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July 19, 2024
 

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IGADGET

LIFE / Digital / IGADGET
Jul 11, 2007
Digital graffiti lets you make your mark
Irony is a word that is no doubt found in every language. A case in point is the widely accepted view that English is the lingua franca of the Internet. Unfortunately, while this expression nicely captures the linguistic dominance of English, the term itself originates in Italian. Despite this quirk...
LIFE / Digital / IGADGET
Jul 4, 2007
R2D2 shapes up as the real gadget star
In the 70-odd years since the advent of talkies, how big a movie star you are has been measured by how many lines of dialogue you get. Presumably these need to be uttered in a language known to at least some members of humanity. R2D2, the robot droid of Star Wars legend, defied that convention to grab...
LIFE / Digital / IGADGET
Jun 27, 2007
Finding a final resting place for retired mobile phones
No self-respecting person is going to toss out their address book into the street for one and all to peruse at their leisure. It would invite too horrendous a violation of privacy. So, it is only natural that we are loathe to trust our retired "keitai" to the tender mercies of the communal trash, especially...
LIFE / Digital / IGADGET
Jun 20, 2007
Gadgets to the rescue — vibrating pillow curbs snoring; toothbrush tracks your hygiene habits
Snoring is like the common cold — they both prove that the world's scientists are clueless about what is important in life. Rather than building a better spaceship, how about just removing these banes from our lives? Francebed, the name of which is only half truthful as it is the moniker of a Japanese...
LIFE / Digital / IGADGET
Jun 13, 2007
Dancing penguin ups the cute factor for iPods
Teddy bears might be the tradi tional cute characters of choice but the animal shape of the moment in Japan is undoubtedly the penguin. This is in no small part due to JR's Suica card advertising campaigns. Sega Toys are not a company to miss a trend and so, perhaps in tribute to the animated movie "Happy...
LIFE / Digital / IGADGET
Jun 6, 2007
Cell phones put you on a diet, find your celebrity look-alike
T wo obsessions in Japan — celeb rities and the cell phone — go to gether like sushi and soy sauce. Magic has taken this unholy alliance a step further with a new service dubbed "Face Check" (Kaochecki). This rather literally named offering is intended to tell you what celebrities you look...
LIFE / Digital / IGADGET
May 30, 2007
DIY bread makers fill big gap in Japanese menus; robot cubes mimic people
Japanese cuisine does for seafood what French wineries do for the gift of the grape. But what it does for bread is more akin to the imposition the English have made on the world's palate. The alleged loaf consisting of six thick white slices with not a crust in sight at either end of it, and apparently...
LIFE / Digital / IGADGET
May 23, 2007
Internet umbrellas — today's pet rocks?
Once upon a time, during the stone age era known as the 1970s, a product completely devoid of usefulness was created: the pet rock. This thing enjoyed a burst of commercial success that engenders acute embarrassment. Its inventor proved that the alchemists were right, you can make gold out of completely...
LIFE / Digital / IGADGET
May 16, 2007
Gadgets fall prey to multitasking, and a mouse keeps an eye on your computer
P eople these days are more like ly to remember to take their keitai in the morning than their keys. After all, the later only protects your life's property and valuables, whereas your mobile phone makes life worth living. Or at least it seems to be for those who spend more time with their portable communicators...
LIFE / Digital / IGADGET
May 9, 2007
BYO cool air and pet stress patches
Climbing Mount Fuji is a right of passage that comes with a price tag. Just breathing at that elevated altitude is a challenge. Technology offers a solution, at a cost, with canned oxygen. An object of some ridicule during the climb's early stages, it is a blessed relief near the top. Now, strutting...
LIFE / Digital / IGADGET
May 2, 2007
Sony goes drag-and-drop for digital music
Sony's missteps in the world of digital music players provide lyrics for enough blues albums to populate, well, an iPod. But while the electronics behemoth may never script another legend like the Walkman, it refuses to shuffle quietly off the stage. Sony is set to bring out the B100 series of MP3 players....
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / IGADGET
Apr 25, 2007
Moving with the times -- electronic paper lets watch change its face
Loggers aren't exactly reaching for the job ads cursing the new wonder technology of electronic paper for rendering them as employable as horse-drawn carriage drivers. But the promise of flexible sheets of electronics that can do everything paper can do -- only better and without having to fell the timber...
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / IGADGET
Apr 18, 2007
The iPod universe just keeps growing -- even Sony is catering to it
Alarm clocks and iPods span the aural spectrum -- from the noisemaker that most of struggle to live with to the iconic music player that many of us just can't live without. I guess merging the two was inevitable. Logitec performed the deed with its LDS-iALARM, making use of the i designation. It looks...
LIFE / Digital / IGADGET
Apr 11, 2007
Music player goes swimming
Jogging might be good for your body but just how many brain cells die of boredom in the process? Swimming laps is perhaps a more palatable exercise method but it doesn't lag running by too much in the boredom stakes. What serious pool lappers need is a waterproof iPod, or some facsimile thereof. Century...
LIFE / Digital / IGADGET
Apr 4, 2007
Robot chicks -- Japanese gadgets are just so conspicuously cute
Conspicuous consumption is the art of spending lavishly on goods or services in a way that serves no real purpose except to show that you have lots of money. The great Norwegian-American economist and sociologist Thorstein Veblen put Nostradamus to shame with that insight from 1899. In Japan today, Veblen...
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / IGADGET
Mar 28, 2007
Good vibrations: Turning your skull into a speaker and manga electric guitars
VIBRATING BONES: Call me old-fashioned, but I feel attached to speakers. Innate pieces of metal and plastic vibrate in harmony to produce sound waves to caress the ear. The idea of substituting my body parts to carry out the vibrating bit of the business just doesn't hit the right note for me. But hey,...
LIFE / Digital / IGADGET
Mar 21, 2007
Healthy living: A computer mouse to stimulate your muscles and a kitty to purify the air
Computers might be the greatest tool since the stone ax but unlike that early technological breakthrough they have done nothing for improving the human physique. Adding injury to declining muscles, contorting our body to allow us to chain ourselves to the desk leaves us with a lot of dull aches. The...
Cutting ties with JCP not easy for CDP despite Renho's defeat
When Renho (center) announced her candidacy for the Tokyo gubernatorial election on May 27, the head of the Japanese Communist Party's secretariat, Akira Koike (far left), was also in attendance.
Trump's VP pick signals stronger focus on China
Former U.S. President and 2024 Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks to his vice presidential pick, Sen. J.D. Vance, during the second day of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on Tuesday.
Japan’s minimum wage might not budge much if corporate fears prevail
Unionists hold a rally in Tokyo in April. Households' real cash earnings have been falling year on year for more than two years, with the weakening of the yen making the situation only more difficult as prices of imported goods increase rapidly.
Trump says Taiwan should pay for defense, sending TSMC stock down
Shares in Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., the world's largest contract chipmaker and a major Apple and Nvidia supplier, closed 2.4% lower on Wednesday.
Three novelists named for Akutagawa and Naoki awards
Naoki Prize winner Michi Ichiho (left), and Akutagawa Prize winners Sanzo K. Matsunaga (center) and Aki Asahina pose with their award-winning books at a news conference in Tokyo on Wednesday.
After Tokyo Olympic disappointment, Nadeshiko Japan look for redemption
Japan's Hikaru Kitagawa dribbles past a defender during an Olympic qualifying match against North Korea at National Stadium in Tokyo in February.
The neurological disorder that 'kills culture'
Akiko Trush says her experience with the neurological disorder dystonia left her feeling like she wanted to chop her own hand off.
How to beat Japan’s summer heat in ways better for the planet
Tenugui towels hang up to dry at a dyeing company in Sakai, Osaka Prefecture, on May 8. The durable and versatile tenugui, which many people have in their homes, can be used in many ways to cool one’s body.
After Trump shooting, U.S. presidential race might take a violent turn
United States Secret Service Counter Snipers stand guard on a rooftop during a campaign rally for U.S. President Donald Trump in Avoca, Pennsylvania, in 2020.
No AC this summer? No problem (for me).
Think air conditioning is a requirement for a Tokyo summer? Think again.

Podcast

You can often see generations of families enjoying performances together at Fuji Rock Festival.
Japan’s summer music festivals are feeling the heat in more ways than one

Longform

Akiko Trush says her experience with the neurological disorder dystonia left her feeling like she wanted to chop her own hand off.
The neurological disorder that 'kills culture'
By Tomoko Otake

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Exploring Japanese culturevia Tohoku’s festivals
Exploring Japanese culturevia Tohoku’s festivals

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