Archive for the ‘cgjapan’ Category

Sony And Toshiba To Merge OLED And LCD Businesses

The consolidation process in Japan’s electronics industry continues: Toshiba and Sony are in talks to combine their OLED and small LCD businesses, various Japanese news sources are reporting. The plan is to find synergies in the production for small LCD panels for smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices in order to catch up with Sharp, which currently holds the biggest share in the world market in this segment.

What’s interesting is that neither one of the companies but a government-backed investment fund will take a major stake in the new entity, which is expected to be established by the end of this year. That fund, Innovation Network Corp. of Japan, will likely control 70-80% of the entity, according to Japanese business daily The Nikkei (the rest will be shared between Sony and Toshiba).

Toshiba Mobile Display and Sony Mobile Display will cease to exist, and the yet to be named entity will compete with Sharp, the Hitachi-Foxconn alliance, and others in the global small LCD panel market.

Another interesting point is that the Sony-Toshiba move is aimed at getting both companies ready for a post-LCD future: the new entity is supposed to streamline all future R&D in OLED technology by the Sony and Toshiba. So far, big S and big T have been developing OLEDs separately, but they are far behind Samsung, the current global leader in that market.

Toshiba Decides To Give Up OLED Production

Just when everyone thought OLED screens would constitute the third of innovation for flat panel TVs (following LED backlit TVs and 3D capability), Toshiba just made a surprise decision. According to Japanese business daily The Nikkei, Toshiba has entirely given up previous plans to mass-produce OLED screens.

Toshiba’s subsidiary, Toshiba Mobile Display Corp., together with Panasonic, has invested $190 million in 2008 to set up an OLED production line at a factory in Ishikawa prefecture. The plan was to produce 1.5 million OLED screens for smartphones per year. But that won’t happen (on the picture, you can see a bigger OLED Toshiba showed two years ago).

Toshiba says its decision to scrap OLED was triggered by a surge in demand for LCD this year. Apparently, another important factor was the blow the recent financial crisis dealt to the earnings of the company.

All staff involved in the production and R&D of OLED will be transferred to the LCD panel division. The company will now focus on doing OLED-related R&D for lighting equipment only.

Light Pool: Japan gets a new designer cell phone

Japan’s second biggest cell phone carrier KDDI (over 30 million subscribers) rolls out quite unique handsets from time to time, mostly under their iida sub-brand. The company today in Japan introduced [JP] another “lifestyle” cell phone, the so-called Light Pool. Technically, the device isn’t anything special – but it’s rather pretty.

Read the rest on MobileCrunch.

SIGVerse simulates cooperation between humans and robots in virtual space

Japan’s National Institute of Informatics (NII) has developed SIGVerse, a piece of software that makes it possible to simulate how human beings and “intelligent” robots cooperate in a virtual space. The goal is to assess how robots can be “trained” to better work together with humans one day – without actually having to build robot prototypes in real life.

SIGVerse is supposedly the first software of its kind. The current version of the simulator system enables a virtual robot and a human being to work on simple tasks, such as baking a savory pancake, together. SIGVerse is supposed to make it easier to study how that robot converses with the human or how it behaves, while a real person can assume the role of the avatar.

For example, a virtual robot that doesn’t talk when being asked a question during the simulation can hardly be called cooperative and thus would need to be reprogrammed (in C++). SIGVerse can also be used to determine non-verbal communication skills, for example by examining how a robot turns its look when interacting with a human.

The NII plans to make SIGVerse available for everybody to use for free soon (it’s completely open-source).

40/40: New Super Mario Bros. gets perfect score from Famitsu magazine

Japan’s biggest gaming magazine, the Famitsu [JP], has given Nintendo’s newest Mario game New Super Mario Bros. the highest honor in the latest issue. All four editors who tested the game gave 10 points out of 10, resulting in a perfect 40/40 score.

New Super Mario Bros. is already the fourth game in 2009 to get a 40/40 rating, even though until 2007 the magazine was well-known for not giving away this score easily. But the perfect rating isn’t that surprising, as the game seems to be really that good and many reviewers outside Japan gave it the thumbs up already.

Here is a time line for all of Famitsu’s 40/40-games so far:

1. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (1998, for Nintendo 64)
2. Soul Calibur (1999, for Dreamcast)
3. Vagrant Story (2000, for PlayStation)
4. The Legend of Zelda – The Wind Waker (2003, for GameCube)
5. Nintendogs (2005, for the DS)
6. Final Fantasy XII (2006, for PlayStation 2)
7. Super Smash Bros. Brawl (2008, for the Wii)
8. Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots (2008, for PlayStation 3)
9. 428: Fusasareta Shibuya de (2008, for the Wii)
10. Dragon Quest IX (2009, for the DS)
11. Monster Hunter Tri (2009, for the Wii)
12. Bayonetta (2009, for PlayStation 3/XBox 360)
13. New Super Mario Bros.

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