GW-101

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J@pan Inc Magazine Presents:
G A D G E T W A T C H
The Hottest Gadgets and Gizmos from Japan
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Issue No. 101
Friday, May 16, 2003

(Long URLs may break across two lines, so copy to your browser.)

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Name: Ask Corporation CitiDisk DV
Category: AV peripheral
Price: Open (but starting from approximately 60,000 yen)
Release date in Japan: mid May 2003

The Gist: The CitiDisk is a portable storage widget that will take a
DV stream directly from a digital camcorder and lay it down on the
hard disk using an IEEE 1394 (firewire) connection. Basically, the
idea is that you get it straight to your hard disk rather than
recording it onto miniDV tape first, buying a video capture card and
transferring it over to the HD on your computer. Makes sense, I
suppose. Or does it? Doesn't it just mean that you're buying this
instead of a capture card? And wouldn't a capture card be cheaper?
Anyhow, the CitiDisk comes in 20, 40 or 60-gig hard-disk
configurations and owners can store recordings for up to 80 minutes
with the 20GB model and four hours with the 60GB version. It has a
rechargeable lithium ion battery, dimensions of 77x136x24mm and
weighs 250g.

More info: http://www.ask-corp.co.jp/shining/products/cdv.htm

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Name: Elecom Shelspia II
Category: Memory Storage
Price: from 800 yen
Release date in Japan: end May 2003

The Gist: If you're a businessmen out to impress, forget all about
your shiny metal meishi (business card) holders from Muji and feast
your eyes on the Shelspia II hard cases for your mini flash Ram cards
from Elecom. Holding from two to six cards, the cases are all made out
of aluminum (rugged) with soft plastic inlay trays (safe) in
different colors (revolting). There are hard cases to suit all
portable memory storage or power needs, including ones for the new XD
Picture card format, a Type II PC card, Smart Media, SD and Compact
Flash cards, Sony Memory Sticks and even good ol' plain vanilla
batteries. We all know what a pain and, frankly, how embarrassing, it
is to be caught out in polite society without a vessel in which to
store your memory, so now you have a choice. Vote Elecom.

More info: http://www.elecom.co.jp/news/200305/shelspia2/index.html

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Name: Kokuyo mimioPersonal
Category: PC peripheral
Price: 39,800 yen
Release date in Japan: May 6, 2003

The Gist: Rounding out a slow week for gadget news (if those Elecom
cases didn't give you a clue, this might), the mimioPersonal is a
real-time PC digitizer. Which, in English, means you write stuff on
the pad and it magically appears on your PC screen. Consisting of a
digitizer "binder" pad and pen set, Kokuyo's wizardry makes the binder
a receiver and allows the pointy end of the pen to transmit signals to
the pad using infrared and ultrasonic waves. Your PC gets to hear
about all of this because it's hooked up to the binder via USB, so
what you write on the pad appears on your computer right away. These
things are great if you need one, and for non-touch-typists, they
could be a godsend.

More info: http://www.kokuyo.co.jp/

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================================EVENT=================================
ICA May Special Roundtable Event

SPECIAL EVENT -- TUESDAY, May 20, 2003

The ICA is pleased to announce a major networking and business
development roundtable event on May 20. The event will include an
executive networking cocktail party, a gourmet stand-up buffet and a
roundtable discussion with three of Tokyo's top Mobile Technology
leaders.

SPEAKERS
TED MATSUMOTO - President - Qualcomm Japan
TOSHI IWATA - Vice President - Cybird Co Ltd.
DANIEL SCUKA - Wireless Watch - Editor in chief

If you would like to attend please RSVP on our sign-up page at:
http://www.icajapan.jp/signup.html
by 17:00 Monday May 19, 2003.

Location- Yurakucho Denki Building, Foreign Correspondents' Club
Cost: 3,500 yen (members) 6,000 yen (non-members)
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Subscribers: 3,489 as of May 16, 2003

STAFF
Written by: Max Everingham (max@everingham.net)
Edited by: J@pan Inc editors (editors@japaninc.com)

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