CEATEC 2008

Quick note: Hey guys! Sorry for the slow update. I’ve been wanting to share this with you guys for a loooong time but work has been plaguing me like a demon! Hope you enjoy the stuff in this post as much as I did! 😀
 

CEATEC 2008 Japan!

2 weeks ago this HUGE technology exhibition happened in Tokyo Japan. It is the CEATEC 2008 which showcased the latest technologies (including cool prototypes!) by companies around the world ranging from household electronics all the way to robotics. I came to know about this exhibition when my brother showed me Nissan’s new “Bee technology” which is an automated crash avoidance technology for cars. However, what got me super excited and left me scouring for hours about CEATEC were the other COOLER technologies on display. Hopefully I’ll have the opportunity to attend the next CEATEC!

I’ve gone through most of the videos of stuff showcased at CEATEC 2008 and filtered the ones I find most interesting. Here they are in no particular order:

Enjoy!! 😀
 

1) Panasonic Life Wall
Enough with the smart homes featuring all sorts of gadgets that are wired all over your ceilings and walls. How about a gigantic wall that is gesture-sensitive and highly interactive instead? That is what Panasonic calls a “Life Wall” that will literally convert the walls of your room into a virtual playground. With face recognition technology, it can identify who is standing in front of certain parts of the wall and display options based on the user’s profile. What more, daughter can watch a dance channel on the left, parents can watch TV in the middle and son can play games on the right. All on the same wall. No buttons, no wires, no dividers, no remote, just a flat, smooth and sleek wall. 😀

If you don’t think that’s cool enough, wait till you see its video conferencing and call technology. The whole wall becomes both a camera and TV where both parties can see the entire room which the wall can see. It looks as though you are really there being able to see your friend walk “closer to you” as she approaches the wall. The only missing element is “feel”.

 
 

2) Real Space X-Ray Phone
X-Ray Phone? Is it a phone that X-rays people? This is far from that. KDDI invented a 6-axis phone that is able to scan the perimeters of where your phone is based on an axis as though you are standing on the tip of the Earth. In other words, when you look straight on you see the places in front of you as though you are standing on top of a sphere. The technology will scan entertainment areas that your phone can see in front of you and display it on the “sphere map”.

To me, it really seems much more easier to locate places and navigate than using maps that look top down or are vertically flat on your phone. With this methodology, you can quite accurately pin-point how far you are from each shop as it is all displayed on a 3D sphere relative to your position on the sphere. Alright, enough jargon from me. Watch for yourself!

 
 

3) Panasonic EZ Touch Remote
This product got the “Best of Show at CEATEC 2008 Award”. Instead of having a remote with a gazillion buttons for everything, why not just have one flat piece with touch technology? And no, the remote doesn’t display buttons for you to press. Instead, the options are displayed on the TV screen. Really practical approach to creating more user-friendly remotes! 😀

Did I forget to mention that they have a bunch of nifty softwares that fully utilizes the power of this technology too?

 
 

4) Hitachi’s Gesture TV!
Hitachi decided to take a different approach from Panasonic. Instead of creating a remote which people always misplace, lets just be rid of the remote forever! And hence, we have the Gesture TV. The way the software is designed makes it easy for the user to know how much of a movement the TV detected. Although a little unresponsive at times, after some practice the user should be able to seamlessly produce flawless gestures. It should not take longer than the amount of time needed to use touch features on a Pocket PC efficiently.

 
 

5) The Separate Keitai Phone
From the land where iPhones are considered outdated, here comes a “2-piece” innovation from NTT Docomo. The whole concept of the phone revolves around the phone being made of 2 pieces that can be easily detached and attached in different ways for different functions. For example, if you detached the phone, you can use one as a remote control and the other as a TV screen. OR, you can use one to play games while you use the other to talk to your friend. OR, you can use both as screens. If attached vertically, it becomes your usual clam-shell phone. When attached HORIZONTALLY, one becomes a QWERTY keyboard giving you something like an N99. I can’t really see the practical side of this phone but it is sure to “WOW” onlookers with the multitude of things it can do from being both attached and detached.

The phone is still in its prototype stage (although it looks very complete to me) and Docomo is still gauging whether there is a market among consumers for such a phone. With a market driven more by hype than functionaly, I think they should just release it. I will definitely get one if it worked here!! After all, Docomo phones in Japan are not expensive when compared to Pocket PCs being sold around the world.
 
 

6) War of the THIN TVs!
I have to admit that there is nothing that “WOW” about this other than the TVs being REALLY thin which is something a LOT of us would love *__*.

Panasonic’s NEO PDP Display (2.47mm) vs Sony’s New Bravia (0.8mm)

 
 

WHERE ARE THE ROBOTS???

I know some of you were expecting to see some super cool robots. I was expecting that too!! but to my disappointment, none of the robots were really “mind-blowing”. They were more like like car driving assistants, a robot that can cycle and another that could do bowling. Pretty ordinary stuff especially when you compare it to the bionic arm by Dean Kamen.