Gizmodo brings you late, off-the-scene coverage of basically everything you need to know about the first day of the CEATEC JAPAN 2004 convention taking place in Tokyo’s Makuhari Messe. This includes coverage of Japanese girls with obnoxiously large, red, curly ‘fros. Enough pictures stolen from Impress Watch to sink three ships after the jump. We are, after all, “visual learners.”
Instead of trying to make sense of this mess at the Messe by breaking things down into corporate booth reports, I’ll instead divide new products/technologies by their applicable markets. These include storage, audio/video, communications, and finally one catch-all category to cover crossover junk.
Storage
You probably can’t search for “storage” and “Japan” without coming up with something about either Blu-Ray or HD-DVD. And this makes sense – the Japanese are heavily pushing both formats, with Sony at the helm of Blu-Ray and Toshiba and NEC behind HD-DVD. As was expected, both formats were promoted in full force.
Here’s Sharp’s Blu-Ray recorder, called the “AQUOS High-Vision Recorder.” Also on display are Pioneer’s and Mitsubishi’s versions Blu-Ray recorders. From the HD-DVD camp, Sanyo had an HD DVD player, while NEC demoed an external HD DVD/DVD drive for PCs. But Blu-Ray of course answered right back with this Blu-Ray/DVD+-R/RW internal drive from Pioneer:
It’s even got a Blu light, just in case you forget what the hell it is that you’re burning.
We’ve heard plenty about Toshiba’s 0.85 inch hard drives, but gee whiz, I just can’t get over how small they are. Here’s another picture of them to conclude coverage of storage devices.
Audio/Video & Displays
The focus of Ceatec Japan has generally been audio/video products. This year was no exception. Up first is the world’s largest LCD television at 65 inches, from Sharp:
Where’s the woman in that picture? It’s rare to see a big sexy Japan screen without a small sexy Japanese woman. Oh well.
Here’s another one we already covered – Casio’s 2.2″ screen with VGA (640 x 480) resolution. If you can’t tell, that’s Microsoft Excel being displayed there. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Excel so “small.”
These are three demonstration units of Sony’s “DLNA” compatible portable media players. I’m going to be honest with you; I hadn’t heard of the “Digital Living Network Alliance” before today, but seeing as how Sony, Matsushita (Panasonic), Intel, and other makers are part of the alliance, I’m starting to think they’re credible. Basically, the point of the Alliance is to establish interoperability of client and server media network connections. Meaning, your Sony media receiver can play content being streamed from a Panasonic media server.
Particularly, with this Sony network media player above, you can obviously play streaming content while around your house – but the content can also be downloaded onto the internal hard drive for taking with you on the go. Not stopping there, this portable device is planned to also operate as a server, so you can wirelessly stream content from it to whatever else it is you want to stream to. I’m thinking devices like this are the next step for the still-newborn portable media players such as those offered by iRiver. Here’s a Kenwood stereo system, which is also “DLNA compatible:”
I wasn’t sure if I should put this with A/V or communications. From the picture, you can tell three things: it’s a portable audio player, is somehow compatible with Bluetooth, and is made by Aiwa (Sony’s second-tier brand). Apparently the gimmick here is that the player doubles as a Bluetooth headset for phones compatible with the technology.
Ever wondered what would happen to your network cameras if your PC suddenly stopped working? I haven’t because I don’t have any. If you have such an advanced living situation that you use network webcams for security purposes, you’ll probably dig Panasonic’s “Monitoring TV Adapter.” The concept is simple – plug in up to four network cameras, connect it to your TV, and you’re done. No need to worry about PC settings or any of that. Moreover, it contains a SecureDigital slot to save images, and also acts as a normal network hub. I’d certainly hope so given the “$500 – $1000” estimated price.
Communications
To begin the communications category, here’s a shot of DoCoMo’s “Phone to PC” TV phone technology. If you haven’t been keeping up with your Japanese cellular phone news, NTT DoCoMo (the biggest cellular provider in Japan) introduced “TV phone” capabilities to their 3G FOMA network last year. Until now, the system has been “phone to phone” only, meaning that both parties needed FOMA-compatible handsets to be able to participate in video phone calls. But with NTT’s new technology here, hopefully the less-than-successful TV phone service should get a solid kick in the ass.
Speaking of NTT, you may also remember that “videoconferencing IP phone” from a couple months ago. Here’s another shot of it, if you’ve forgotten.
It looks like it could up and fly away, but that’s a 3G phone concept model from Sanyo. It features a double-hinge design, as well as 3D display. Though the main highlight here is obviously the bizarro design, another feature is wireless LAN support. That about wraps it up for coverage of communications devices, but I’ve saved the best for last: random bullshit?
Random Bullshit
“How could he call fuel cells bullshit?” Well, only because I really don’t know how to categorize them. There has been no shortage of coverage of fuel cell technology at this year’s expo. Including the above offering from Hitachi, Toshiba also had their smaller-sized fuel cell on display. Thankfully Mr. Yasuhiro Sakuma of ASCII24 thought fast and put up his business card for size comparison:
I’m having a somewhat difficult time sorting out exactly what the “CARWINGS” system, offered by NTT DoCoMO and Nissan, is. From what I can tell, it is a system to link cellular phone and car navigation system, to easily exchange data between the two devices. For example, you can send local information to your phone based on GPS information downloaded by your car’s navigation system. As the entire setup supports Bluetooth, you’ll also find “answer” and “hang up” buttons on the steering wheel, so you don’t need to scramble for your phone if you receive a call. This is also integrated with your car’s speakers, so you can hear your friend talk in SURROUND SOUND. Finally, for those of you without Bluetooth phones, CARWINGS is also compatible with good old cable-based connections. Here’s a picture of a CARWINGS car:
To conclude Gizmodo’s coverage of Day One of CEATEC, I leave you with this USB random number generator for physics applications, on display by FDK Corporation:
Read – CEATEC JAPAN 2004 Link List [Impress Watch]
CAETEC 2004 C+A (French) [SorobanGeeks]
