Interest: June 2004 Archives
Apprently amongst the new developments in Akihabara (Electric Town) in tokyo, are these Cos-Play Cafes. Its seems that since Akihabara being a geek/Otaku central, the resturants and cafes in the area have begon using cos-plat waitresses in the likes of Maids, nurses and other uniformed characters. This article also talks about many other forms of entertainment, that is NOT in Akihabara and how these cafes' are not sex services.
Link from Japan Today.
Another from Mainichi: Wai Wai.
THere's this cute little report on the new phrase "M-Agers" Apprently these are refering to age 10-14 year olders who cant live without their phone. Here's a little research info from Textually.org.
BC boy wins National Coin Design Contest
A canadian boy came up with the design, which won their contest. It is the The 2004 Canada Day 25-cent collector coin. I'm not sure if this will go into regular circulation, but that would be really cool.
Apprently, this whole new branching of Blogging, MoBlog. I know i do this on my own blog. But i did'nt think they'll name it and groupd it. Apprently this is viewed as some sort of vouyerism. Somehow, this movement is fueled by teenagers with camera phones. Well what do u expect of them to be taking pictures of??
Department of Engineering of the University of Cambridge is Ghim Wei Ho, a PhD student in nanotechnology, took these pictures. These are suppose to be silicon carbide are grown from droplets of gallium on a silicon surface. I apprently in the future these nano tech can be use to shape the surface of structures to be like water resistence or many applications of nano tech. But for now, we have these beautiful picture of "nanoflowers" and "nanotrees".
The UN University ( i didnt know there was one) did this recent research about floods. Their result is posted here. They r basically stating that its going to get worst due to weather changes, de-forrestation and pollution.
The number of people worldwide vulnerable to a devastating flood is expected to mushroom to 2 billion by 2050 due to climate change, deforestation, rising sea levels and population growth in flood-prone lands, warn experts at the United Nations University.
They do say its probably will be the most dramatic in Asian countries. Dont know mayeb the "Day After tomorrow" was onto something...
So there it is. With the coolness and convience of bluetooth, we have reported the first Bluetooth virus. Apprently it will mess with ur bluetooth device and repeatly sends its self to near by bluetooth devices. Its called EPOC.cabir, here's the Symantic Link. From what i've read it isnt harmful, but rather, someone wanted to proof that this can be done.
Wired has their NextFest and posted this open panel discussion on their magazine for May. Little old, but i just came across it, bnd it has a lot of interesting discussion between: Rob Glaser (RealNetworks), Yair Landau (Sony Pictures), William Gibson (author), and Ed Zuckerman (TV producer).
They tlak about interetsing topics like why are there less "science fiction" shows? and how advertising effects our generation. Smart bunch, good questions. I suggest a reading.
NextFest: The Shape of Things to Come (note this is actually page 2 of the Enitre NextFest Article the panel only goes to page 4.)
Also the entire coverage of NextFest is pretty good read. An optimistic look of tech in our future, or space and medicine.
THe future of online video games is described in this article by Wired writer, David Kushner. With interviews with the creator of Tetris, who is currently working for Microsoft.
He believes that what makes a game successful is not marketing spin or pyrotechnics, but a stealth combination of calculus and addictiveness. His dream project: a daily downloadable puzzle that will be the digital age's answer to The New York Times crossword.
This article refers more to the games from Yahoo! Games, and MSN Gaming, rather then stuff like Half-life2 type of games.
Biometric Bodysuits from the Applied NanoBioscience Center has taken fashion to a new tech level. Read this article here more about it. Reported from the Wired NextFest 2004.
Also Wireless tech use to herd cows? Farmers use laptop to command herd?? Farmer Technology.
Google has this new email service thats in Beta right now. A friend of mine invited me in. Since u cannot sign up for it yet. I feel like an internet elite now... part of some sort of special thing.
But the the whole concept of gmail is that they give u huge space, u dont sort ur emails, instead... u search in ur inbox. I guess Google wants to put a spin on their email service. I also read of a "google account". Not exactly sure what this is, but i assume, this will eventually lead to some sort of My yahoo! kinda of deal.
Gmail
my adress: melchoir(at)gmail.com (learn to use (at), so bots dont grab ur email address and spam u, but then th elink is actually using @...)
I just though that this is a funny picture. Casue in the days where i need to reboot my cellphone, our fridges will start crashing.
the Takeo Paper Show 2004 in japan, seems to be a big designers gathering. Besides the banana fruit box from yesterday we also get this, parent/child plug. U'll specially like this if u do object programming. But anyway, here's a link to some show pictures.
Bloomberg:Asia has an article about a new methanol-powered laptop from Toshiba, that can last 10 hrs. Also siting the many japanese tech companies are looking into alternative power sources for the "power-hungary" electronic devices that are coming out on the market.
Normally i'm not a big fan of PBS stuff. But i've stumbled across this website called P.O.V. Borders. Its a webstie that explores the theme of
"Borders" in our lives. Kinda of like an online news magazine, but without the cheesy scare tactics.
I foudn the site to be well made, not surprisingly, since PBS has been know to make some great websites. Also there is a great 10 min documentry/short on Bottle water and Tap water that hit home with me. With info like NY has one of the safest tap waters and how we spend more on bottle waters then we do on gas.
During the last week-ish i've been looking up Japanese bands. I found this band today: The Brillian Green. (or this english fan site) A band started in 95' and seems to Alt-Rock. Named one of the top 10 bands out of US by Time. And yes the lead singer Tomoko Kawase is pretty hot. She has a Lisa Lobe/Japanse cute thing going. She is married to the bands Guitarist, Shunsaku Okuda. Ah all the good women are married, all thats left are the ones with issues... But anyways, the band Brilliant Green or "Buri Guri" is cool, they have a buffism speech page, and they are quite the cute people. Kawase has 2 side projects, Tommy Feb 6 and Tommy Heavenly 6. Feb 6 is almost J-pop, while Heavenly 6 is Alt -rock. Tommy, is Kawase single project. Though she is refer to as Tommy and has an unhealthy obession with elmo.
