A Hatena blogger id:rti7743 reported that he made his new 10.6 square meters bedroom with futuristic functions [J].

He set up the following gears;

- replaced curtain with 100-inch projector screen
- NEC NP-U310WJD short focus projector

- 2 microphones
- self-programmed voice recognition system
- iRemocon, (remocon = remote controller) network-connected remote controller which can learn other ultra-red controller commands
- regular PC (though it has 512GB SSD) with two LCDs
- Ubuntu server with 18TB hard drives
- Japanese kotatsu (heating low-table)
- Another LCD hanged on a bed
- an extra speaker in pillow

In the small room, he can control many things only by speaking. For example, you may turn off lights by "Barusu", the spell of destruction.

Video shows what his casting "Hikari Are"(Let there be light) caused,

Another command, "Turn off the lights, computer"

"Sakura (girl's name, probably from anime), turn on the air-conditioner!"

Lights, air-conditioner, kotatsu, projector, music and many more can be controlled just by talking.

via Hatena Bookmark

“Let There Be Light” – Voice Controlled 114sqft Japanese Work/Bedroom

Tokyo-based Juki Corporation is going to sell an anti-sleep system "Sleep Buster" for driver in 157,500 yen (US$2,000) in February 2012.

The product keeps collecting a biological signals in the driver's heartbeat rate and pulse wave sensor, which are built into the driver's seat, shows seven levels (concentration, relaxation, distraction, fatigue, drowsiness, physical deconditioning, etc.) of driver's status, alert the driver to stop driving both by sound and display. It detects the transition of the driver's mode from "awake" to "sleep" about 10 minutes before the driver really starts sleeping, which is expected to stop accidents.

With the management software "Human Tachometer", planned to be released in April 2012, automobile carriers will be able to track their drivers' health conditions, and other status changes such like drunk driving during their work.

"Sleep Buster" is developed by Delta Tooling Co., University of Tokyo, Oita University and Shimane Institute of Health Science.

See Also:

release [J]

Anti-Sleep Driver’s Sheet “Sleep Buster” Comes In February, Warn You 10 Minutes Before Falling Asleep

Kanagawa Engineering College Kosaka Laboratory exhibited their serious game which simulates the experience of pregnancy, “Mommy Tummy,” at the Tokyo Game Show 2011.

“Mommy Tummy” is a serious game which allows you to have personal experience of the roughly 10 month period of pregnancy in two minutes.  The condition of pregnancy is emulated by wearing a suit into which special stomach and chest sensor devices are inserted.

A water bag is fitted into the suit, and by injecting hot water into the bag, it simulates the experience of the belly getting bigger as the developing foetus grows little by little.  Also a “fetal movement belt” is placed at the back of the stomach; this gives users a body vibration and the sensation of “being kicked” from inside the stomach.  On the monitor, the present condition of the foetus, how big it is and how it’s moving are displayed, bringing a real sense of the actual feeling of pregnancy.  All of the CG of the foetus are coordinated with the sensor of the suit, so for instance if you move violently its mood gets bad, if you pat your stomach its mood gets better, and it changes depending on the user’s movements.  A touch sensor is included on the front of the stomach to perceive patting motions.  This seems to present the message of “restful pregnancy,” as too much violent movement results in “miscarriage,” a bad ending also included in the game.

Translation authorized by VSMedia

Men Can Experience Pregnancy With “Mommy Tummy,” A Serious Game

Some days ago we reported KDDI may distribute the next iteration of the iPhone. Now the reactions are coming: Goldman Sachs predicts hard times may come for Softbank [J], Softbank falls a 5% at Tokyo Stocks Exchange.

Softbank, with a 21% share of the market, is the third leading mobile service provider in Japan, trailing NTT DoCoMo (48%) and KDDI (27%). Although the company won a major advantage by being the country's exclusive iPhone distributor, its relatively poor coverage area and services have come into question lately, leading many to state that if another carrier stepped up to ship the iPhone, they would switch without hesitation.

KDDI, under its new CEO Takashi Tanaka, has recovered some of its lost fighting spirit. They introduced Skype preinstalled in all their phones; and in August they were the first to introduce Windows Phone in Japan. Now, with the iPhone 5, probably a lot of the young people who moved to Softbank will come back to their old provider.

Meanwhile, Masayoshi Son (Softbank CEO) announced in the next 2 years they are planning to invest 2,000 billion yen in order to improve their infrastructures. DoCoMo is pushing hard with their new technology LTE (also known as "Super 3G" or "3.9G") under the Xi brand, which allows smartphone users to enjoy a a bigger volume of data and more speed. For the time being it's only available at the center of Tokyo, Nagano and Osaka. Probably the social games devices (Sony Xperia PLAY, PS Vita and others) will help to the development of this new system.

Sources: Mainichi Shimbun [J], NTT DoCoMo

Hard Times May Come For Softbank After KDDI Gets iPhone5

Tsukuba Academic New Town, 60km North East of Tokyo, is known by universities and enterprise research centres.

There, prototype robots are walking around,

“Robot Zone” Signboard In Tsukuba, Japan

Inspired by a pure CSS action game, a new CSS only whack-a-mole game CSS Panic was released by GeckoTang on the online Japanese HTML5 coding community, Jsdo.it.

You may play it here if using a modern browser.

CSS PANIC - jsdo.it - share JavaScript, HTML5 and CSS

GeckoTang also made a shooting police (not police shooting) game CSS3 of the Dead.

CSS3 OF THE DEAD - jsdo.it - share JavaScript, HTML5 and CSS

The games are said to be checked only on Google Chrome browser.

Another Pure CSS (=No JavaScript) Action Games

Japanese company TES NewEnergy announced to sell a cooking pan which utilizing disposed heat into power, which can charge cellphone or other devices via USB socket from June 13th.

They say that heat of bonfire could be over 900 degrees Fahrenheit, but energy over 212 Fahrenheit are not used for boiling water and wasted. This pan will convert the waste heat into cellphone charger. It can charge up iPhone by 3-5 hours.

The price is 23,000 yen(278 USD).

Directly converting heat-waste into electrical energy.

The year 2000 witnessed our discovery of a oxide compound
we have since developed into a material capable of converting heat-waste into electrical energy at unprecedentedly high temperatures. Thus, after a decade of research, we are pleased to confidently announce the establishment of TES NewEnergy
(Thermo Electric Systems and NewEnergy).

TES NewEnergy is born as a result of the work of AIST
( The National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology).

TES NewEnergy brings you a world of fresh cost-reducing possibilities,　creating clean energy for incinerators, process plant , industrial furnaces, shipping, fueled vehicles, cookers/water-heaters, ubiquitous machinery etc. We can also provide emergency or back-up energy and even utilize geothermal energy.

We hope you join us as we expand renewable energy, reducing carbon-dioxide levels worldwide

via MyCom

USB Power Generating Pan

KDDI R&D Labs announced today that they developed a new system which can generate naturally arranged photo album in comic-style sequence of frames from video and photos.

Here is an example of the generated album from an wedding photos.

According to the release [J, pdf], it is humdrum to line up the same shaped photos.

It looks better if you put photos into the pre-defined variable frames, but only doing so may place a vertically long photo into a landscape box, may make a main person put out of the frame.

This technology will recognize portrait/landscape and persons, automatically curve them out and fit them in balanced frames.

They are planning to popularize the technology into a service to create comic-style photo album as a visible label of home-made videos and recorded TV programs.

via Nikkei ITPro [J]

KDDI Develops A Sysytem To Convert Video/Photos Into Comic-Style Album

A Japanese blogger ndruger made a single-page browser action game only using the latest CSS. You need to catch 101 cows by clicking.

Only the latest versions of Chrome/Safari can run this game. Firefox/IE are not supported.

CSS-Only (=No Flash/Javascript) Browser Action Game

Tokyo-based Ubiquitous Entertainment (UEI) announced [JP] "enchant.js" yesterday, an HTML5/JavaScript game engine for smartphones (and PCs). The engine is available in beta, it's open source (dual license MIT or GPL on github), and entirely free to use.

UEI says their aim with the release of the engine is to motivate young people in particular to start programming games as well as to lower the hurdle for entry into their 9leap game creation contest (more info on that here).

The company not only provides the code, but also a range of graphics from previous game titles for free (a map editor and other elements are in the works).

The features of enchant.js include:

• 2D sprite library
• multi-layer background scrolling
• collision detection
• ActionScript-like event model
• etc.

enchant.js is the brainchild of Ryo Tanaka (who is just 19 years old).

The game engine supports Android 2.1 and up, plus iOS 3.0 and up.

Here are two screenshots from games that have been created with enchant.js:

enchant.js: New HTML5/JavaScript Game Engine For Smartphones