Mini Me

Tired of that old purikura? Those eye-widening pictures that make you look like you are perpetually 12 with cute little designs all over it or those stickers and giving yourself cat faces and ears just not cutting it?

Well thank god Japan is ahead of its game in technology.
Recently, I watched a television show about how they could make remarkably accurate replicas of their fake food. In the show, they used a 3D imager to take a massive print of a cantaloupe melon. They then used the same software to somehow make an exact replica of it in plastics. The show was actually a pretty remarkable one where two people were competing to make the most accurate melons as possible in order to fool a professional judge when compared against 8 other melons that were real. The judge was able to narrow it down to the last 3 and then gave up. In any case, it is this kind of technology, the 3D imaging and replicating of the artifact, that lead to this very innovation to the purikura market.
Now, you can have your very own you...as an action figure!!! Sweet right!? OK well it is more of a figurine, but it is still pretty sweet. You see, you go in for a nice 3D picture and then they will shrink the image into a size of your choice for your very own you-figurine. Only, you can't make a model in a day. The whole process takes about a month, so you have to stay in that position for an incredibly long time and they have to hook feeding tubes up and stuff.

....Right, so it is not that long. It is a long enough time (15 minutes) that they are concerned about your ability to hold a pose still enough for the imaging software to be able to accurately capture it. As for the mini model, now that will take some time. That process should be somewhere around a month give or take some change. And then of course they will mail you the final model.

Still the whole thing is pretty awesome. A total advance to the world of self-righteous egoists and others, who just want their picture taken. Imagine in a few years being able to go to a booth and get this whole process done in half an hour and out comes in the little drop box, a mini you. Or imagine with their buy in bulk option, a politician handing out mini action figures of himself for his campaign. Or a movie campaign for Marvel or something like Kickass, handing out their super heroes in Happy Meals and such....ok so they have those, but not in this detail (eye wrinkles! they can capture your eye wrinkles!....who wants to see oneself portrayed with eye wrinkles...?)...and not with YOU in the costume. Now that would make it much cooler.

source:
http://whatsnext.blogs.cnn.com/2012/11/15/3-d-photo-booth-makes-a-miniature-you/?hpt=hp_c3

Pin the Tail on the...

Japans' new app!

Which evidently comes on the tail end of some pre-established neurowear resembling cat ears. See what I did there?
For all those cat fanatics and furries out there, or those who just simply like to wear a tail, and who want just a little bit more cat in their life, Japan is helping you take that next step. A recently demoed prototype, called Shippo, which means tail(original I know), lets you have just that, a tail. Tails in Japan are by no means a big thing. Or even a new thing for that matter. It has actually been decades since people have started wearing a faux fox tail design, whether it is in real fur or fake. One might think that this idea, as many an idea start in Japan, probably started in someones deep slightly perverse mind, and taking it to the next step to draw the very picture of their imaginings; but I think that this fashion and concept pre-date even the first of those people. You see people in Japan have long since believed in a nine tailed fox goddess who can become human. Humans. Foxes. Tails. I think you understand well enough. But this here isn't no ordinary tail you see. This one wags you see. OK, so not that different from any other cat or dog, or manufactured wagging tail. But it is a step up, or at the very least a step toward technology, bringing that old-fashioned fox tail of Japan's anime and idol fan bases into contemporary technological company.
This tail, uses your brainwaves as a mood base and formats your tails oscillation to the same calibration as your mood swings. That sounds much fancier than it is. Basically it wags. It wags on two speeds: slow and not so slow. You brain thinks in different measured than they would have you believe in this product, but essentially, they are playing off the fact that people tend to think more when agitated by some stimulant which transfers to the tail speed. Otherwise if you are placated  your brain speed would be at a rather normal tempo and it would reflect in a slower tail speed. Or if you are dead, it would move not at all. At least in theory. I can't promise you that they have tested that.
You might wonder how it would work. I am sure there must be some sort of headgear involved, since, after all, it is based on your neurotransmissions. I think that might actually be why the people in this commercial are wearing hats. Because they don't want to tarnish their products image by the unsightly headgear you might be wearing. Granted it will have to be on the smallish side to fit under these hats. And one day it might be even more minimal in a similar format of a hairband. Kind of incredible. In addition to the headgear to read your brainwaves, there is also a heart rate monitor that some in ear-size, as in it is an ear clip-on.
So I said it was an app, but what exactly does it do? Well it geo-tags your locations and moods at the times and shares them on your choice social network. Now what exactly does that achieve? I can't exactly tell you. I think I read that they are predicting them to share the locations in hopes of promoting certain locations are relaxing or exciting...but even to me that sounds like a bit of a long stretch. If people want this accessory, it isn't because of its geo-tagging options. It is because they get to wear a tail.

Fax me

Another technology related post for Japan.

Japan relies heavily on fax machines to this date. Seem crazy? Yeah it is a bit, while most of the world has moved on the scanning and emailing things (or merely just emailing them), they seem to be a bit hung up on these devices. Japan invested heavily in them just before the internet was birthed and as a result refuses to give up on them. Instead they continue to upgrade them and modify them so that you now don't even need to scan anything in to send a fax. You can create the fax on a touch screen that has recently become a part of the new designs. Know what that sounds like? Email. Due to the fax machines resilience to things like modern innovations and its own expiring uses, you will be able to find them at any company and the majority of homes as well. It is not too uncommon to hear that someone will fax you something late at night as opposed to emailing.
The primary reason that the fax machine became a tool of Japan-wide use was because kanji was easier to write than to hand type on a computer. As computers were a fairly recent invention at the time, I suspect that there was no efficient way to input the kanji characters when typing and very likely the entirety of the kanji collection might not have even been added yet. Since then it has become much easier to type in kanji; however, like a stain on your favorite shirt, the fax machines' prevalence is a thing that still has yet to meet its tossing.
As such I receive scheduling documents that could easily be draw up in excel and sent via email, via a fax that is in turned scanned in and sent to me via email instead.

Japan: The Silicon Valley of the World.

For so seemingly technologically advanced a place, Japan has some of the worst tech.

In Korea, every teacher and classroom had a personal desktop computer. Ok desktops seem a bit behind the times, sure. But lets face it. You are at a desk. The towers were extremely slender with pleasing graphic designs on them. They had accompanying LCD monitors, and occasionally in multiple. These desktops were quite new, with techs always on call for when or if they malfunction. But best of all they were fast.

Here in Japan. I have a desk furnished with a laptop. You might think this is convenient and that I can take it to the classroom with ease. But rest assured the classrooms have their very own laptops. These laptops are not new in any feasible sense of the word. My laptop is a lovely 2004 model for a Fujitsu. Yeah my opinion as well. What the hell is Fujitsu doing with their fingers in the computer business. Stay outa that! It is a lovely beast of 8 pounds and change. It has a long life of thirty minutes to one hour unplugged. Trust me, these things never get unplugged...probably since 2004. The MacAir's girth simply pails in comparison with a two inch disadvantage. Please, if you don't believe me, have a look. Most days I am lucky if I can get to Chrome in the first 10 minutes of work. The boot up, log in, and loading of Chrome actually take that long. And don't even get my started on Internet Explorer.
Another technology deficient area in Japan is the train system. Oh I mean they have things like the Shinkansen, which can get you from Osaka to Tokyo in under two hours, but then they have the local train rails. Which sometimes don't even have doors that open automatically at each stop (Nagano). There will be nothing protecting you from jumping onto the tracks if desired (pretty much everywhere). In Korea, every subway station in Seoul and Incheon has glass barriers in place to prevent such 'accidents' from occurring. In Japan they might have them at a few of the popular station (possibly in Tokyo?) but have instead opted for the technological advance and expense of blue lighting. They have decided that this blue lighting will calm people and prevent them from ending up on the tracks. As such, the safety of the glass barriers is not needed.

On the flip side, they poke fun at America's attempts at robots and have elite facial recognition programs. They are even already in progress of building an even faster train that will run on magnets and break all records.

I suppose in a sense, it is not what Japan has, it is what they can have? As they have the technology for it, but feel not the need to splurge on the installment of these advancements.

I always feel like

Somebody's watching me.

Paranoia seems to be a bit big in Japan. Especially involving the internet. They are extremely hesitant to put things on places like Youtube, lest they be recognized by a facial recognition software that pins them to one or another misdemeanor.
The question is not whether or not they have the software, they do. A company, Omron, prides themselves on their facial recognition software. A elite software which is simple as walking into the building. That is all you have to do to get past security for the day. No card keys or finger print scans needed any more. This system runs on a video feed and determines a persons identity via their facial features. It calculates how far apart their eyes are, the exact positioning of a mouth, or a ten point ear analysis. They say that this software is to help establishments determine when a VIP or blacklisted member walk through the door and how to appropriately deal with them.
To me it sounds like something every pachinko place will have in the near future in order to stay on top of their loaded patrons and squeeze more coin of them.

But with technology like this, it keeps people on their toes in constant fear of Skynet or something. And as such, they are afraid to see their own selves on Youtube.