japan

Spider silk is about four or five times stronger than steel, but it is remarkably lightweight. So, what would it feel like to walk around in a suit woven of the stuff?

Spiber, a startup in northern Japan, is showing off a dress made from synthetic spider silk. The firm is one of several groups looking into how to make and use artificial spider silk, a task that has proven to be very challenging for scientists.

The electric-blue dress was created from a material Spiber calls Qmonos (from kumonosu, or "spider web," in Japanese). The material is extremely strong and more flexible than nylon. … Read more

If you love doodling with a pen but hate accumulating paper, Sony and E Ink are coming out with a tablet/digital notepad that's large and relatively light for its size compared to big e-readers.

The 13.3-inch Digital Paper touch-panel display was recently shown off at Educational IT Solutions Expo (EDIX) in Tokyo. Sony is planning to try it out at Japanese universities and bring it to the general market this year.

It incorporates the E Ink Mobius electronic paper display, announced earlier this month. Mobius is based on thin film transistor (TFT) technology developed by Sony and is being billed as the first large-format flexible display to enter mass production.

Built on a plastic substrate, they can be much lighter than glass-based TFTs, with 13.3-inch screens weighing only 2.1 ounces. … Read more

We may be closer to harnessing the power of the sea and air. The world's first hybrid wind-current power generation system will be installed off the coast of Japan later this year.

The Savonius Keel & Wind Turbine Darrieus (SKWID) power generation system being developed by Mitsui Ocean Development & Engineering Company (Modec) is a floating system that shares a vertical floating axis. On the company's Web site (PDF), Modec says the concept will generate double or more power from the same sea surface area as a conventional wind turbine. … Read more

We've all known people who, let's face it, have a bit of a pong, and not the cool video game kind. The trouble is that no one wants to be the impolite person who lets them know about it. Well, two companies in Japan have designed a pair of robots that do it for you.

The robots, designed by robot manufacturer CrazyLabo in collaboration with the Kitakyushu National College of Technology, are in the shape of a girl's head and a rather lumpy-looking dog, and they can detect the aromas emanating from your breath and your socks, respectively.

The girl, called "Kaori-chan" (which means perfume or fragrance), analyzes a person's breath when they exhale into her open mouth (ew). A commercially available odor sensor quantifies the components on the breath and give it a rating on a scale of one to four: … Read more

What do you get the kid who has it all? A robot mecha suit wouldn't hurt.

Japan's Sakakibara Kikai has a new crushworthy robot exoskeleton that would turn a few heads at school.

The bright green Kid's Walker Cyclops is an 800-pound, 7-foot-tall drivable mecha suit with a cockpit and moving arms.

The front of the machine opens to become a ladder to the cockpit. As seen in the vid below, one hand has a hook to grapple foes and the other has a power drill to smite obstacles. … Read more

A Japan-based report indicates that production of at least one key component for the next iPhone will begin next month.

Sharp will begin volume production in June of the display "panel" for the "next" iPhone model at its Kameyama plant in Mie prefecture, according to a report in Nikkan Kogyo Shimbun, a major Japanese industrial newspaper.

Sharp's Kameyama plant has not been operating at anywhere near full capacity but production of the next iPhone's display is expected to bring the plant to "full production," the report said.

The specifications for next iPhone … Read more

Ever thought about putting a cat on top of a giant piece of sushi and taking a picture? No? Yeah, us neither. Japanese company Tange & Nakimushi Peanuts, however, has a very different mindset, and the result is what you see here.

Besides selling pictures (and there are plenty) of the sushi-fied cats, there's also a mobile app available for iOS and Android smartphones. Unfortunately, these prints are only available in Japan, though the app is free to download. … Read more

Apple Chief Financial Officer Peter Oppenheimer took a minute during Tuesday's earnings conference call to cite Apple's success in Japan -- an important metric in a country where national brands were once invincible.

"In Japan, IDC Japan announced that iPhone gained the number one position for all of calendar year 2012, as well as for calendar Q4 2012 in both handsets and smartphones," Oppenheimer said.

He continued. "This is also the first time a non-Japanese company has achieved the No. 1 spot for an entire year...In addition, Apple was ranked No. 1 in Nikkei'… Read more

Would you be more willing to buy a tablet if it had a slick sci-fi promo video? How about something that mixes "The Matrix" with Apple's iconic "1984" Macintosh ad?

That seems to be what Japanese app developer Ubiquitous Entertainment iss shooting for with a series of eerie, dystopian videos titled "Brave New World" that introduce EnchantMoon, a stylus-operated tablet that lets you easily create HTML5 games and apps without programming code. … Read more