TDV Reports: Three Asimos Attack!
Now in XDV! (Xceptional DV)
Some close-ups of Asimo’s ankle joints, tinted face shield, and knees.
The lighting was strange/futuristic and the fluid/freaky motions of Asimo made this an intriguing clip; still one of my personal favorites. Shot at one of the Robodex Expos in Yokohama, Japan.
Originally released in 2002.
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TDV Reports: Tokyo Midtown Promo
A promo clip shown at Tokyo Midtown’s press conference last Monday.
“Various elements are intertwined to contribute to the diversity by accepting and stimulating each other.”.. Sounds fun..
The audio translation is a bit tough to pick up, but I’m not sure if it’s due to the audio level or the content of the speech.. Sometimes Japanese just doesn’t translate well.
The clip has some nice shots of the general area, and also shows how Tokyo Midtown has ‘intertwined’ Japanese cultural icons, such as the ‘torii’ and bamboo paneling.
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Japanzine’s Links to Japan on the Web
This year’s Japan on the Web list of links, formally known as Japanzine’s Best of the Web.. These links were chosen by James Hadfield at SeekJapan, also known as Japanzine; the monthly print mag is still called Japanzine.. Did ya get all that?Anyway, TokyoDV made the Best of the Web/Japan on the Web list for the fourth year in a row! Whoo-hoo! There are a lot of Japan-centric links in various categories. Be sure to check them out, and maybe let them know if some are missing..
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TDV Reports: Commuting to Work
A friend back home was doing a report on ‘how people live in other parts of the world’. I thought maybe a video of my commute to and from work might represent ‘living in Japan’.
Since I don’t own a car and use the trains exclusively for transportation, I thought it might be interesting for her American classmates.
Her school is also in a rural area in the States, so the Tokyo skyline and large buildings I see everyday and take for granted might also be unique.
At a little over 10 minutes, the video is much longer than my usual clips. I’m not sure if it’ll be very interesting for some.. But I think it will be for others.
The clip has trains, drunks, escalators, people, buildings, and views from inside Roppongi Hills. The music is cheesy, but it’s my original and natural cheese.. 
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Japan’s Coming of Age Day
Sometime in early January, Japan celebrates twenty-year-olds becoming adults. Coming of Age Day is time for them to dress up in kimonos, gather at the local city hall, and listen to bureaucrats tell them how important ‘adults’ are.
The new adults usually get drunk before, after, and sometimes during the ceremony since they’re now legal drinking age. They can also vote at the age of twenty, so in this clip we see some right-wing black busses shouting their opinions to the newly christened voters. The wing-nuts don’t like Communists, kissing in public, or parked cars in their way.
This Coming of Age Day is probably like any other; kimonos, rabbit suits, and big black busses..
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Kodak E-Revolution 2002: Mini OLED Screens
A short video clip of some mini OLED (Organic Light Emitting Diode) screens, apparently designed for cell phones.
Actually, at the dislplay booth, I thought I remembered reading these displays were prototype plasma screens, but my memory could be failing me; I couldn’t find anything online regarding plasma cell phone displays.. The crisp clarity of the video images on the tiny screens make it hard for me to believe they’re OLED..
This clip is from 2002, and it appears the Sanyo/Kodak OLED team has since been disbanded.. “Under a deal worked out between the two companies, Sanyo will first buy Kodak’s stake in the venture then shut it down.” - CDR Info
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Fuel Cell Vehicles at the Tokyo Motor Show (article)
In a white smock and clutching a stack of notes, Nobutaka Takahashi stares down at the internal skeleton model of Nissan’s X-Trail fuel cell vehicle (FCV) on display at the 2005 Tokyo Motor Show.Since the industrial revolution spawned only the internal combustion engine and not a provision for a $70-a-barrel rate for oil, alternative fuel vehicles are the talk of this year’s show. For Takahashi, a member of Nissan’s research and development team, this is his baby.
Tokyo Motor Show 2001: Mecerdes Benz F400 Carving
My first real clip of effectively mixing sound loops with video. The Mercedes Benz F400 Carving surprised me when I first saw it; it’s a real-life ‘Batmobile’!
About three weeks after I posted the clip, I got an email from Germany. It was one of the engineers who helped design the front-end steering mechanism. He was impressed with the video and wanted to know more about what I saw that day regarding the F400; the crowds, the impressions, the atmosphere, etc..
We exchanged quite a few emails, and I got the first taste of what video could bring to the Internet experience; this was in 2001 and broadband hadn’t yet matured or been utilized properly.. At the time, everyone was ’streaming’ their content. I always thought it was a waste; Downloading small packages of quality video was so much a better ‘browsing’ experience than streaming.. and I always knew what level bit-rate my viewers were watching.
You can find more on the F400 Carving at Edmunds.com: “Incorporating drive-by-wire technology, this ‘Benz controls steering and braking through computer-monitored impulses rather than conventional racks and cables. This allows for quicker responses from the car; after all, these computers are smarter than you. They override human inputs that it deems as incorrect (Hal? Hal?)..”
Vodafone Barcode Demo
Vadofone used to be called J-Phone in Japan; I believe Vadofone bought J-Phone in 2002.. Anyway, I stopped by one of their display booths in Shibuya and tested out their ‘barcode reader’. Actually, it looks more like a ‘mosaic’ code than bar code, but it works in the same way.
David Beckham was huge in Japan at the time, so at the booth you could take a picture of the barcode, send the photo to an email address, and receive a photo of Beckham on your phone.. Whoopee!
I think Vodafone was one of the first to successfully implement the barcode, which now can be found everywhere. Unfortunately, it didn’t help their business model in Japan as it seems they’re flopping like a football player in desperate need of a rest..
FOMA P2102V Video Cell Phone Debut
A couple years ago, Docomo debuted what I believe to be the second generation of it’s popular video cell phone; the FOMA P2102V. I don’t think anyone had seen this kind of design yet; the screen twists and swivels perpendicular to the key-pad part of the body. It looked like a thin consumer level video camera with zoom, record, pause, and play functionality. I released this video two days after this model debuted. See the first generation of FOMA video phones here; the FOMA P2101V video
