Tag: JAPAN

It's easy to laugh at criminals who steal virtual goods (yeah, it's a thing now!), before you reckon, "Hell, maybe I could make big money by scam-shilling Elven Shields to acne-scarred MMO fiends." Then, of course, you realize that you have a conscience -- unlike Yu Nishimura and Kaori Tanaka, who were just arrested in Japan for hacking and robbing players of 'Lineage II,' to the tune of $12,000. ...

When greeting foreign dignitaries, first impressions are important. Perhaps Japan was operating in accordance with some apocryphal page from Emily Post when it decided to welcome attendees to the APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) summit with the Paro animatronic seal, the singing/dancing HRP-4C fembot and an awkward single-seat vehicle from Toyota. Judging from the look on his face, ...

Hatsune Miku has topped the pop charts in Japan, sold out stadium concerts and become a legitimate cultural phenomenon. The interesting thing is that Miku doesn't exist -- at least not in any traditional sense of the word. Miku is a computer-generated avatar that performs songs with the help of a live band. But unlike say, Gorillaz, a cartoon band that merely serves as the public face of an ...

Look out, Blake Lively. There's a new robotic actress in the game, and she's got skills. The remarkably lifelike Geminoid F robot has been around for several months, but finally made her stage debut this week in Japan, where she managed to wow theatergoers without ever getting up from her chair. The 'bot spent the entire play seated onstage, and all of her movements were controlled by an offstage ...

Scratch and Sniff stickers exploded in popularity during the glorious early '80s, but the trendy olfactory simulators rapidly faded into obscurity. For some reason, Japanese scientists apparently hope to revolutionize the forgotten, fragrant industry by incorporating scent production with modern technology. Keio University researchers reportedly worked in conjunction with Canon to hack -- and ...

It might not pose a threat to Lady Gaga -- yet -- but the HRP-4C dancing robot busted an untethered move at Tokyo's recent Digital Content Expo. The humanoid bot, which is being developed at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, took the stage with a group of backup dancers to offer folks a glimpse into the future of robotics and, possibly, pop music. Not only can ...

Some of us at Switched have decided that we need to stop referring to humanoid robots as 'creepy,' even if they do plumb the depths of the Uncanny Valley. So the best way for us to describe the HRP-4C -- a Japanese singing robot that attempts to mimic human facial expressions -- is to call it 'unnecessary.' See a video of the entirely non-threatening and irrelevant 'droid after the break. ...

Computers have been beating humans at games for a while now. Remember IBM's Deep Blue, which beat chess champ Gary Kasparov way back in 1997? More recently, IBM developed a supercomputer that could defeat a human at 'Jeopardy.' Despite these advances, computers haven't overthrown the human race -- yet. But, according to The Mainichi Daily News a computer dubbed Akara 2010 recently defeated ...

According to a new study from research firm TNS, Japanese social networkers are the loneliest people on Earth. As the BBC reports, the study found that the average Japanese Web surfer has just 29 online friends -- the lowest average among the 46 countries under examination, well behind even China's average of 68 friends. At the other end of the spectrum, Malaysian online consumers have the most ...

Japan has been at the forefront of automotive design for quite some time. As if that point needed to be reinforced, Pink Tentacle has collected photos of Japanese concept cars dating back to 1957 that make even modern models out of Detroit look retro. Sure, some are completely impractical, but, if GM had ever made a car like the EX-III above, it probably wouldn't have needed bailing out. ...

Panasonic is set to unveil this entirely non-threatening, hair-washing robot at the International Home Care & Rehabilitation Exhibition in Tokyo next month. Designed for the elderly in assisted living facilities, the 'bot works in conjunction with a mechanical bed that transforms into a wheelchair, thereby preventing granny from shouting racial slurs at the orderlies (or, "easing the burden ...

Earlier this week, Kawada Industries and Japan's National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) revealed the HRP-4 robot, a 5-foot-tall worker bot designed to help out around the workplace. In the video after the break, the blue-and-white bot squats, twists at its waist, strikes a pose on one leg, gives a thumbs-up and just looks generally cool. At 86 pounds, the HRP-4, ...

During the five months that he was held captive by Islamic militants in Afghanistan, Japanese journalist Kosuke Tsuneoka never thought he'd ever see his friends or family again. Now, however, he's finally back home -- thanks, in part, to Twitter. As the AP reports, Tsuneoka recently seized a golden opportunity to communicate with the outside world, when one of his captors asked him how to use ...

Japanese gamers, specifically male ones, are downright obsessed with 'Love Plus.' In case you've never heard of it, 'Love Plus' is a dating simulator in which players get a virtual pet girl to chat up and (hopefully) kiss. The DS title is getting the sequel treatment, 'Love Plus +,' and, to promote the new installment, Konami created an augmented reality iPhone app. The app allows users to ...

Thirty-year-old Yoshifumi Takabe did what any emotionally repressed nerd might do when his mother, with whom he lived, threw out some of his robot action figures. He burned down the house. Takabe, who says he became suicidal after losing the Gundam 'bots that he considered his life partners, just plead guilty in Kobe District Court for setting the blaze in 2009. ...