This time of the year is the height of the training season for newly hired employees in Japan, so here’s Fujitsu’s new train simulator for some true TRAiNG®.*
Fujitsu train simulator gets real Kyodo News via The Japan Times | Saturday, May 10, 2008
Fujitsu Ltd. said Thursday it has launched a train simulator that uses high-definition video to improve the driving skills of engineers. The new system, developed in collaboration with Japanese video game and simulator developer Ongakukan Co., provides unprecedented realism and accurate responses to trainee input…more...
According to Ongakukan, who developed the popular Train Simalor for the Playstation, this system uses videos of actual railways, and can play the footage back at 60 fps, regardless of the running speed of the simulated training, in full high-definition.
The training system responds accurately to operator’s reaction, including speed notches and braking operations using recorded train positioning and rail grade information. This recorded information helps model all the forces that affect a train’s operation, including grade, curves, mechanical resistance from the rails, and even aerodynamic resistance for Shinakansen bullet trains, resulting in a highly realistic training environment. The views from the simulator’s train cab shown on the right and below are far more realistic than existing simulators based only computer graphics.
*TRAiNG® (sic) is as an advertising campaign of JR, Japan Railways, as you can watch in this 30-second commercial.
Check out this moonwalking, mega-kool, “HPI G-Dog Robot” in the YouTube video below.
HPI Corporation’s regular product line is radio-controlled cars and planes–expensive ones for boys thinking about growing up. The G-Dog does has the right design philosophy—it is quick and nimble rather than sluggish like the late Sony Aibo robo-dog.
HPI Corp. was thinking of the look of a greyhound dog when they designed it, and it uses the “RS304MD” Time To Live command /PWM controls to make it fast. HPI is going to release four models of G-Dog robot in July.
Since the iPhone still isn’t available (and can’t function) in Japan, the newish Prada phone will have to slake the uber-trendy folks who want a mobile without a physical keypad.
NTT DoCoMo Develops New PRADA-Branded Handset Tokyo, Japan, May 9, 2008 - (JCN Newswire) —NTT DoCoMo… will begin marketing “PRADA Phone by LG”, a full touch screen mobile phone for the Japanese market, from June. The handset, already available in Europe and other countries/regions, has been redeveloped specifically for DoCoMo…more...
For more info, read the full review if the European version at tweaktown.com.
Despite the unfortunate Japanese name, Nitendo’s wii game device has been a smash throughout the world. However, it was inevitable that that the product name would end up with description like this, “wii on your pole.”
Peekaboo pledges pole-dance kit for Wii The Register / 09 May 2008 —The Wii’s all-white, but it’s hardly a raunchy unit. So, if you’ve been looking for ways to sex-up your console, then how about a private pole dance?…
Aliens with blue-eyes invade the streets of Tokyo!
With the extra-long Golden Week holiday, performance artists like the “Medaman-Medaman” eyeballs are cruising the pavement of the Ginza and Koen-dori districts.
Try finding the alien invasion on the live webcams of Koen-dori in trendy-to-tears Shibuya.
According to government reports, Japan will to lose between 33 to 40 million population by 2050 between 26% to 31% of it’s total population. As several NHK commentators have mentioned today, this is a population loss of a major city the size of Kawasaki with a population of about 1,000,0000 people disappearing every year for the next 42 years.
In Japan, it seems that cats and dogs are more popular than an actual child
SHUKAN ECONOMIST (May 6) via Japan Times
….there are more dogs and cats in this country (an estimated 23 million as of 2007) than there are children under 15….
…Shukan Economist traces modern Japan’s first of two pet booms to the economic bubble of the 1980s…[and then] around 2000, with three main differences: the dogs of choice are now the smallest imaginable; their owners are economically average; and, unlike its transitory predecessor, this boom could be here to stay. Its immediate spark seems to have been a TV commercial featuring a Chihuahua. The dog was adorable. Suddenly everyone had to have one…more…
Ok, ok, I lied about the Japanese outlawing humans under the age of 15 (but you get the idea).
However, “Qoo-chan” the chihuahua has been a hit for the Japanese loansharking company “AIFUL.” And since more people in Japan retire than join the work force each year, humans are now obsolete. Beware of the Japanese robot armies!
Of course you might ask, “What the hell is Japanese ‘can coffee’?”
Crack-in-a-Can, Japanese ‘can coffee’ is the secret of Japan’s success and without it this highly caffeinated country would never function before noon. Ubiquitous in Japan, a large number of companies offer a huge variety types of cans being sold in vending machines both as heated cans in the autumn and winter, and cold cans in the warm months. See Wikipedia for more information.
POOP-DE-DO0! —FECAL FACIAL IS LATEST WACKY SKIN TREATMENT— April 29, 2008 — New York Post….just $216, Shizuka Bernstein will slather your face in feces for a full 50 minutes - what she calls the “Geisha Facial” - at her Midtown spa, Shizuka New York. The ancient Japanese cleanser - geisha and kabuki dancers have been using the bird poop to wash off their heavy white makeup…more…
My previous 3Yen report of August 5, 2005….
Let’s white happy!
While I’m in the drug store in Japan, I always find aisles devoted solely to skin whitening products. And my favorite traditional Japanese product for skin whitening is uguisu no fun aka swallow nightingale droppings. Being Bihaku ) or a ‘white beauty’ is hot shit here in Japan.
In a machine translation of the product description ofuguisu-no-fun, the cosmetics company uguisunofun.com says to whiten your skin you should take from 0.5 to 1.0 grams (about 1/3 of teaspoon) of the bird poop powder and mix it with soap in your palm and wash your face in the regular manner. Product No. 151 Container (26 g), price: 1,029 yen.
As Japanese love to quote the old Chinese saying: “Being white can cover/compensate for three times of ugliness. ” In the past months that I’ve spent in the hospital, the Japanese student nurses lube me up with NIVEA Whitening Body Lotion after my sponge bath and I always teased them I might disappear into the sheets.
For some women, it’s beauty and the bleach Concord Monitor—-
….Take a daylight drive through Asian immigrant enclaves such as Monterey Park and Irvine, and you’ll see women trying to shield themselves with umbrellas - even for the short dash from a parking lot into a supermarket. While driving, many wear special “UV gloves”- which look like the long gloves worn with ball gowns - to protect their forearms, and don wraparound visors that resemble welder’s masks….There are doctors who, for about $1,000, will use an electrical field to deliver vitamins, moisturizers and bleaching agents to a woman’s face in a procedure known as a “mesofacial.” Whitening products have been a mainstay in Asia for decades, but cosmetics-industry officials said they have emerged as a hot seller in the United States …..….more….
Typical Japanese bihaku ads for skin whitening products (mostly fraudulent and ineffective like my hospital’s Whitening Body Lotion).
Showbiz News - Life Style Extra - Tuesday, 8th August 2006, 13:19 Paris Hilton’s kitty clone
LIFE STYLE EXTRA (UK) - Paris Hilton has been turned into cat.
The blonde star has been transformed from super-slim hottie heiress into a ‘Hello Kitty’ doll by Japanese toy makers.
The soft doll depicts Paris as a white cat and has her trademark blonde hair. The doll is dressed in a pink coat, the ‘Simple Life’ star’s favourite colour, and even comes complete with a tiny Chihuahua dog, which looks like Paris’ former pet pooch Tinkerbell.
A whole range of accessories are available for the Hello Kitty doll as well, including handbags, a black ‘hoodie’ and a bow for her hair.
The new system, developed in collaboration with Japanese video game and simulator developer Ongakukan Co., provides unprecedented realism and accurate responses to trainee input…more...
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While driving, many wear special “UV gloves”- which look like the long gloves worn with ball gowns - to protect their forearms, and don wraparound visors that resemble welder’s masks….There are doctors who, for about $1,000, will use an electrical field to deliver vitamins, moisturizers and bleaching agents to a woman’s face in a procedure known as a “mesofacial.” Whitening products have been a mainstay in Asia for decades, but cosmetics-industry officials said they have emerged as a hot seller in the United States …..
