Gadgety News

What you are looking at is a lovely iPod/iPhone dock that features wireless speakers.

The EOps 124R3 has Just been unveiled at Tokyo Designer’s Week and is quite possibly up for the award for being the best-looking speaker system for the iPod/iPhone ever!

This Michael Young designed idock comes with a woofer-equipped base station and is paired with up to eight remote stereo speakers and rocks a wireless dongle to let you stream music from a Mac or PC.

A full-function RF-remote control is packaged with it as well as having the gesture control of iPhone touchiness - you just wiggle your hand in front of the base station and control volume and equaliser functions.

Nice.

Would you buy one?

Check out this extremely cool bit of tech my fellow gadget lovers!

It is able to sling and record real-time data for objects via the iPhone and has been named the Sekai Camera (or “world camera” in Japanese).

Developed by Tokyo-based Tonchidot, the software allows users to geotag any real world location and add info.

So, when someone wanders into a tagged location and looks through the ‘Sekai Camera’ on their iPhone various bits of information will show up on their screen giving them the full low-down via their camera lens.

No release date or price have been announced, but you can see the software in action here.

Via Dvice

Although not really gadget or tech news, except for the tenuous link to a wi-fi connection, I thought it would be nice to get a little glamour and fashion on a Monday morning.

I’m talking about all those young Japanese ladies that lead super-hero style double lives: Mild-mannered students in plain-Jane uniforms by day; French maids, Furries, and Elegant Gothic Lolitas by night.

This crowd of twin-personalitied females rush about Tokyo, carting around suitcases full of makeup and costumes.

But Superman had a phone booth — where are schoolgirls supposed to suit up? Luckily, Japanese company COS-Pa has introduced tiny dressing rooms for women in the trendy Shibuya district, where 500 to 700 yen (roughly $5 to $6) buys 30 minutes of private mirror time, free Wi-Fi, beauty supplies, and a nonalcoholic beverage.

I reckon this would go down a storm in London as there’s a multitude of goths, glam rock types, etc who would probably use such a place - not everyone is comfortable leaving the office loos in pvc, rubber and mesh………………

Says COS-Pa’s owner firmly: “Ladies should not have to get beautiful in a bathroom.” - and what about us guys huh?  LOL

Art by Nevilk

News via Wired

ZMP, the Tokyo based “world’s first venture company focusing on robot technology” is selling the source code (Japanese site) for nuvo, one of its best-selling robots.

nuvo was unveiled in 2004 and ZMP says it’s the first robot for home use.

The company are aiming to establish a research community focused on the findings from research with the nuvo source code.

They are targeting educational institutions, companies and individuals.

For $2,400, buyers will get one of the nuvo robots, the source code (in C++ and C) and an electrical circuit diagram.

3 days of instruction by ZMP employees (maintenance, system analysis etc.) is also (fortunately) included in the price.

ZMP hopes to make a contribution to next-generation robot technology as a whole - that’s a thing of beauty man!

This sounds all very neo-hippy but the number of participants in the “nuvo source code program” is limited to 50, with the first one being a Japanese professor……..hmmmmmmm………

Via Tech-On

Let me introduce you to the very cool (if not a little scary) world of Augmented reality (AR).

This is the combination of virtual worlds and reality and could lead to extremely useful applications in navigation systems, medicine, architecture and many other fields.

Geisha Tokyo Entertainment Inc. [JP] now found a way to help all single Otaku get one step closer to their dreams…………..

Their salvation from loneliness comes in the diminutive form of “Dennou Figure ARis”, or “Cyber Figure Alice” in English.

Buyers will receive the AR software, 2 cybersticks and 2 cybercubes.

Put one of the cubes in front of the computer, point a webcam at it and the screen will display a 3D image of Alice standing on top of the cube - all cute and innocent so far.

Using the cyber sticks they can go on to “touch”, caress and (of course)  “peep” at their new girl friend. It is even possible to undress Alice and change her clothes………ah.  There goes the innocent bit then!

This will go on sale in Japan starting in the Autum.

Taking into consideration that there’s probably not a lot of dialogue to be translated, chances are that “Cyber Figure Alice” will be soon offered by American and European web shops that specialise in Otaku products as well.

Via CrunchGear