Throw those crappy white iPod earbuds into the trash and get yourself a pair these cute Ear Drops. Well, if you’re a girl that is. Audio gear has been pretty much unisex, but now there’s a market for headphones designed for women. Recently, while riding the train I’ve been noticing some girls’ ears sparkling thinking it must be an earring, but upon closer inspection I notice it’s a diamond on their headphone.
 
There are many different styles, diamond heart shaped, rose shaped, candy shaped and of course PINK PINK PINK.

The packaging was designed to look like a box for cosmetics and made by different companies, but actually they’re all made by Elecom. These photos taken with my cellphone at Biccamera in Shinjuku

Did I tell you I love 3D? Yes, I actually paid to see Polar Express in 3D IMAX 3 times. I would have paid to see Beowulf in 3D IMAX too, but unfortunately there weren’t showing it in Japan. BS11, one of those BS channels that I never watch, is broadcasting many of their shows in 3D. When I saw this promotion I thought “How Cool!” but then I found out that you have to buy that crappy looking Hyundai TV to watch it. Even if Sharp puts out an Aquos that will do the 3D I doubt if I would be willing to buy a new TV just to watch 3D.

As many of you technology aficionados have probably heard, the big news today was Paramount Pictures and Dreamworks Animation dumping Blu-ray and supporting only HD DVD format. Well, this is sad news indeed. While I don’t have any reason not to like HD DVD I’ve been in the Blu-ray camp since buying the PS3 and holding off on collecting too many Blu-ray discs until there is a clear winner. It seemed that Blu-ray was going to succeed until today when this news item came out. Now “Transformers” and “The Bourne Ultimatum” will be only on HD DVD. This sucks.

When you think about it though the move makes a lot of sense for Paramount and Dreamworks regardless of which format eventually wins. The current lineup of HD DVD titles is not as extensive as the Blu-ray lineup so when Christmas comes around and HD players start selling so will their movies since there will fewer “good” titles to choose from. If Blu-ray were to eventually win, they could just reissue those titles on Blu-ray and re-release them for all the Blu-ray people who couldn’t get it the first time. Then all the HD DVD people who got shafted would have to go and buy the Blu-ray version again, thus more sales in the long run. Or maybe it was the 150 million bucks they received from Microsoft…

EDIT: Michael Bay posted on his personal forum that he’s pissed off at Paramount for dumping Blu-ray and “…No Transformers 2 for me!” I have new found respect for him now.

EDIT2: In an apparent reaction to the Paramount/Dreamworks announcement, Fox announced 29 titles to be released by year’s end. Very cool. Looks like both side will be rushing to put more titles out in order to grab as much market share as possible.

It’s the middle of August and very hot. In fact, I think this has got to be the hottest summer I’ve ever experienced in Tokyo. This afternoon while walking down the street I thought I would die. I felt like Sanada Hiroyuki in Sunshine as he gets blasted with a big fat fireball from the sun. This evening when I got home I checked the clock in my den and it said 41 degrees celsius. I quickly turned on the aircon which cooled the room before I could get a photo of the temperature. Surprisingly, even though I was covered in sweat the humidity was not too bad at around 50%. I bought a couple of these clocks a while back and they have been quite useful. Last month, the temperatures were quite cool but very humid because of the rainy season. One day it got up to 70%. It’s a toss up as to which is worse, the heat or the humidity. While the heat is unbearable, the humidity does damage to things which is probably worse in the long run. Anyway, what do you think of this clock? The time is always accurate because it syncs via radio waves to some master clock somewhere. Ugly but does the job.

Recent rumours indicate there will be an announcement for the next generation Ricoh GR Digital that could be as soon as the end of July. These images of the rumored new GR Digital have been circulating around the Internet for some time. They look real but since they are from this Chinese website, the authenticity is suspect.

There are two versions of the back layout. The simple one is for the supposed GRD 10M version and the other one with additional buttons for user settings called GRX Digital 2. I don’t really care what the new GR Digital will look like or what features it will have. All I know is that I will be reserving one on the day of the announcement. After using my GR Digital for more than a year and a half and taking over 15,000 photos. I can still say that I would not choose any other pocket camera out there. My GRD has seen better days though. I lost the removable ring around the lens and the response of the motors seems to have gotten slower. I called the Ricoh Camera centre in Ginza and to get an estimate on having it refurbished but don’t want to be spending ¥20-30,000 when the new GRD is just around the corner. The guy I talked to confirmed that there were rumours but he wouldn’t confirm that the rumors were true. According to some forums, production of the GRD was discontinued on 7/4. The GRD and accessories for the GRD are being marked down and stores are clearing stock. This indicates that a new model may definitely be on coming out soon!! Can’t wait!

Unless you drive in Japan and don’t want to get caught speeding or like gadgets with funky animation displays this post will probably be of little interest. Radar Tanchiki レーダー探知機 (radar detectors) are legal in Japan and some of them are truly magnificent devices. I went into the garage tonight and got some screen shots of my Yupiteru CR920si, one of their latest models.

In standby mode the CR920si can be set to display the date and time or your current velocity. When something is detected the display will turn into a radar scope showing you the proximity of whatever it is detecting and also an illustration to give you an easy picture of the danger. It will also beep and play music to warn you. These can all be customized to your preferences.

There are basically three different types of speed traps utilized on Japanese roads and all modern radar detectors need to able to deal with them.

1) The first type is the traditional radar speed trap with a guy standing at the side of the road pointing a radar at oncoming traffic. Usually on big thoroughfares you’ll find a group of cops set up just over a bypass or a fast turn in the road to catch unsuspecting sunday drivers. There are also more advance stealth radars that send out small bursts and are harder for older types of radar to catch. Automatic doors send out the same signal as radars which often causes radar detectors to go off. The CR902si saves all radar data locations (it has GPS) in memory and if you pass by a radar at the exact same location as before it will be flagged to not alert you again. This function is called Intelligent Cancel. The older radar I had in my previous car didn’t have this ability and would go off constantly I had to eventually turn it off when driving in Tokyo.

2) The second type are the overheard OBIS system. These are sensors along big roads and expressways that measure the time it takes for a car to pass through a certain distance to calculate the speed. When you pass under the entry point it flags your car (not exactly certain how) and enters the time in a central database, when you exit it checks your car and if the time it took to get to the exit is calculated to be too fast a camera takes a picture of your car. Some of the newer ones have hi-res cameras that zero in on your license plate and face too. I’ve heard they mail the photo to you along with a speeding ticket and an invitation to appear in traffic court. These systems are not detectable by radar but there’s a database of all locations contained in the radar detector. The built in GPS tracks your location and when you come close to any of the OBIS systems it will alert you. They often move OBIS systems but you can update the database in your radar detector via an SD Card or your keitai. Very cool.

3) The third type is the moving patrol car type. Most patrol cars have a built in radar that scans surrounding cars. Some police departments have very fast Skylines or NSX to catch speeders. All radard detectors come equipped to deal with these as well. Police cars send out signals so that their police station know where they are. Kind of like Lojack. The radar detector can pick up these signals and when patrol cars are near. It can also pick up ambulances, firetrucks, helicopters and also has a short wave so you can actually hear the voices of police and taxi drivers. My radar detector also has the ability to warn of police checkpoints where they check for drunk drivers. I don’t know how the device would be able to distinguish these though.

The built in database also contains locations of police stations, service areas, traffic monitoring cameras, parking lots and all kinds of other stuff. The more advanced radar detectors even have maps and a built in navigation system so you don’t need to get a car navi.

You can fine tune the settings and turn off most of the things you don’t need to get alerted to. You can also set the detector to ALL ON but in Tokyo it will go off constantly and drive you absolutely crazy.

Black is the new White. Yes, this is another post about something I bought. Picked up a super cool MacBook last friday after work. I heard that the previous models dropped in price with the release of the faster MacBooks earlier in the week so dashed over to Bic to take a look. They were dirt cheap, but I ended up picking up the newest model with the 2.16GHz CPU, 802.11n support and bigger HD. All my Mac friends ask me why I would do such a stupid thing like buy a MacBook NOW when everyone knows that Steve Jobs is going to announce a whole pile of cooler stuff in June, or why I didn’t get a MacBook Pro instead. Well, as I’ll explain below, the MacBook Pro is too expensive for my wallet at the moment and this MacBook was more of a trade rather than a new purchase. Also I’ve been wanting to consolidate all my PCs (meaning have Mac OSX and Windows on one PC) for some time now and waiting impatiently for Leopard to come out before doing it. The main reason, however, was that I saw this post by AC in my feed reader a month ago and it must have triggered some subliminal chain of events in my brain that lead me to get a Black MacBook against my will. Kind of like in the Manchurian Candidate except I didn’t assassinate anyone.

So, I sold my 2 year old Powerbook G4 and 8 month old Panasonic Let’s Note R5, which I regret to say I didn’t use very much since installing Vista (blah), and some other old peripherals at Sofmap. In case you don’t know, Sofmap buys used electronics and for a rather good price too. In total, I got over ¥220,000 for my trade in which more than paid for the Macbook and memory upgrade!! I didn’t think a PowerPC processor was worth anything but I guess I was wrong. This was a particularly good deal since in the 2 years I’ve had the Powerbook it must have been on at least 10 hours per day. I put that machine to good use alright and I’m glad to receive almost half what I paid for it originally. If you have any unwanted or unloved hardware sitting around I suggest you haul it over to Sofmap and see what you can get for it.

I’ve now got Mac OSX running along with Vista via Parallels. For the uninformed, you can install Windows on an Intel Mac and run them at the same time using Parallels or separately using Boot Camp. Been wanting to do this since they announced Boot Camp. Remember way back when people with DoComo, Tuka and IDO cellular phones couldn’t call each other because they were on different networks, not to mention those poor souls who could only afford PHS, and then one day they all got connected magically? And then remember how we jumped for joy because it didn’t matter what phone we bought anymore? That’s how I feel now! It’s awesome.

By the way, I’m getting rid of my MediaSkin. Yes, ALREADY!! Not because I dislike the MediaSkin, in fact I still really love this handset and I will miss One-Seg, but because I’m less than satisfied with the quality of AU’s network. Long term users of AU probably won’t know what I’m talking about but if you’re coming from Docomo’s 3G network you’ll notice how awful AU is in comparison. This weekend, I’ll be picking up a N904i which I dissed in this previous post because of its boring design, but upon closer inspection of the specs looks to be a truly significant phone with features that will blow your mind. The money left over from my PowerBook trade in will pay for this too!! Can’t wait to get it.

The price tag is more impressive than the TV. The Panasonic 103v Viera Full HD Plasma is the world’s largest plasma and costs ¥5,800,000. You can buy 2 base model Mazda Roadsters or a Lexus IS250 for that amount. It works out to ¥56,310 per inch of plasma. You can see it in person at Biccamera in Yurakucho or the Panasonic Centre in Odaiba. BTW, can you guess what movie that is?

Some Japanese people don’t have chairs in their apartments and prefer to sit on a zabuton 座布団 (cushion). It can sometimes be bad for your back if you have to sit on the floor for long periods of time. The solution is the hybrid chair-cushion called a “zaisu” 座椅子 or floor chair. Adjustable back support with the comfort of a cushion. Most are pretty ugly and made of the worst material you could imagine. But this one made to look like a piece of toast looks comfy.

Here are two more shaped like a melon-bun and hamburger. I still prefer the toast though.

Buy them here.

In case you haven’t seen them, here’s a movie of those USB Humping Dogs having a foursome on a hub. I can’t decide whether that’s funny or just plain ignorant. But they do make too much noise. Do the USB1.0 versions fornicate slower and quieter? You can get one or the whole set at digitalworld.

I’m sure most of you regular readers have realized by now that I’m what they call an “early adopter.” And so I went and upgraded my PC to Vista last night. You can go ahead and call me an idiot or whatever in the comments, I don’t care. I had zero problems with the upgrade and Vista performs faster than I expected on my little Panasonic R5 notebook with minimum specs. Although in my haste to install Vista, I forgot that I had to upgrade the BIOS and remove all the drivers before upgrading to Vista. It still worked fine but I reinstalled XP and then upgraded to Vista again anyways. No problems the second time either.

So far, Vista looks promising, my first impression is that it’s at least more pleasant to look at than XP and it’s not as bad a system hog as everyone keeps saying. Then again, I don’t do any heavy computering on my R5 anyway. Aero is razor sharp. For some reason photos look clearer and crisper than with XP and even better than on my Macs. Vista’s new system font is both soft and sharp at the same time. Very nice. It might be just the display on my Powerbook but I’ve never been fond of the fuzzy fonts on Mac OSX. Before you Mac zealots get all defensive about that comment let me just say that I plan to get Leopard when it comes out too. For me, I can like Windows AND Mac. It’s not an either or thing. Windows doesn’t have to suck for Mac to be good. I think there are alot of people out there who just want Vista to stink. I really don’t understand why. I have a bunch of computers including Mac and Windows and I want the best experience I can get on both platforms regardless of which is better.

Anyways, some more first impressions: I like the new start up screen. Sleep and wake are very quick. I like the new waiting ring animation, glad they got rid of the hourglass. There’s some new default screensavers that are actually nice (although I saw some spyshots of screensavers in Leopard that look totally awesome). The transparency of the window borders doesn’t really add any value, you can’t really see through them. The whole window should be transparent not just the border. Maybe I have to change a setting somewhere? The wireless network connectivity controls are simpler and easier to understand. Rendering of photo icons and previews is surprisingly fast. 3D flip is OK. 1GB of memory seems like it’s enough for my purposes.

To sum up this extremely brief review, I would have to agree with what others in the media have already said, Vista is more evolutionary than revolutionary. Most of the menus and controls are the same and in the same places as in XP and there is not much new on the front end that is worth the upgrade unless you have a relatively new machine and am sick of looking at XP.

The photo above kinda sucks. Sorry I was very sleepy.

Yes, I did. I just got home now after lining up for almost 16 hours to get one. I haven’t slept for more than 24 hours and am beat from standing in line in the rain. Brad and I met a whole bunch of people while waiting and we had a good time. The last half got ugly though and tainted the whole experience. A combination of totally incompetent and illogical planning (or lack of) and insufficient crowd control by Bic Camera, a whole team of homeless squatters and another group of over 300 chinese students who were each paid a fee to get a unit to sell, created a tension that exploded in a rampage of thousands across a busy intersection to grab a spot in line. There was complete chaos as people pushed and shoved and broke displays. It was like a tsunami of blood thirsty piranhas. I was genuinely scared for my life. Luckily, no one was hurt but it was probably the worse lining up experience I’ve ever had in Japan. What really pissed me off was the sheer numbers of these people who were out to make a mere ¥10,000 and taking the opportunity to get a PS3 on day one away from more genuine gamers. Of course, you can’t fully get rid of these opportunistic retards and yeah, everyone likes to make a buck or two. But there were so many that went to the trouble of flaunting they had more than one, purposefully walking along the line to show that they got 2 or 3 with a smug attitude.

It looks like this was not the case in other areas and Bic Camera in Yurakucho was the worse spot. The only plus about it was that it appeared to have the most units on hand. Over a thousand at least, plenty for everyone. Brad has already beat me to post a detailed account of yesterday’s happenings so I won’t bother repeating it here. He must not be as exhausted as me. Also check out photos of more civilized PS3 line-ups here. There were only 6 people lined up at Yodobashi Akiba at 1:30am!!! I should have gone there. I have no more love for Bic Camera, I’m crossing it off my 100 things list.

UPDATE: I have since unboxed the PS3 and set it up. It is a beautiful device. I got Ridge Racer 7 and Resistance, Fall of Man and am totally blown away by the gorgeous graphics!!