As part of the upcoming Aqua Metropolis festival in Osaka, engineering firm NTT Facilities has developed a pair of solar-powered, UFO-shaped floating water purifiers that will be deployed in the city’s canals and in the moat at Osaka Castle.
via ‘Solar UFO’ water cleaners afloat in Osaka canals ::: Pink Tentacle.
The Fiat Cinque Tank, a dream bulldozer custom-built by ironsmith Kogoro Kurata, consists of an old Fiat 500 body mounted on the caterpillar tracks of a cheap secondhand tractor. The farm machine can only reach a speed of 3 kilometers per hour, turning a trip to the nearest convenience store into a 2-hour adventure, according to Kurata. But the classic look of the cabin no doubt impresses the neighbors, and the working power shovel comes in handy when obstacles block the way.
Fiat Cinque Tank –
I seen several designs for solar panel cellphones, i personally think this phone execute it the best. in terms of style, aesthetics, and behavior. What bugs me about samsung’s solarphone is that they put the panel on the back of the phone. Who in their right mind want to put their phone’s screen upside down. People fear to get their screen scratched up! They really need to understand user behavior and their relationship towards their phones, people are just as bad with phones as with their cars!
An environmentally-friendly mobile phone debuted in Japan, which is now enjoying an “eco boom.” It is Sharp Corp’s “Solar Phone SH002″ released by KDDI Corp as one of its summer 2009 models of the au brand mobile phones.
The SH002 is equipped with a solar cell module on the back of its chassis. The solar cell module can be used as an auxiliary power source when the remaining battery level is low or zero. Though Samsung Electronics Co Ltd and LG Electronics Inc announced handsets with similar concepts at Mobile World Congress 2009, which took place in February 2009, Sharp is the first company that released such a product in Japan.
via [Solar Phone Teardown] Sharp Debuts Solar-powered Handset [Part 1] — Tech-On!.
I tweet this video ten days ago… it is a Japanese commercial for the product.
YouTube – japan train 日本 満員電車.
this is for those of you who don’t twitter…. and for my documentations. Truely amazed… and actually i just want to experience that only once…
I thought i was in a pack train during the paris protest back in 2006, yeah well i was wrong…….
sometimes i love the world we live in… and how it can “get better” or in my definition COOLIO!
want some OLED on your ticket booths? they tried electronic ink but that is failing so switching to OLED is making head ways for the advertisement community.
In the 18th and 19th centuries, sideshow carnivals known as misemono were a popular form of entertainment for the sophisticated residents of Edo (present-day Tokyo). The sideshows featured a myriad of educational and entertaining attractions designed to evoke a sense of wonder and satisfy a deep curiosity for the mysteries of life. One popular attraction was the pregnant doll.
via Pink Tentacle.
Move over, Roomba. Make way for Fukitorimushi, an autonomous floor-cleaning robot that crawls like an inchworm and uses a super-absorbent nanofiber cloth to wipe up microscopic dust and residue that ordinary vacuums leave behind. Unveiled at the recent Tokyo Fiber Senseware exposition in Milan, Fukitorimushi (lit. “wipe-up bug”) is designed by Panasonic and incorporates nanofiber technology developed by textile maker Teijin, Ltd.
via Fukitorimushi: Autonomous floor-wiping robot ::: Pink Tentacle.
via LINK
The “Child-robot with Biomimetic Body” or CB2
SUITA, Japan (AFP) — The creators of the Child-robot with Biomimetic Body, or CB2, say it’s slowly developing social skills by interacting with humans and watching their facial expressions, mimicking a mother-baby relationship.
A bald, child-like creature dangles its legs from a chair as its shoulders rise and fall with rythmic breathing and its black eyes follow movements across the room.
It’s not human — but it is paying attention.
Below the soft silicon skin of one of Japan’s most sophisticated robots, processors record and evaluate information. The 130-cm (four-foot, four-inch) humanoid is designed to learn just like a human infant.
“Babies and infants have very, very limited programmes. But they have room to learn more,” said Osaka University professor Minoru Asada, as his team’s 33 kilogram (73 pound) invention kept its eyes glued to him.
The team is trying to teach the pint-sized android to think like a baby who evaluates its mother’s countless facial expressions and “clusters” them into basic categories, such as happiness and sadness.
Asada’s project brings together robotics engineers, brain specialists, psychologists and other experts, and is supported by the state-funded Japan Science and Technology Agency.
With 197 film-like pressure sensors under its light grey rubbery skin, CB2 can also recognise human touch, such as stroking of its head.
The robot can record emotional expressions using eye-cameras, then memorise and match them with physical sensations, and cluster them on its circuit boards, said Asada.
