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Friday, May 09, 2008

Japanese RFID tech batters down doors in West
Read the full story R&D | Wireless 06:51 PM J Mark Lytle • PermalinkComments
Tagged with: felica rfid sony

We recently lifted the lid on just how useful – not to mention pervasive – RFID technology is in Japan, so it’s with a glad heart that we bring you news of a move that’s sure to help it spread more quickly in the West.


Thursday, May 08, 2008

Electrical eyeballs controlling our gadgets
Read the full story Audio | Household | R&D 04:54 PM J Mark Lytle • PermalinkComments
Tagged with: disability docomo

The field of disability aids has seen many devices controlled by computers that visually track the eye movements of paralysed people, but none that reads the electricity given off by swiveling eyeballs.

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Friday, May 02, 2008

Mumbling robots more pleasing than the silent type
Read the full story Household | R&D | Robots 06:16 PM J Mark Lytle • PermalinkComments
Tagged with: robots

Robots are good for plenty of things, but having a meaningless chat generally isn’t one of them – something that has to change if a group of Japanese researchers are to be believed.


Display 2008: The e-paper that begs to be caressed (now with added video)
Read the full story Displays | Events | R&D 06:07 PM J Mark Lytle • PermalinkComments
Tagged with: e-ink e-paper seiko

One of the more low-key exhibits at the Display 2008 show in Tokyo was a new kind of e-paper that promises an electronic experience far closer to real paper than anything we’ve seen before.


Display 2008: E-paper makes move for big time (with video)

Aside from flashy 3D displays, the other big draw for fans of future tech at Display 2008 in April was electronic paper in at least 57 flavor-packed varieties.


Display 2008: 3D displays dump the silly glasses
Read the full story Displays | Events | R&D 04:46 PM J Mark Lytle • PermalinkComments
Tagged with: 3d tv

Flat-panel displays are so mainstream these days they have an entire massive exhibition dedicated to them – the Display Expo in Tokyo. That’s where the technologies we’re likely to see in the shops over the next few years get an early airing, and we were there last month.


Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Smaller hydrogen pumps mean more fuel-cell cars

Alternative fuel is all very well, but it’s pretty damn hopeless, regardless of good intentions, when all you can get on Main Street is regular gasoline by the liter.


Saturday, April 26, 2008

Video: World’s first full-size e-paper newspaper

Ever wondered what we’ll all be reading on the hover bus in The Future?


Wednesday, April 02, 2008

Oki stretches gigabit-class fat data pipe to infinity
Read the full story Internet | R&D 03:07 AM J Mark Lytle • PermalinkComments
Tagged with: gigabit oki

Most of the breakthroughs in high-speed data connections that we hear about are of purely theoretical value in the short term, but Oki Japan seems set to buck the trend by committing to making its latest technology commercial in the near future.


Wednesday, March 05, 2008

Sexing-up obscures really useful stuff in favour of cheap headlines
Read the full story R&D 03:09 AM J Mark Lytle • PermalinkComments
Tagged with: disability ipod osaka university

Call us cynical, but it’s a sad world when a researcher has to sex up his work by linking it to ‘cool’ things like iPods before it gets any press attention.


Monday, March 03, 2008

Cholera, ‘flu and many more diseases tackled by eating rice

A seemingly bizarre experiment in genetically engineering plants has come up with a strain of rice that could make vaccination injections a thing of the past.


Friday, February 22, 2008

E-paper advertising in the wild in Tokyo

Now that it’s all grown up and mature, electronic paper is stating to get out a bit more and enjoy life – its latest sortie sees it appearing on train station ticket gates as a variety of advertising posters.


Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Thinner TVs are helping to save the planet
Read the full story Displays | R&D 02:31 AM J Mark Lytle • PermalinkComments
Tagged with: hitachi lcd plasma

One welcome side-effect of the new breed of ultra-thin TVs has come to light in a recent report from Hitachi Japan – apparently, they’re better for the environment.


Airport porter revealed as bag-fondling robot
Read the full story R&D | Robots | Transportation 02:17 AM J Mark Lytle • PermalinkComments
Tagged with: kita kyushu yaskawa

If you happen to stop over at Kita Kyushu airport in the southwest of Japan this month, don’t be surprised if the porter offering to carry your bags is a four-foot green chap with an oddly metallic voice.


LED TVs get boost by dropping organic element
Read the full story Displays | R&D 02:05 AM J Mark Lytle • PermalinkComments
Tagged with: led oled organic sony

As we’ve mentioned in the past, the new breed of OLED televisions represented by Sony’s XEL-1 have plenty of assets, but an active lifespan shorter than that of LCD or plasma screens isn’t one of them.


Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Remote workers rejoice as VPN gets speed bump
Read the full story Internet | R&D 02:24 AM J Mark Lytle • PermalinkComments
Tagged with: ntt vpn

If you’ve ever had the misfortune to dial into a virtual private network (VPN) for a spot of long-distance telecommuting, you’ll doubtless be overjoyed to hear of a new technique that gives the slowcoach technology a boot up the backside.


Tuesday, February 05, 2008

Chatbots faking it as they pretend to be us
Read the full story Internet | Off Topic | R&D | Software 01:33 AM J Mark Lytle • PermalinkComments
Tagged with: chatbots fake

The idea of a far-distant future where we can upload our very essence to some digital repository in the ether is both compelling and repulsive in equal measure, but a less sci-fi alternative may be closer than we think.


Thursday, January 31, 2008

Smart security cam system weeds out trouble by itself
Read the full story R&D | Video 08:41 PM J Mark Lytle • PermalinkComments
Tagged with: cctv hitachi security

Whatever your opinion of the ever-increasing number of surveillance cameras pointed at us, their proliferation creates a tricky logistical problem for those doing the watching – how do we make sense of the information overload of so much video?


Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Honda creates 3D CPU to power super Asimo
Read the full story R&D | Robots 12:30 AM J Mark Lytle • PermalinkComments
Tagged with: 3d chips asimo honda

We’ve heard a only little before about the three-dimensional computer processors that promise to be the way ahead to an even faster future, so it’s encouraging to see that Honda has succeeded in creating a working 3D chip.


Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Half-body robot to help construction workers on the job
Read the full story R&D | Robots 01:27 AM J Mark Lytle • PermalinkComments
Tagged with: construction nagoya university

Although small robots like Aibo and its ilk and flashy bipedal ‘droids such as Asimo tend to hog most of the robotic limelight in the non-specialist press, it’s generally well known among researchers that machines that boost the ability of humans to do tasks they find difficult are most likely to change our lives in the near future.



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