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We sent 3 of our gadgetmaniacs to Tokyo last month to ferret out the latest gadget trends. So what have we got to show for it? …. a beautifully photographed travelogue of Japan, and, wait for it …. pix of two, yes, 2, gadgets!!

Direct from the Sony Ginza Building in Tokyo Japan, the image above is an exploded view of the Sony Qualia 016 $3200 digital camera, described earlier in this forum.

Also from the Sony Building, the people above are petting the Sony Aibo maintenance-free mechanical dog.

So what did our gadgetmaniacs do after a tedious day of gadget hunting? Judging from the sequence numbers of the images, they seem to have gone next door to Maxim’s for some cappuccino:

Our spies indicate that there are indeed more gadgets in Tokyo, and suggested a follow-up trip to review them. Many of those gadgets can be found near Shinjuku Station at the famous Yodobashi Camera Co.,Ltd whose facade they did manage to photograph:

Following are some more images from Tokyo and its surroundings. (Comments via mouse-over ….)

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The Black & Decker Tide Buzz Ultrasonic Stain Remover uses ultrasonic sound waves to remove stains from clothes before they are washed.

Consumer Reports says it works best on smaller stains such as motor oil, ketchup, lipstick and chocolate, but not quite as well on ballpoint pen, mustard and Cherry Kool-Aid.

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Ars Electronica, the International Competition for CyberArts handed out its awards for 2004 a while ago. One of the entries in the category of “Interactive Art” was a work entitled “Augmented Fish Reality” which ended up winning the Award of Distinction.

Augmented Fish Reality is an interactive installation of 5 rolling robotic fish-bowl sculptures designed to explore interspecies and transpecies communication. Each of five fish bowls containing Siamese fighting fish sits atop a rolling robotic sculpture. Four infrared sensors looking into each fish bowl register the movements of the fish and transform them into movements of the robotic sculptures. In this way, the fish can move about in space as they choose.

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The SEIKO Epson corporation has just announced an ultra-sensitive, ultra-small, 1-chip GPS Module for mobile handsets.

The new S4E19863 chip is similar to the Motorola Instant GPS chip introduced last year. While this new chip is more sensitive than the Motorola (-160dBm vs. 153dBm), it is somewhat bigger (13×13 mm vs. 7×7mm).

The primary benefit of these chipsets is, of course, to communicate your location to 911 and E911 services in case of an emergency.

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Casio has just announced a 2.2 inch LCD screen, intended for mobile phone displays, with a record 368 pixels per inch, thereby providing VGA (640×480) resolution. This is quite an achievement considering that the majority of cell phones today have QVGA resolution (320×240) or less.

This new Casio 2.2in LCD beats out the Samsung 2.6in LCD announced just a month ago .. on Aug 10, 2004. The Samsung 2.6in LCD, which is scheduled to go into production in December 2004, has a very respectable resolution of 300ppi.

Or maybe I’ll just wait for the Samsung 2.03in LCD with an amazing 400 pixels per inch. This LCD was exhibited by Samsung way back in April 2004, but no intended production date was provided. While the number of ‘real’ pixels in this panel is ‘only’ 240×640, Samsung’s proprietary Four-Color Rendering (4CR) technique increases the effective resolution up to 400ppi at 480×640. Okay.. okay!, so the Samsung 2.03in LCD is not “true” VGA …. nevertheless, 4CR’s sub-pixel rendering and sub-texel correction should make the screen look pretty good.

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The Toyota Hub is to be announced at the Mondial de l’Automobile auto show, which starts in Paris this weekend.

The “Hub” is a PDA-centric service providing drivers with some integrated features in the 4 areas of multimedia, telephony, GPS navigation and a subscription-based service called the Toyota Club. The multimedia quadrant, for example, plays audio/video content via the car’s systems.

The Toyota Hub is a simplified version of the Toyota G-Book, which has been under development since mid-2002. The G-Book is Toyota’s answer to GM’s popular OnStar system, and provides services in the areas of Safety and Security, Navigation, Information, Entertainment, Communication including sending/receiving of email, E-commerce and Operator Assistance.

Automotive Telematics is a growth industry. In new vehicles, the telematics penetration rate today is about 15%. This is expected to grow to almost 50% by 2008. Some other brands are Honda InterNavi, Nissan Carwings and DaimlerChrysler UConnect.

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There is an interesting article on the subject of Voice over IP by Daniel Berninger over at this link. The piece is entitled “The Voice over IP Insurrection“, and covers some historical, regulatory, technical, legal and competitive issues related to the rise of VoIP, and the effect on the telcos.

The author portrays the VoIP movement as an “insurrection” against the hidebound over-regulated business environments that both protected and stymied the traditional telephone cos.

In a nutshell, the author predicts boom times for VoIP and bad times for Verizon and Lucent.Here is a sample quote:

“The VoIP insurrection over the last decade marks a milestone in communication history no less dramatic than the arrival of the telephone in 1876. We know data networks and packetized voice will displace the long standing pre-1995 world rooted in Alexander Graham Bell’s invention. It remains uncertain whether telecom’s incumbent carriers and equipment makers will continue to dominate or even survive as the information technology industry absorbs voice as a simple application of the Internet “.

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Handtops.com is reporting that Sony will be dropping the recently-announced U50/U70 from it’s product line.

Speculation as to Sony’s motivation includes poor sales related to a high product price.

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Sharp’s new Mebius Muramasa PC-CV50F is an ultralight (1.94 pound) notebook based on the Transmeta Efficeon 1GHz processor.

Very compact at 10.0 x 6.2inches. It comes with a 7.2″ WXGA screen at a resolution of 1280×768 pixels. The notebook has a 20GB HDD, up to 512MB RAM and with Wi-Fi built-in.

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The Dome Home located in Pensacola Beach FL, survived Hurricane Ivan last week with little damage.

The structure is designed to withstand winds up to 300 miles per hour. It sits on 16 pilings, driven 17 feet into the sand. It’s a solid concrete house with 5 miles of steel reinforcements for added support.

Most of the surrounding (regular) houses were badly damaged.

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