Gizmodo
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android
Motorola Powering Portable Set-Top Box With Android (UPDATED: They're Not)
Motorola is building a generally unremarkable "au Box" portable set-top box for Japanese electronics company KDDI. But one part of their plan stands out: It'll run Android. UPDATE: According to Motorola, this KDDI box will not run Android. See their full response below. More »
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5
By John HerrmanComment by hanswurst0815: Did they re-use old VCR cases? more » | Other threads
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transportation
Japan's Bullet Trains to Get Wi-Fi
Starting this week, Japan's Shinkansen bullet trains will feature wireless LAN from Tokyo to Osaka. More »
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By Mark WilsonComment by Mediocre: Why can't we get bullet trains in the US? 20 Responses | Other threads
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cellphones
Sony Ericsson's Premier 3 Walkman Phone Rips Directly From CDs via 3.5mm Jack
If you can get past the hot pink, Sony Ericsson's Premier 3 Walkman phone has a really cool look. Plus it has some interesting features—including the ability to rip music directly from a CD. -
cellphones
Tiny, Adorable Walkman Phone Is Hard To Use Unless You're Also Tiny and Adorable
By the numbers, the KDDI Walkman Xmini phone is nothing special. Well, except for a few of the numbers: at 44mm wide and 18mm thick, the 1.8in screen phone is absolutely minuscule. More » -
cellphones
Japan's Finest: KDDI Fall Winter Cellphone Line
Proving again that Japan has the prettiest phones in the world, au by KDDI has released its Fall and Winter lines, showing off eight new models with emphases on super bright and big Organic EL screens, multimedia “au BOX” connectivity, and a funky mobile personal trainer and calorie counter called “Karada Manager.” While we will probably never see these gadgets States-side, because AU makes some of the gnarliest Japan handsets around, I can't stop myself from obsessing over them. Perhaps I've got a case of unrequited mobile love. More » -
E-paper displays
KDDI Develops Color, Wireless, E-Paper Display
As though the flood of WTF-type phone concepts weren't enough, KDDI revealed a proof of concept for a wireless, color, e-paper display they have in the works. The idea is that a cellphone would be used to broadcast a signal to the display via infrared. The 13.1-inch display can display up to 4,096 colors and refresh the onscreen image in 12 seconds. KDDI says the display is intended for the finance and insurance industries, where the need to view A4-sized documents are apparently key. [Tech-On] More »
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Comment by Wraithen: Why do we still need boarders around our displays? 3 Responses | Other threads
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cellphones
KDDI Delivers "World's First 3D Mobile Phone Screen"
The term "word's first" gets thrown around a lot with gadget releases, but with kooky creative phone maker KDDI behind the project, I'm a lot less skeptical about the claim that they have developed the first 3D cellphone screen. You can't get the full effect from the images here, but it appears that this prototype 3.1-inch 480 x 800 WVGA LCD utilizes the "parallax barrier method" that divides images or video separately for the right and left eye. Naturally, no timetable for a release has been revealed. [IT Media via Mobile Mentalism] -
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concepts
KDDI's Concept Cellphone is Half Transformer, Half Musical Box
The KDDI AU Design Project bunch over in Japan have stumped up with this latest concept phone for music cellphones of the future. And it blends two things we like a Giz: funky cellphone tech and Transformers. In fact Box To Play is less "robot in disguise," and more "hi-fi in disguise" because when it's a phone, it's a normal phone—keypad, camera and such—but when it transforms it's its own speaker system with a graphical visualizer around its faces. Neat, and exactly the sort of innovative design I'd like to see in future phones. Check out the movie of the concept in action at the KDDI link. [KDDI AU] -
concepts
Japan's Ply Concept a Multilayered Fantasy Phone
This phone, inspired by the multiple layers of wooden sandwich in plywood, is of multiple slider design. Inside, and separated by tabs, are a printer, projector, gamepad and sliding downward, a dialpad. It's as cool as it is impossible to build, and so KDDI labs should feel proud for making an imaginary device with so much character. [KDDI via Cscout] -
magic
Visual Search Engine Coming to iPhone in June
Evolution Robotics ViPR visual search technology is coming to the iPhone this June. ViPR allows you to take a photo of any movie, CD or book, send it to a server, and automagically get an email back loaded with information and links pointing to YouTube videos or iTunes Music Store links. It will also be deployed in Japan on KDDI's au camera phones this Spring. As you will see in the iPhone demo after the jump, it works incredibly well, even when the object is partially occluded: More »
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By Jesus DiazComment by atheos: I still find Shazam (audio search engine) to cause more "WOW!" effect than this. And WTF, you have to manually... more » | Other threads
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japan
KDDI Japan's Delicious Spring Keitais Look Like Candy
You can't buy cellphones from KDDI unless you live in Japan. You can't even import em and use em here. But clicking around their website and exploring their spring line up of handsets feels like a museum. From the future. I've explored random Japanese handsets before and still enjoy looking at them, no matter if the foreign UI renders them nothing more than pieces of electronic art. [KDDI' s Spring Line via Giz Japan] More » -
gadgets
Japanese Infrared Revamp Transfers at Gigabit Speeds
While IR is still quite useful for certain things, transferring data between devices is something very few people still use it for. Japan's KDDI R&D labs, however, have managed to increase the transfer rate 250 times to 1Gbps with a semiconductor laser that blinks incredibly fast. Although 1Gbps is fast, it doesn't quite transfer a full CD of music in less than a second (which is 650MB). Point is, if they can manage to put this into cellphones, we'll finally be able to get our contacts over really really fast. [Digital World Tokyo]
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By Jason ChenComment by spincycle: A bit is NOT a byte. Get it straight. more » | Other threads
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piracy
KDDI Develops Pirated-Video-Detecting Software
KDDI research labs in Japan has developed a new system for detecting pirated material on the internet automagically. By detecting whether the footage was shot on an amateur or professional camera, what method was used to encode it, and things of that nature, they claim they can detect illegal material with a 98% success rate. More »
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By Adam FrucciComment by caL: so all those movie theater camrips will get by just fine. way to go anti-piracy police!! arrr more » | Other threads
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magic touch
Intra-Body Communication: Use Your Body to Download Data
Imagine being able to download a movie or album to your media player by simply touching a promotional poster or exchanging contact information with a potential client via a handshake. KDDI's new Intra-Body Communication technology could make this a reality by using the human body as a conduit to transmit high-volume data. In the image above, the video is being transmitted from the girl's hand, through her body to the glasses, and out to the monitor. More »
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By Sean FallonComment by Andrew_Cho: @slez : so everyone's gonna wear like, 10 rings ,2 watches, and 7 bracelets? just kidding... more » | Other threads
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japanese cellphone design
The KDDI Design Center's Futuristic Concept Phones and Less Impressive Regular Phones
In Harajuku, near the bridge that all the socially awkward cosplay teenagers hang out on on Sundays, is the KDDI Design Center, a temple dedicated to Japanese phones. Inside they've got all of this year's KDDI phone models, a display on futuristic phone concepts, and every phone offered by the Japanese carrier on display for potential customers to get their greasy fingerprints all over. More » -
tryp-tech
ActFace Concept Cell Has Looks, 3 Touchscreens
This is the ActFace Japanese cell phone concept from au by KDDI. It laughs in the face of the iPhone and its single touchscreen - with not one, not two, but three, and no visible traditional buttons. There's a video of the two front screens showing some impressive animation after the jump. More » -
kddi
KDDI Comes to the US [Verdict: Keep Your Wigs On]
Yes, KDDI Mobile is coming to the US. And no, they won't be bringing any of their cool phones with them. More »
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Comment by Buford T. Justice: The Japanese are likely the second most mono-linguistic society behind the US. This isn't a bad bet. Japanese text/browsing/features will... more » | Other threads
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cellphones
Cypres Concept: Pretty non-iPhone
By designer Nao Tamura, this concept phone may not sound clear, but it certainly pulls off the theme. We like the retro undertones, from the 90's transparent shell, to the 60s lunar terrain imaging of the product's backside. But maybe you think it's ugly as sin... More » -
cellphones
Japan Watch: Media Skin Cellphone
Remember that hot Media Skin cellphone we saw nearly two years ago from Tokujin Yoshioka design? It's about to be released on KDDI and not NTT DoCoMo, which to most Americans means absolutely nothing. More » -
cellphones
Touching Dozens of Beautiful Japanese Cellphones
I'm in Tokyo, and I've been avoiding gadgets. After all, I'm supposed to be on vacation. But today Lisa took me to Akiba, and I ended up running through a dozen stores, groping over 50 handsets. I've written about some, like the incredibly simple Wilcom R9, glowing Sony Ericsson w43s and walkman-like w42s. But gripping the alien tech live was unexpectedly incredible. Here's a video of the most gorgeous handsets I could find. More » -
cellphones
The KDDI "neon" Phone
I'm still reeling from this KDDI phone by Naoto Fukasawa (the latest in the au design project series). The English version of the flash site has not been added, so I'm hoping one of our Japanese-speaking readers can supply more accurate details in a few hours. From what I can tell, this has an organic EL display (similar to the Sony NW-A1000 Walkman)—so that smooth top surface of the phone is one big display. This is particularly useful for using the FM radio and the rest of the audio features, because this is a music phone (50MB of memory, from what I can tell, and a miniSD card slot). It also appears to be compatible with the Yamaha NX-A01 cellphone speaker system. Flip the handset open—it's white on the outside and black on the inside—and neon is packing a 240 x 320 TFT screen, 1.3 megapixel camera and a whole lot of other stuff I can't translate. The neon is one of 7 new models on tap from KDDI's au design for the spring.
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cellphones
KDDI Phones Play Digital TV
More cool Japanese phone news comes our way with the new KDDI lineup, allowing you to watch short segments of digital programming on your mobile phone. Made for KDDI's main phone service au, these phones aren't only state of the art, but should have afforadable service as well—something all of us would like to see more of as new features increase. In addition to the digital TV function, these phones will also gives you access to something called "Hello Messenger", which lets you send text messages and images to up to four other people—kind of like a group chat on your computer. The phones will be manufactured by Sanyo and Kyocera. More » -
cellphones
KDDI's Phones Look Better Than Yours
It's not like KDDI's got anything to prove when it comes to its phone design cred, what after models like the Penck and the Talby, but they went all "pshaw" after seeing DoCoMo's attempt earlier today at a design handset and dropped the W32H for its WIN EV-DO network, a phone probably best described as "slick. With a Starck-looking front display, it's a music-centric device with an FM radio as well as mini-SD support, USB connectivity and PC software to rip CDs and compatibility with KDDI's music download service. More »
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