Tech Review – NTT Docomo’s Tapper Watch and Receiver

While we were visit NTT Docomo’s WHARF building we got to see a device that looked like a wrist watch.  This device, however, was much more than a wrist watch.  For the sake of simplicity I’m going to refer to the watch for the rest of this review as “The Tapper.”

By simply tapping forefinger against thumb, the user creates vibrations.  The watch can sense these vibrations and transmits them back to a receiver.  When the vibrations are in the correct rhythmic pattern, the receiver accepts the rythm as a sort of password and it activates the lights or the TV or opens your safe – anything that interfaces like a two option toggle.  For example, do the rhythm once and the lights turn on, do it again and the lights turn off.  In this case, the two options would be “lights on” or “lights off.”

Speaking of things that turn your lights on and off without using a light switch, this device almost reminded me of a much sleeker, more capable “Clapper.”

I say sleeker because you get a neat wrist watch-looking-thing with the NTT Docomo Tapper, but I say more capable because the Tapper could control at least three devices and turn them all on and off separately.  The Clapper, on the other hand, can only control two devices and deals only in absolutes – either they’re both on or they’re both off.

Another difference in these two pieces of technology is that the Clapper requires loud sound and the Tapper is basically inaudible.  This is a much better idea, I think, because it doesn’t disturb the people around you whenever you want to operate your switches remotely.  Harmony plays a huge role in Japanese culture, as Dr. C. told us.  I don’t know about you, but I would find it much easier to maintain harmony with my roommate if he was using the Tapper instead of the Clapper.

Sadly, though, the Tapper is just an R&D device – plans to put it into production do not exist.  On some occasions big companies with advanced R&D departments will sell the inventions they have designed to other companies that are in that line of work.  For those of us that want to be able to turn off the lights without getting out of the Lay-Z-Boy and  also would like to avoid early 90′s pop culture:  all we can do is hope that someone bids on NTT Docomo’s “Tapper.”

iNis

In our visit to iNis, we got to see a lot of cool games and devices that I would never have looked into otherwise.  Most of the games that iNis develops are music based.  This is because their creative director was a jazz musician before becoming a lucrative business man in the video game field.  They showed us cheerleader games, guitar games and a karaoke game called “Lips.”

Lips stands out from the rest of the singing games for Xbox 360 because it comes with two glowing, wireless mics.

These mics have motion sensors that detect how you’re holding the device, when/which way it’s moving and sudden stops (clapping or mock-tamborining).

While Lips isn’t very popular with America’s Rock Band and Guitar Hero crowds, there is a patch underway to make the Lips mics compatible with Rock Band.  No definitive release date has been set for the patch for Rock Band and no desire to make a patch has been made known by Activision (Guitar Hero’s publisher).

D3 game publishers

We visited a company called D3.  They publish all sorts of games, but most have been for Playstation or Playstation 2.  Recently, D3 has become more prominent in mobile content games (games for your cell phone).  Given their advanced hardware and networks, D3 is able to publish some really cool stuff.  We saw a mobile game with 480p resolution and graphics, pretty great interactivity and capability of online multiplayer!  It was awesome!  The tour through the facility was kind of funny, we walked out one door, entered a medium sized room with about 30 workspaces, then left and went back to the lobby for a picture.  Many companies are like this in Japan because floorspace is so expensive.  The country is very small and the population is not so the demand for  land is very high.

D3 is also working on a singing game featuring these bouncy characters…

I don’t actually know what the plot of this game is, but it is… uh… “visually captivating.”

Akihabara arcades

Along with tech and manga stores we found the arcades of Akihabara very sugoi! I probably spent 2,000 Yen (almost $20) just on arcade games. We played driving games, shooters, arcade fighting games and some that I don’t even know how to classify. This was a game that we stumbled upon and got a real kick out of…
http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=88660192874

Michael Jackson’s moonwalker was a Sega Genesis game in America.  Many kids grew up loving it and never knowing that there was an arcade version.  The user plays as MJ.  The game play has 4 directional movement + jump.  It has punch and kick attacks as well as two special attacks:  a hat throw and a dance trance.  In the dance trance, enemies are sucked into doing a choreographed dance along side Michael and at the end they either die or take heavy damage.  The dance is set to music and depends on the level the gamer is on.

Final Free Day

With our last free day I took care of some mail that I had to send to China, talked with Kohl about our movie project and relaxed a little bit before we all headed out to Akihabara again to play video games, buy new electronics and enjoy the electric (literally) culture.  After testing many sets of headphones under $80 USD, I finally settled on the Audio-Tecnica ATH-Pro5 MS.

I liked the way the Audio Technicas look and sound.  They have plenty of bass while still hitting the high notes as well.  They are comfortable and fit snugly for me, although on an 8 hour plane ride I found my ears getting a little bit sore.  This is because they have an on-the-ear design instead of over-the-ears.  I really like the design and color scheme as well.

What’s really a cool feature about them is that they are compatible with guitar amps.  Now when I practice my electric bass guitar I don’t have to wake up the neighborhood.

I got an especially good deal on them because AT is a Japanese company, so by buying them in Japan I was cutting out any international shipping costs and import taxes etc.  After Japanese sales tax my total came to around $57 USD.  That’s pretty good when you consider the American MSRP is $120 USD.

Day 12 – post haircuts

After lunch four of us decided that we would use our last day with Shinkansen passes to try and catch Mt. Fuji before dusk.  About 2 hours later we made it to a town called Fuji-san.  When we asked the the train station directory personnel, “Fuji-san doku des-ka?” (‘where is Mt. Fuji?’ in Japanese). We got suspicious looks and decided that we were probably on our own to find the mountain, but that was OK because it’s a huge pile of rock and not easily misplaced or hidden.

When we emerged from the station we understood why the directory’s staff had been so confused.  The buses running to Mt. Fuji had stopped two hours prior and the cloud cover was so bad that we couldn’t see an inch of Mt. Fuji in the distance.  Defeated and tired, we got back on the shinkansen and rode another two hours back home to Tokyo.  This entry has a lot to do with communication and a lack thereof.  Not being able to speak Japanese in Japan definitely limited us because we were not able to find out the last bus run times or that Mt. Fuji is often too cloudy to see from far away.

Day 12 – ChrisP gets a haircut

We started out our first free day at the crack of dawn… 11 am.  It felt great to finally be able to sleep in.  After a short period of deliberation, we all decided to go with Will Bonner’s group to see Mt. Fuji.  After untangling some cranky peoples’ problems, we left the hotel and were almost to the subway station when we ran into Dr. C and Nicole.

They were on their way to get Dr. C a haircut and Nicole offered to pay for ChrisP to get one as well if we came along.  Being a frugal man, ChrisP jumped at the opportunity and about 20 minutes later…

… he emerged from the bowels of the salon with a do fit for Tokyo.

After the haircuts were finished we were all hungry and Powder caught up with us to show us the way to a conveyor belt sushi restaurant in Midtown Roppongi.  This restaurant was probably the best food I had the entire time I was in Japan.

JR R&D

Next we met with the research and development team from Japan Rail.  They showed us all the new technologies they were working on to improve the way their company does business.  Among their experiments were a floor that absorbed the energy of peoples’ footsteps and turned it into usable electricity, an electronic paper ticket card, a multilingual hub for travelers and a flexible arm that will literally point you in the right direction.

Some concepts are practical upon realization and undergo further development before becoming usable for the public.  However, some do not. After trying out the energy absorbing floor in an actual station to see how effective it would be, JR found that the floors could only generate enough power from a whole day of dense foot traffic to power one lightbulb for one minute.  The electronic paper cards that can be used as a shinkansen ticket were about a quarter of an inch thick.  When we asked if there was a chance that the technology would get thinner, JR told us that to make the cards smaller would be too expensive.

Himeji Castle

After the Mt. Shosha excursion, we took a trip to Himeji Castle.

This castle was enormous.  Originally owned by the Akamatsu Clan, the castle was designed with a maze of paths intended on confusing unfamaliar guests.  We climbed all the way to the top to see the room where the ruler would sleep.  I’m not sure if we saw his bed or his shrine, but I think it was too small to be a bed.

On the way out of the castle we saw the suicide chamber.  If I remember correctly, this chamber was used as a designated location for captured enemy soldiers to preserve their honor by dying at their own hand instead of their captors’ without giving up information.  The stones on the ground were stained a dark iron red, either from rusting minerals or from blood spilt almost 700 years ago.

After climbing up all those stairs, we were beat.  We couldn’t wait to get back to the hotel and rest.

Mt. Shosha

I felt right at home on the top of Mt. Shosha.  We took a cable car and skipped most of the climbing, but there were still fun trails ahead of us.  A few of us managed to break off of the intended path and thus had to improvise another route to the main attraction:  The Engyogi Temple.

The Engyogi Temple is where the movie, “The Last Samurai,” was shot.  Tom Cruise starred as a military adviser from the American Army, sent to destroy the samurai culture.

The intricacies of the architecture where very interesting to me.  I consider myself a practical person that can appreciate art, but I still do not know why the builders would take time to carve something like these…

It must take months alone to hand carve each of the creepy figures on the edges of the rooves.  This attention to detail is something that can be observed in many parts of Japanese society.