Ever find yourself with a water-soaked low-battery phone? Sharp and Japanese network KDDI have a solution: the world’s first solar-powered waterproof cell phone.
 Boston Globe |
Thai protests disrupt Asian summit
CNN International BANGKOK, Thailand (CNN) — Political demonstrations in Thailand on Saturday disrupted the Association of South East Asian Nations summit, according to Thai and Japanese officials. Video: Thai protesters target Asian summit – 10 Apr 09 Al Jazeera Thai protesters enter venue where Asia summit held The Associated Press ABC Online – Voice of America – Bloomberg – AFP all 1,752 news articles Langue : Français |
destinyland writes “A Japanese company is preparing limited mass production of a cybernetic bodysuit which dramatically increases user strength up to ten times. The “Hybrid Assistive Limb” suit synchronizes movements of a mechanical exoskeleton to biological nerve signals detected by biopads on the body. (Originally envisioned for people with disabilities, the suit also has industrial applications, and the company is planning annual production of 400 units at ,200 apiece.) Its battery life is five hours, according to the company’s web site, which promises they’re also opening a EU branch to begin sales outside of Japan.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
supersloshy writes “I’m a user of Ubuntu Linux and I have been for a little while now. Recently I’ve been trying to copy DVDs onto a portable media player, but everything I’ve tried isn’t working right. dvd::rip always gets the language mixed up (for example, when ripping ‘Howl’s Moving Castle,’ one of the files it ripped to was in Japanese instead of English), Acidrip just plain isn’t working for me (not recognizing a disc with spaces in its name, refusing to encode, etc.), Thoggen is having trouble with chapters (chapter 1 repeated twice for me once), and OGMRip has the audio out of sync. What I’m looking for is a reliable program to copy the movie into a single file with none of the audio or video glitches as mentioned above. Is there even such thing on Linux? If you can’t think of a decent Linux-based solution, then a Windows one is fine as long as it works.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Graft Architects has wowed us again with this spectacular living hill high rise complete with a giant green roof that drapes over the top and down the sides. Designed for a Japanese client who had tight restrictions on size, height, and setbacks, the AO Project expands from its confines and improves the space with lots of lush vegetation.
narramissic writes “Change is afoot at the Office of the US Trade Representative. New details have been released about an anti-counterfeiting trade agreement that has been discussed in secret among the US, Japan, the European Union and other countries since 2006. Although the six-page summary (PDF) provides little in the way of specific detail about the current state of negotiations, the release represents a change in policy at the USTR, which had argued in the past that information on the trade pact was ‘properly classified in the interest of national security.'” Michael Geist has a timeline that puts together more details about the ACTA negotiations than any government has so far been willing to reveal.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
An anonymous reader writes “Remember the Intercontinental Ballistic Missile launch by the North Koreans last night? You know, the one that went over Japan and supposedly put a ‘communications satellite’ into orbit. Well, according to the US Northern Command and NORAD it has been a complete and utter failure, with the second stage and payload ‘falling in the Pacific.'”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
zxjio writes with this excerpt from a New York Times article about just how much networking infrastructure costs vary between the US and Japan: “Pretty much the fastest consumer broadband in the world is the 160-megabit-per-second service offered by J:Com, the largest cable company in Japan. Here’s how much the company had to invest to upgrade its network to provide that speed: per home passed. … Verizon is spending an average of 7 per home passed to wire neighborhoods for its FiOS fiber optic network and another 6 for equipment and labor in each home that subscribes, according to Sanford C. Bernstein & Company. … The experience in Japan suggests that the major cable systems in the United States might be able to increase the speed of their broadband service by five to 10 times right away. They might not need to charge much more for it than they do now and they would still make as much money.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Mad Ivan writes “The BBC has just reported that North Korea has launched a long-range rocket, which they say is a communications satellite, but that the US and Japan fear may actually be a ballistic missile. Details are still arriving; the rocket passed over northern Japan on its way up.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
newsblaze writes “The UN Human Rights Council assaulted free expression today, in a 23-11 vote that urges member states to adopt laws outlawing criticism of religions. The proposal came to the UN from Pakistan on behalf of the Organization for the Islamic Conference. There were 13 abstentions. South Korea, Japan, India, Mexico and Brazil, all strong democracies, allowed this to pass by abrogating their responsibility. While the resolution doesn’t mention the online world, where does this subject get mentioned most, if not online?” The coverage is from NewsBlaze, which says its mission is to carry important news that other media are not paying attention to. There does not seem to be any other coverage of this vote. Update: 03/29 00:48 GMT by KD : Reader kshade wrote in: “Actually this is covered by conventional media, even FOX news (Google News links). The absentees weren’t there because they boycotted the proposal.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
