GW-122

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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. 122

Thursday, November 6, 2003
(Long URLs may break across two lines, so copy to your browser.)

============================ IT PROGRAM ==============================
Temple University Japan presents "The Temple IT Program". Certification
in two key IT areas: Computer Programming and Software Systems
Development. Study to get a great job in IT, retrain to improve your
career in IT, assess and raise IT staff technical skills. Courses
based on leading-edge course content from iCarnegie (Carnegie Mellon
University). More info: http://www.tuj.ac.jp/itp/newsad.html
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Name: Canopus USTV-1
Category: PC
Price: Open (but approx. 14,800 yen)
Release date in Japan: end November 2003

The Gist: The USTV-1 is a new widget that connects to your PC or
laptop via USB (version 2.0 or 1.1) and is a TV tuner. Hurrah!
Compatible only with Windows 2000 or XP, the exclusive little gadget
teams up with the bundled "Feather-X" software to begin television
playback and recording on your computer. There's an input for both an
F-type TV antenna lead and S-Video on one end. It's small
(102.2x45x24mm), cute, light (80g), silver and has one of those smart
"iEPG" functions (electronic programming guides) to ensure you don't
screw up when trying to make the thing actually work. Any idiot could
do it, apparently. The USTV-1 also comes with a handy card-sized
remote control unit. Unfortunately, "credit-card sized" is, in this
case, about 27 times bigger than the actual machine, so you'll want to
lose that monster down the back of the sofa pretty quickly, before all
your friends start laughing at you.

More http://info:www.canopus.co.jp/press/2003/ustv1.htm

=============== J@PAN INC COST CUTTING SEMINAR =====================
November's keynote speaker is Mr. Dhananjaya "Jay" Dvivedi,
the CIO of Shinsei Bank. Jay has played a key part in helping
to turn around Shinsei and make it one of the most profitable
in Japan. As an insider, he will cover the challenges, solutions
and some vignettes about cost-cutting and transforming a
Japanese company into an international one.

Date/time: November 21, 2003 (Friday), 14:00-16:00
Venue: Ran Room, Imperial Hotel
Charge: Free (sponsored by Ibaraki Pref. Govt.)
For more details: see http://japaninc.net/ibaraki, or contact
yukiko.hosoya@japaninc.com.
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Name: Casio SY-4100WE/GM
Category: Bath-time shenanigans
Price: 50,000 yen
Release date in Japan: November 7, 2003

The Gist: I'm not sure why exactly this is, but I'm kinda obsessed
with the concept of sitting in a nice, relaxing, piping hot tub of
water and watching TV. Probably a ball game -- in which case, my
vision would include being bodily lifted out of the water at the end
of the game after about 18 hours, looking like a giant, angrily red
raisin, sapped of both my strength and the will to live. But I
digress. The idea of watching the tube while having a soak is, for
whatever reason, very appealing, hence Casio's latest baby, the
122,980-pixel, 4-inch LCD TV, otherwise known as the SY-4100. (The
WE/GM suffix refers to the body color of the 2 versions: WE for pearl
white (eh?!) and GM for gun metal.

Casio is, in fact, so much in agreement with my TV-watching-while-
bathing vision that the SY-4100 is actually dubbed the "bath TV." How
about that?! The entire unit is waterproofed for your bath-side
viewing pleasure. It takes a practical, rechargeable nickel hydride
battery that is recharged via the included AC adapter, and it has the
added bonuses of a tuner and a countdown timer function. The power
should last for four hours in normal mode and five hours, 15 minutes
in "conservation mode," whatever that does, with a recharge time of
about six hours. Mine's a gun metal one, please.

More info: http://www.casio.co.jp/release/2003/sy4100.html

=================== PAN PACIFIC LEISURE PACKAGE =====================
At Pan Pacific Yokohama, you can have a relaxing experience
for only 20,000 yen per night, including an American breakfast.
For details, please check http://yokohama.panpacific.com/
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Name: Fujitsu .U Pocket
Category: AV
Price: TBA
Release date in Japan: October 31, 2003

The Gist: Fujitsu has announced a "pocket-sized portable information
terminal" dubbed, not very smartly, ".U Pocket." What does ".U Pocket"
mean, for chrissakes?! Anyhow, the terminal has a four-inch SVGA
(800x600 dot) display and built-in IEEE 802.11b, Bluetooth, IrDA and
PHS compatibility. So, basically, if you're a businessman of any
variety, the little .U Pocket is your worst nightmare because it is
intended to be, as Fujitsu puts it, your "remote desktop" away from
the office. Meaning that you will, in fact, *never* ever again be away
from the office. Never. This little machine has so many access
options, there simply isn't an excuse left in the book for why your
work colleagues couldn't get in contact with you. Or you with them.
You'd have to go on a trip to Inner Mongolia (it's a myth that there's
an Outer Mongolia, by the way) to stand any chance at all of being in
a place where this thing didn't work. Or London, because of course
absolutely nothing at all works in London, not even the chocolate
vending machines (that's machines vending chocolate, not vending
machines made out of chocolate).

The .U Pocket has a digital camera and both Compact Flash and SD card
slots on board and runs on the Windows CE.NET operating system. And is
the devil.

More info: http://pr.fujitsu.com/jp/news/2003/10/31-1.html

============================= EVENT ==================================
GARTNER'S SYMPOSIUM/ITXPO 2003
Date: Nov. 19-21, 2003
Location: Le Meridien Grand Pacific (Odaiba, Tokyo)

Business today is all about reducing time, increasing speed, and
improving profits. Technology is the enabler.
Keeping up - and looking ahead - is your challenge and our strength.
Join over 2500 senior IT decision makers to hear Gartner's leading
global and Japanese analyst address technology issues that will
have the biggest impact on your enterprise over the next year.

View complete Symposium information at:
http://www.gartner.co.jp/symposium/eng/
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============================= EVENT ==================================
ICA November 20 Event

PRESENTER: Stefan Hanna, Director of Services, Nippon Ericsson
TOPIC: Development and implementation of new business
services for mobile telephones

RSVP required, complete event details at http://www.icajapan.jp/
Date: Thursday, Nov 20
Time: 6:30 Doors open, sit down dinner included
Cost: 3,000 yen (members), 5,500 yen (non-members)
Foreign Correspondents' Club
http://www.fccj.or.jp/static/aboutus/map.php
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Subscribers: 4,576 as of November 6, 2003

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

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