it’s all you can do to stifle that chuckle, but Sharp’s clearly pretty serious about this thing. You know, judging by that stratospheric ¥17,950 ($210) price tag.

Sharp’s Plasmacluster Ion Generator: refreshes skin, won’t eradicate enemies originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 24 Aug 2010 07:48:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you aren’t thrilled about 3-D movies or 3-D TV, how about a 3-D smartphone? Sharp say sit will have a 3-D cellphone out by the end of the year that doesn’t require consumers to wear special glasses.

The phone will also include a 3-D camera module, a Sharp spokesperson told Reuters.

A 3-D phone from Sharp is likely to include the same kind of display that the company has shown on the Nintendo 3DS handheld game console. The 3DS has a 3.5-inch display that lets consumers hold the device up and perceive 3-D images using the idea a parallax barrier. The technique uses a layer that’s placed over an LCD screen to produce the feeling of depth by directing slightly different images to each eye.

As cellphone processors become more powerful and telecom carriers introduce 4G networks capable of transporting more data, companies are looking at 3-D as a way to differentiate and excite consumers. In 2009, Japanese wireless carrier KDDI started selling the first commercially available 3-D cellphone called the Hitachi Woo. More than 300,000 devices were sold in in just a few weeks.

Last month, MasterImage 3-D, a Burbank, California, company that makes 3-D displays told Wired.com that it is talking to almost all major handset makers in the U.S. about offering 3-D display to consumers. The first 3-D cellphone could be available in the United States next year, says MasterImage.

Sharp hopes to beat that. But it needs better luck with the planned 3-D phone that has had with the Kin–the last much-hyped cellphone that was manufactured by Sharp.

See Also:

• 3-D Tabletop Display Gets Rid of the Glasses
• 3-D PCs Will Make a Splash at Computex
• 3-D Goes DIY With Amateur Photos, Videos
• 3-D: Coming Soon to a Cellphone Near You
• Next-Gen Cellphones Will Run 1080p Video and 3D Games

Photo: (Josh Hill/Flickr)

Judging by the fact that our lovely planet is home to the Libretto W100, the Kno, Onkyo DX and oodles of prototypes that utilize twin panels rather than a panel and a keyboard, Sharp’s newest microchip is likely to draw some serious industry attention. Improving on an idea that began in 2008, the company has recently shown off a new chip (dubbed LR388G9) that can control two mobile LCDs and can simultaneously display a pair of different 1,024 x 480 pixel clips on a pair of screens; moreover, it can output full 1080p to any source connected via HDMI. Since ’08, Sharp has increased memory capacity from 16Mbits to 32Mbits while boosting the image processing speed, and the company now intends to hawk this new guy to outfits who manufacture smartphones, e-readers, digital photo frames and even netbooks. If all goes well, the chip will ship within a 261-pin WFBGA package this September, with volume pricing pegged at around ¥2,400 ($27).

Sharp microchip enables dual-screen smartphones, e-readers and netbooks originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 28 Jul 2010 06:24:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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When it comes to boring ‘ol text and images, there are plenty of formats that modern e-readers can manage — your EPUBs and OPFs and the like. But, when it comes to integrating multimedia content into a kind of next-gen e-book experience, the sort Wired is pushing on the iPad, things are rather less standardized. Sharp wants to be on the forefront of bringing that style of content together under a single standard: XMDF, or ever-eXtending Mobile Document Format. It enables video and animations and flashy presentation to be mingled in with the text, surely with the intent of distracting you from actually having to read anything. Of course, XHTML can manage all this stuff too, but it never was particularly great at the sort of precision text layout publishers crave, and presumably that’s also being addressed here. Naturally we’re a little more excited about hardware, and Sharp showed off two prototype readers measuring 5.5- and 10.8-inches respectively… though it didn’t have much to say about them otherwise. More details later this year, supposedly.

Sharp’s XMDF format looks to bring e-books into the next generation originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 20 Jul 2010 07:06:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It took a little while after the BDXL specification was finalized, but here’s Sharp busting down the door to expanded storage with the first official products adhering to said spec. The new VR-100BR1 discs will use triple-layer fairy dust to squish 100GB of data inside, and Akihabara News reports that they’ll be swiftly followed by quad-layer 128GB variants as well. Of course, every shiny new toy comes at a price, which in this case will be ¥5,000 per disc — that equates to $57 and makes us wonder why we wouldn’t just buy an external HDD with that cash. Perhaps because the slinky new Blu-ray media will be playable in that shiny new Sharp Blu-ray DVR you just bought? You did buy a Sharp DVR, right? Because the BD-HDW700/70 are the only models that will support these, at least for the moment.

Continue reading Sharp intros first 100GB BDXL discs, Japan gets first dibs on July 30

Sharp intros first 100GB BDXL discs, Japan gets first dibs on July 30 originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 16 Jul 2010 02:49:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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