Japan Business

Announced last Friday in Japan, JVC’s new powerful camcorder the GC-P100 is the sport oriented or action amateur filmmaker dream comes true! Indeed thanks to JVC’s Falcon Bird technology the GC-P100 is capable to shoot by default Full HD 60p videos in 36Mbps as well as stunning 600fps ones in 320×176! Announced at around 130,000 Yen and set to arrive in Japan at the end of May, the GC-P100 comes with a 12.76Mpix CMOS sensor, a JVC HD GT Lens with a 10x optical zoom, IS, Zoom Position Memory, a 3″ Monitor and additional 0.24 Viewfinder and support both SDHC and SDXC Cards. Finally one more interesting feature on the GC-P100 is its 4sec shutter speed function design to give you stunningly clear videos at night without suffering from too much visible noise. JVC GC-P100

This week it’s American gas, Japan’s lack of startups, and J-tech to make horses happy! Welcome to Japanese Technology from the Future Friday: It’s already Friday west of the international dateline – here in Japan, it’s totally the future. The weekly JTFF is our somewhat technosnarky coverage of 2-5 particularly important, specifically Japan-related tech stories. Get yourself hip to the micro & macro that went down while North America was sleeping – check in with Akihabara News every Friday morning and BOOM! Ahead of the game, you win. :: JTFF – May 17, 2013 :: • Japan Wants American Gas (the natural kind – from the U.S. Shale boom, that is) The combined monetary instruments of Mitsui & Co., Mitsubishi, and Nippon Yusen (a global shipping giant in Mitsubishi’s pocket), along with some French cash, have secured an almost 50% interest in a US $10 billion Louisiana LNG venture. The why of it is that, outside of nuclear expertise and reserves of favorable public sentiment toward cleaner technologies, Japan doesn’t have much in the way of domestic energy resources. As such, and as mentioned in the JTFF two weeks back, Japan’s very necessarily been making global rounds to secure energy deals & resources. Not much choice, really – since the 2011 Tohoku disaster allowed neo-J-Hippies to successfully monkey-wrench the nuclear energy industry, importing fossil fuels is pretty much all that’s keeping the lights on here. [JAPAN INVESTS LOTS OF CASH IN U.S. SHALE GAS - FINANCIAL TIMES] • Where are Japan’s Startups? Very decent discussion/overview of why startups can’t (yet) get a lot of traction here in Japan. Both domestically and in the pan-mutally co-dependent economies of planet Earth, the question of J-startups comes up a lot because 1. basically every other advanced economy has a healthy startup culture, and 2. Japan is just not innovating like it used to. What makes the most sense is that the lumbering giants of J-tech, your Sony, your Sharp, your Panasonic, etc., have reached a point of monolithic immobility that makes them either oblivious to the need for or incapable of re-working a pervasive corporate culture that rewards staying the path and profoundly undervalues initiative and innovation. Decent read. It should be translated and printed on the front page of every major J-newspaper (yeah, they still have those here). [IN SEARCH OF JAPAN'S MISSING STARTUPS - FORBES] • How Much Human and Human Stuff Can a J-Horse Comfortably Carry? Uhhh… reasonable question, if somewhat amusing. Like, remember back in the day when that American research team was totally belittled and ridiculed for studying cow flatulence – but then we learned that one single cow farts out more greenhouse gases than a full-sized truck left running all day? It is curious though, that until now no one ever bothered to get horses up on treadmills and do this kind of research. Even more curious that it was undertaken here; Japan ain’t exactly lousy with horses. Well, this J-tech development might not do much for global warming, but horses will dig it – and it goes to show that applying science & technology to stuff that might seem inane and ridiculous might just have some merit. Oh, and there was probably a “horse sense” pun to be used there, but the JTFF is better than that. See what just happened there? And also probably nobody knows what that means anymore. [HOW MUCH WEIGHT CAN A HORSE COMFORTABLY CARRY? - THE HORSE] That was the JTFF, and live from the future – that is all! _________ Reno J. Tibke is the founder and operator of Anthrobotic.com, where the JTFF was born. Tokyo at Night image via PhotoEverywhere.

Fujitsu has developed technology which can measure a person’s pulse in real time by analyzing video of their face. “As blood circulates through the body, the amount of light absorbed by the face varies, depending on how much blood there is in it. The first point about this technology is, it identifies minute changes in light intensity on the face, and converts them to a pulse. Also, it accurately detects people’s movements, to distinguish noise. Consequently, it can make a measurement in as little as five seconds.” When the user is sitting still, the system continuously detects changes in light intensity on the users face, as shown by the green waveform. The red waveform shows the resulting wave with noise associated with movement removed. Fujitsu has found that that accuracy of the system is within about three beats per minute. “The main point about this technology is, it can make the measurements naturally. All the person needs to do is be in front of the camera, without operating a device. For example, when you’re working on a computer, you often stop moving for at least five seconds while you’re thinking. We think that, by detecting those moments and measuring your pulse rate, this system could be used to support health management, by recording changes throughout the day.” “In the case of a security camera, it might be possible to detect suspicious persons, based on the assumption that people about to do something risky have a high pulse rate. However, we don’t think that can be done using this technology alone. We think it might be possible through all-round analysis, by combining this with other technologies.” “We’d like to release this as a device embedded in our products. Right now, we’re working to bring such products out this year, including smartphones as well as PCs.” This Video is provided by DigInfo.tv, AkihabaraNews Official Partner.

Japan's National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) and Sumitomo Chemical Co Ltd developed a "power-saving" sheet that blocks sunlight in summer and lets it through in winter.

Japan Display Inc developed a 12.2-inch LCD panel that enables to switch between 2D and 3D display modes for automotive use.

Kokuyo S&T Co Ltd will release an instant adhesive that prevents the user from spilling the adhesive or applying too much of it May 29, 2013.

Samsung’s roadshow of the GALAXY S4 finally arrived in Tokyo a month after kicking off in London and hitting several other cities and continents on the way. The late timetable may have been through coordination with exclusive Japanese partner, mobile provider NTT Docomo, which announced its addition to its smartphone lineup yesterday. Or it may have been out of sensitivity to giving the product enough exposure around the world to raise its credibility in Japan. But better late than never and we see a real buzz here for its roll-out which will happen later this month. This is Samsung’s flagship mobile product and I thought the company did a great job to raise the level of excitement during the presentation. The President and the Executive VP of Samsung Japan as well as the Deputy President from Headquarters all gave great talks about the S4 and the vision for what Samsung is doing. They were joined by some famous Japanese Talento, who together with Samsung people very effectively illustrated the

Cree Inc showed a new power module equipped with the second-generation SiC MOSFET that it announced in March 2013.

Today, NTT Docomo’s 2013 “Summer Collection” new product press conference took place at Bellesalle Shiodome in Tokyo and they revealed 11 models of new smart phones, 1 tablet and 2 new colors of their 2 existing mobile phones. During today’s press conference, CEO Kaoru Kato emphasized several times that Sony’s “XPERIA A SO-04E” and Samsung’s “GALAXY S4 SC-04E” are the top two devices of the 2013 Summer Collection. Docomo has set a “Special Price” for these 2 models based on users who get 2 year contracts. If you apply to both “Hajimete Smaho Wari (first smartphone discount)” and “Arigatou 10-nen Sumaho Wari (discount for those who has have more than 10 years contract with Docomo)”, an extra 20,000 yen will be discounted, and regarding “XPERIA A SO-04E”, the price will become about 5,000 yen. I will highlight both the “XPERIA A SO-04E” and “GALAXY S4 SC-04E” in posts to follow. Th

A Slice of Giant Japanese Robot Lineage: With a marketing campaign aimed at pretty much any human being with electricity, high levels of robo-geekery aren’t at all required for one to be aware of this summer’s giant robot & monster movie, Pacific Rim. However, awareness of the nearly 60-year legacy of giant Japanese robot fiction could use some press. Thankfully, you don’t have to be an anime fanboy to get hip; working forward from the 1950s, and mercifully avoiding discussion of the convoluted and often bizarre plot lines, check this out: Oldest: Tetsujin 28-go (1956 – Approx. 34ft/10m; pictured above-left) Directly translatable as “iron human,” Tetsujin is probably the oldest example of specifically Japanese giant robot fiction. While no humans piloted Tetsujin from within, it was human-controlled. What was the influence, and was Tetsujin brought to the English-speaking world, one might wonder? Why yes, in 1964 Tetsujin came to America and changed his name to “Gigantor.” Older: Giant Robo (1967 –