Filed under: Wearables

For shame. We know good and well engineers can concoct energy-generating garb that actually looks good enough to wear, but evidently those fashion-minded gurus weren’t hired for this project. Granted, we have all ideas the image you’re quizzically staring at above is NTT’s first go at a pair of power-packing sandals, but there’s clearly a good ways to go before these things are cute / safe enough to wear on the streets. Might we suggest shoving all that hardware inside of something? The “all hanging out” look just isn’t working here.

[Via TokyoMango, image courtesy of AFP / Getty]

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Filed under: Misc. Gadgets, Wearables

Phone battery constantly dying as you wander from place to place, moving in and out of reception and leaving it straining to find a signal? You aren’t alone, and if you’re not the sort to wear a conductive dress (in public, at least) you may want to keep an eye out for some new kicks in the works from NTT. Their soles are filled with water, displaced as the wearer walks and forced through a tiny turbine. Current prototypes generate 1.2 watts of electricity, enough to power your iPod as you strut, but by the time these things hit production in 2010 the hope is to more than double that to 3 watts so that you can charge up your mobile, too. Sounds fantastic, but we’re a little unsure about running wires down our pants to get that juice where we need it.

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Filed under: Displays, Misc. Gadgets

Apparently July is a hot month for ad trials in Japan, as just weeks after a number of 65-inch digital posters were installed in a Tokyo train station, in flies word that yet another consumer-luring installation is being tested. Recruit and NTT Communications are delivering Scent-emitting LCD Display Systems to an underground mall in the heart of Japan, each of which rely on a 42-inch LCD and a scent-sprayer that emits delightful odors to correspond with the on-screen imagery. The goal is to attract onlookers and get them to grab a nearby coupon book, but considering that the experiment shuts down on August 1st, you should probably get your nose down there in a hurry if you’re looking to score some savings.

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Filed under: Gaming

Stateside DS gamers can already get online using free WiFi at McDonald’s, but now Nintendo’s bringing a slightly different version of the service to Japanese McD’s: customers can log in to get menu information and download free game demos. The service is being rolled out at 21 Tokyo-area restaurants with an assist from NTT, which also provides DS wireless service at Japanese train stations, so things should get lit up fairly smoothly. You’d better hurry if you want to join in on the fun, though: the test program ends on December 28th.

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The morning has only begun and already the first oddity has been unleashed in Japan. You’re looking at NTT DoCoMo’s “Mobile Fragrance Communications Kit” which is based on the same scent delivery technology NTT has already deployed into homes and movie theaters. Fragrance playlists are downloaded to your DoCoMo phone and then transmitted over Ir to the portable “aroma generator” pre-loaded with base fragrances. The scents are then unleashed into the room under the accompaniment of new-age MIDIs and animated GIFs we presume will include dancing pandas and Hello Kitty cats. Ugh. The pilot program runs from April 10th to the 20th and will undoubtably be a huge success in the land of the uprising robo-san.

[Via Impress]

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Filed under: Cellphones

It’s just not fair. While we’re lucky to bear witness to a single hot handset release per month, our Japanese brethren just received a batch of 10 new handsets to swoon over courtesy of NTT DoCoMo. The very best of the best from the new FOMA 905i series includes the Panasonic Viera P905iTV and 5 megapixel Sony Ericsson Cyber-shot SO905iCS. As you’d expect from a handset sporting the Viera branding, the P905iTV is all about the mobile TV with a feature that smooths-out 1Seg’s 15fps mobile broadcast rate to display it at 30fps on that 3.5-inch 480 x 854 pixel display. The 17.7-mm (0.7-inch) slab also packs HSDPA and a battery capable of a 1-month standby. Otherwise, it’ll pump that TV-to-vein fix for 6-hours straight or up to 80 hours of SD-Audio or 65 hours of WMA if that’s your preference. Meanwhile, the Cyber-shot SO905iCS brings a 5 megapixel CMOS camera with 3x optical zoom and 2.7-inch, 480 x 864 pixel display to the Japanese market. It features an LED flash, face recognition and anti-shake stabilization while busting a 24-mm (nearly 1-inch) girth. Plenty more of these two in the gallery below.

[Via The Unwired and Impress]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

When you don’t have any friends and your robot has been locked up for “juicing granny,” there’s always the Wellness Navigator ready to give it to you straight. The NTT DoCoMo / Mitsubishi device is said to include a pedometer and pulse rate monitor while measuring such social taboos as bad breath and body fat content. We assume it makes phone calls too. No pricing or availability yet, but we’re pretty sure it will ship with a free subscription to Cosmo and a one-week “starter pack” of diet pills.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Networking

Word that Brett Favre broke the NFL’s touchdown pass record shot around the world pretty fast today, but if Japan’s National Institute of Information and Communications Technology has anything to do with it, you’ll be hearing about such things even faster in 2015, when the group and several private companies intend to launch a next-generation optical network with peak data-transfer speeds of 10 gigabits. Although similar projects are underway in both the US and Europe, the Japanese effort has some heavy-hitters behind it, including NTT, Fujitsu, KDDI, Hitachi, Toshiba, and NEC. The system, which will cost a projected $260M over the next five years, will be able to support 100 billion devices but still maintain those gaudy transfer rates, even for mobile users. No word on when the tech will hit the States, sadly, but here’s hoping.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!