28 May 2009 16:45
Every night after work, Ryu, a Japanese former barman, would get out his mobile and write about his day. His worries about his close friend’s drug addiction dominated his writing.
As he wrote, he sent the bar-room blogs to his friends’ mobiles. Their reaction to the story, which Ryu called Tokyo Real, convinced Ryu to publish it online.
His mobile phone novel – or
keitai shousetsu - was an overnight success, and has now been downloaded by more than three million people in Japan.
It's also been published in more conventional paper format by a mainstream Japanese publisher, and also been transformed into a film. Last year, Real readers organised a march through the Tokyo streets to raise awareness of the dangers of drugs.
(more after the video)
Ryu’s keitai novel is part of a mobile publishing boom in Japan – of last year’s 10 best-selling novels in country, five were originally mobile phone novels. While Tokyo Real examines addiction, most keitai novels are love stories, with sentences more characteristic of text messages than highbrow literature.
Whether the UK will produce bestselling novelists writing specifically for mobile phones remains to be seen. But where Japan leads, the UK follows. And the most popular place to read a keitai novel in Japan is on the subway. Judging by the commute of the average Londoner – even when the Tube offers a ‘good service’ – expect to see the mobile phone novel move west.
Jeremy Hart reports on Japaneses mobile innovation stories, using 3's INQ1 internet phone.
For more info see www.3Snapshot.com/tokyo
29 November 2008 16:43
Living rooms are dangerous places. They are the front line in the wars between form and function, and most gadget lovers will have engaged in running battles about how much technology is acceptable in this social no-mans land: how big your TV can be, how many boxes you need beneath it and, more than anything, how many speakers it's acceptable to place around the room.
The rise of one-box surround speaker systems has made it harder to argue for proper surround set-up. Fortunately, are other ways to tackle the problem.
One of the most memorable demonstrations I witnessed on my tour of Sony's Tokyo HQ was a new Blu-ray home-cinema-in-a-box package with five speakers that look like overgrown matchsticks. Despite being only a couple of centimetres deep and wide, and containing vertical-coil drivers that are little bigger than a finger, the speakers deliver the sort of immersive surround sound tat one-box systems simply can't match.
The system is officially called Sony BDV-IT1000 but has been dubbed the 'Pocky' after the Japanese matchstick-shaped, chocolate-dipped biscuits. As well as being extraordinarily thin and delicious looking, the system has other peacekeeping features: wireless rear speakers mean less cable clutter, wallmounts, floorstands and desktop stands are included in the box, and the shiny main box twin HDMI inputs allow you to plug in your console and satellite box without having to upgrade your TV.
The BDV-IT1000 should be bringing peace to UK lounges before Christmas. It'll cost around £1500, and we'll have a full review very soon.
28 November 2008 08:29
If you're yearning for the very best in hi-fi, and happen to have £10K rattling around in your pocket, I have some good news for you. During an ear-rattling listening session at Sony's Tokyo HQ, I learned that the stunning Sony SS-AR1 speakers may soon be landing in the UK and Europe.
Sony's high-end speakers have been available in Japan since December 2006, and recently launched in the America. Along the way they've garnered awards and rave reviews from audio luminaries.
So why the crippling pricetag? Well, the ultra high-end Scan Speak drivers are set into Japanese Maple that's grown in Okaido - and only cut in November, when the chill makes the wood more solid. The cabinets are made from Finnish birch and the piano laquer is applied by a proper piano company. And each speaker arrives with a circle of extruded Maple that's signed by the engineer responsible.
But what you're really paying for is the listening experience, which is a million miles from what I'm used to these days. Like so many people, all the music I listen to is in compressed MP3 format, playing through my earphones or an iPod dock. I only realised what I was missing when I heard a pair of SS-AR1s connected (by cables thicker than a garden hose) to Sony's reference hi-fi equipment.
As is often the case with demos, I was subjected to anodyne vocal tracks and noodling jazz (including a three-minute slap bass solo, the memory of which still makes my teeth ache and eardrums itch). But I also heard one of my favourite artists, Jeff Buckley, in a totally new light.
It might be impossible to justify the $8,000-per-speaker price, but if you get the chance to sit in front of a pair of SS-AR1s, take it. And take a CD you like, too.
Oh, and some good news for credit crunch-afflicted audiophiles - the little brother of the AR1 will be available next year the knock-down price of just US$6000 per speaker.
26 November 2008 23:56
I'm currently in Japan to see some of the treats Sony has in store for 2009. And while I'm sworn to secrecy about most of what I've seen, I did manage to get Sony on the record about the ongoing development of Stuff's
Cool Toy of the Year, the
Sony Rolly. And it looks like the grenade-sized dancing music player is destined for cult status, starting with the launch of a pink version in Japan this week.
It all began with a robotic dog. Nobuhiko Oguchi was mechanical engineer for the Sony Aibo for six years before beginning work on Rolly in 2006. He told me "The Aibo engineer team discussed how to extend Aibo engineering knowhow to other products," - and insisted that they came up with the plans for Rolly before cost-cutting meant that Aibo was put to sleep for good.
Unsurprisingly, Rolly features a lot of the Aibo-inspired engineering, from the six motors that help him dance to the way his little flapping hands to snap safely off (and back on again) just like Aibo's tail and ears.
But the despite his heritage - and his endearingly spasmodic dance routines - Sony isn't pitching Rolly as a robot. He is an MP3 player, a Bluetooth speaker and, rather more grandly, 'a new method of enjoying music'. And his £250/40,000 Yen pricetag hasn't put people off buying him. In Japan, where Rolly has been on sale for a year, Sony has smashed its targets. Although coy about revealing exact sales figures, Oguchi put admitted Rolly had sold 'more than thousands'.
Sony is keen to build on the Rolly's success. New software allows Rolly users to manually choreograph their own dances and share them with others. More bizarrely, a new Bluetooth remote control software allows you to synchronise the movements of up to seven Rollys. While their combined 1.5W speakers are hardly going to rock a party, it's certainly an arresting sight - not unlike the yellow robot we came across while wondering Tokyo's streets.
It's the essential pointlessness of Rolly that makes him so endearing. It makes him almost human. The skeptics may ask whether, with the global economy collapsing, we really need a dancing MP3 player. But they're missing the point - Rolly is gadgetry at its most escapist. And he's my friend.
Read our Sony Rolly reviewVisit Rolly on the Stuff Gadget Awards 2008 site
25 November 2008 18:34
3D TV is still something of a pipe dream for us mere mortals. But the realm of donning the silly specs in your front room appears to be moving closer, with an LG Korean exec telling me today that the company was planning to release a 3D TV in late 2009.
Talking today at their Digital TV development lab, Kim Jaeryong said, "Maybe we'll try launching one or two 3D TVs into the market in 2009. By late 2010, I think you'll see a lot, with 2011 being a big year for 3D TV."
It all sounds pretty neat and futuristic, but chances are it won't be the dawn of watching 50s horror movies, 3D–style, in your front room. 3D TVs remain costly and a niche product.
However, with Sony already promising to beef up classic Disney titles into 3D, we could yet be watching animated creatures making a lunge for our faces come the end of the decade.
Filed under: lg, television, Plasma, LCD, tv, 2009, future, 3d
24 November 2008 21:39
I've just had a sneak peek at LG's new line up of TVs for 2009. While they're staying tight lipped about any details (at least until the gadget megashow that is CES), I've been privy to their New Year's resolution to become even more eco–friendly.
Word is that both their LCD and Plasma lines are about to get a green makeover, with plans to reduce power down to just 1 Watt when on standby on the LCD and a paltry 0.19W on the Plasma. That means you won't need to worry too hard about leaving your swanky new gadgets on overnight.
Sadly, our hands are tied with news on any of the new kit itself, because it's all being kept under wraps until they get it all to Vegas. Rest assured though that they're working on some slick new kit.
Mind you,
chatter about an LG–assisted multitouch iMac should keep us ticking over until then.
Filed under: lg, television, green, Plasma, LCD, eco, tv
24 November 2008 12:41
Here in Korea, LG's just given me a quick look inside one of their factories. And beyond the sight of 100in TVs being cranked out faster than Lewis Hamilton on a flying lap, one interesting nugget of info caught my eye.
LG is working on a full multitouch display for computers. Now that might sound so so, but seeing as the Korean giant makes the panels for iMacs, it actually points to something far bigger – a multitouch Mac.
Whether this fits with Apple's mooted plans to give the iMac a heft at MacWorld remains to be seen. But the screen itself looks like it's good–to–go. LGs done it's bit, so Apple, it's over to you.
For more LG news straight outta Seoul, keep it locked to the Far East blog all this week!
Filed under: lg, imac, multitouch, screen, apple, display
29 October 2008 18:26
Anyone remember
Virgin Lobster? Anyone?? It was one of the ill-fated attempts at launching mobile TV in the UK. It used DAB frequencies to transmit and was proper rubbish. But could the time be ripe for another stab at mobile TV in the UK?
In Korea, mobile TV is absolutely massive – most of the handsets and services are geared towards streamed TV content on the go (like this LG Vu, pictured). But then, 98 per cent of mobile users in Korea are on the incredibly efficient 3G networks, with almost as high numbers in Japan.
MediaFLO, a broadcast mobile TV platform launched in the US, uses a high-quality, low-consumption protocol to deliver real-time streams to mobile handsets and is steadily growing in popularity Stateside – so will the UK follow suit?
Qualcomm, the people behind MediaFLO, shelled out for the L-Band radio spectrum in the UK this year – that’s 40 MHz of potential broadcasting power. At present, Qualcomm will only admit that this is for R&D purposes, although we're attending their European Innovation Showcase on 3 December, so watch this space.
The UK has been famously reticent on more than one occasion to mobile TV – but does the growth of 3G, plus greatly improved delivery methods mean that we might all be soon be watching
Home and Away away from home?
What’s more, if mobile TV did ever catch on, the rise of the GPS-enabled handset means that location-specific TV advertising could be a marketing man’s dream: “Hey Dave – feeling hungry? There’s a delicious Whopper waiting for you just a street away…”
Or do services such as iPlayer and live web streaming render dedicated mobile TV services obsolete? Would you buy into mobile TV? Let us know below…
29 October 2008 17:19
In amongst all the awesome future tech that we’ve seen in Japan and Korea, there was also a host of totally hatstand handsets.
They might never see the light of day here, but if you want a phone that’s also a streamlined tissue dispenser, or one with a teeny, tiny man living inside, then step right up…
This Samsung prototype is one for the ladies – glowing a lovely UV lavender while charging, as well as “fighting bacteria” apparently. It will also squirt out some lavender scent, though hopefully not straight into your ear.
KDDI has some awesome handsets in its Designing Studio in Tokyo, including these AU Design Concepts, Hitoka, Cypres and Play...
But this has to be my favourite – the Ply Project 2008 combines different devices with different functionality. Mobile projectors, mini printers, touchscreen remotes and even a tissue dispenser all housed is beautifully thin layered, stackable housing. I want.
08 October 2008 17:48
We've been getting hands-on with the LG K910 Renoir today in Korea, and while there's a host of brilliant functions, the marketing bods came in for a grilling for one crucial component – the still-sticky touchscreen.
As we've said in our Renoir review, the specs and additions to Viewty's successor are great, but could LG explain why it was still a somewhat sticky reactive touchscreen? Well no, not really. But LG did admit that work is being carried out right now to develop a handset that will use the iPhone-style touchscreen.
To explain – capacative is the iPhone-style interface that responds to electric currents from fingertips rather than the sensory pad of the reactive system. This means that instead of responding immediately to
electric current in the fingers, reactive has to wait (and sometimes wait) for pressure from
the fingertips.
If LG can marry up the impressive suite of features such as customisable real-time widgets, HSDPA, WiFi, a stonking 8MP camera complete with easy touchscreen commands and Dolby Mobile with an iPhone-esque interface, then I think that the
promise of touchscreen phones could finally close to being realised.
Oh, and a 3.5mm headphone socket would be nice too.
Filed under: capacative, iphone, lg, touchscreen
08 October 2008 01:06
Stuff's in Korea right now and in between eating all the Kimchi we can handle, we've been treated to some awesome tours of the companies that define the Korean market.
First stop is the Samsung Suwon complex. With a workforce bigger than the population of Milton Keynes and taking up an area of 1.72m square metres, "rather large" doesn't even begin to describe it.
We were treated to a tour of the Samsung museum and product showcases, so I've posted some of the highlights, plus news of future Sammy products below...
First up, Samsung's 80in hi-def plasma, a snip at $150,000. A bit of a departure from the retro stylings of this 70s model in the museum.
We've all seen the F400 Samsung phone fited with a B&O speaker, for stylish commuter infuriation, but Sammy let slip that there would be more B&O MP3 player hook-ups for next year.
We also got hands-on with the SyncMaster 460TSn, a touchscreen LCD with an integrated computing unit with 4GB Flash storage, 3 USB ports and 1GB RAM. Not exactly mind-blowing specs, but did we mention it's touchscreen (see our video below).
In mobile news, Samsung was very cagey about committing to any Android handsets, but did admit that they were in the "initial stages" of development for the North American market.
The big message for Samsung mobile was convergence – apparently the company's boffins are developing tech for seamless home and mobile hook-ups, embedding DNLA networking into products to make them interoperable.
For example, seamlessly sending your mobile's video content straight to your set-top box or TV, something Sammy has already showcased at CES early this year in its Innov8 handset.
Watch this space for more news from the Far East, incuding more future phone trends, hands-on video with the LG Renoir and some virtual reality madness...
