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I suspect you're talking about Rokkasho-Futamata wind farm battery power smoothing system:
http://www.cleanenergyactionpr...
http://www.hitachi.com/New/cne...

It's sitting on nominal 34MW battery capacity. They advertise a 85MW total capacity because they count their raw wind output in addition to battery capacity for best case scenario. As far as I know, they are not on the grid, merely a test case attached to an existing wind farm. It appears it has gone nowhere, most likely because technology was unfeasible.

This could be because they use sodium-sulfur batteries that are exceptionally dangerous and operate at high temperature (300-350C) and are simply unusable on small scale nor large scale. They only fit this kind of "medium scale" implementation where they can minimize the risk by making facility reasonable in size while large enough to be functional. And the cost of this operation is astronomical in comparison to normal spinning reserve, which is likely why project has gone straight up nowhere. Essentially all other battery based deployments are in sub-megawatt range:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Japanese companies [...] genuinely want to know how to make the business better by finding out how people actually work.

Their website actually bears this out. The good use of this technology will map out how well teams are communicating (which can sometimes make or break a project). We say that inter-team communication is good, and sometimes have meetings to this effect; but this can show whether the company is practicing what it preaches.

Alas, I share the same concerns as the naysayers. I highly doubt this would be used by any American company in a way other than to penalize individual workers for brief moments of inactivity.

Guaranteed to get rid of off your employees who have other options!

You are assuming that the employees would know about the sensors in their badges. Why would the managers tell them?

Judging from the pictures, I'd think it would be pretty obvious this isn't your typical RFID badge.

iSuppli
http://www.isuppli.com/MEMS-and-Sensors/News/Pages/Japans-Digital-Compass-Makers-Work-to-Maintain-Supply-Amid-Earthquake-Aftermath.aspx

MGC
http://www.mgc.co.jp/eng/news/2011/pdf/110318-2_e.pdf

Shin-Etsu
http://www.shinetsu.co.jp/e/news/s20110322.shtml

Renesas
http://am.renesas.com/press/notices/notice20110322.html

MEMC
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/memc-update-following-japan-earthquake-118003244.html

Hitachi
http://www.hitachi.com/New/cnews/f_110317h.pdf

Fujitsu
http://www.fujitsu.com/global/news/pr/archives/month/2011/20110314-01.html

You can turn down the beam current in the two slit experiment until you're talking about orders of magnitude less than one electron in the apparatus at any one time on average and you still get the diffraction pattern.

That's not correct. See experiment and photos here (Figure 2). Single electrons produce single dots. It's only after you dump many electrons through that you get a pattern - that's simply because the electrons follow wave trajectories rather than the standard trajectory visualized from classical motion. In reality everything follows these same wave trajectories, it's just that for macroscopic objects, the individual oscillations of the individual particles cancel out.

I don't know why it's any more conceptually obvious that a "variable" should be smeared out than an "electron" should be smeared out.

The phrase "smeared out" conveys nothing, so it should be no surprise that it can be used for situations that are completely different.

I'm pretty sure that can't be right. I could perhaps understand the control freaks at Sony trying to pull a stunt like that, but requiring AACS is going to have a big impact on another emerging market Sony has a huge stake in; HD camcorders. Currently, the only way of efficiently distributing sizeable hi-res content from such a camcorder to friends and family (assuming they have HDTV capability in the first place) is via a physical HD disc, which essentially now means Blu-Ray. Hitachi even has a HD camcorder available that records straight to an 8cm Blu-Ray disc, which is then supposed to be immediately playable in any Blu-Ray player. Unless both the Hitachi camcorder and end-user AV software is also doing AACS encoding before writing content to disc, then that's going to leave a lot of HD camcorder owners just a little peeved when they try and show of their latest home videos in glorious HD.

Then again, it could actually be a good thing if they don't play on standalone players. It was bad enough having to sit through $random_family_member's holiday snaps, things took a turn for the worse with the first analogue camcorders, but the thought of seeing all that in HD? Won't somebody please think of the children!

I am embedded systems engineer with 10+ years engineering experience with flash devices, fpgas and PALs (and gals) in various projects.
I personally have seen a lot of "failed" flash devices. One of the first Intel PQFP designs I had "ringed with gold" and turned into a necklace because it was so much fun de-soldering SMT components!

Even with the new flash tech, I wouldn't buy a SSD based on flash tech and especially with what is lurking around the corner.

I am *eagerly* awaiting Hitachi's ferromagnetic SPRAM memory tech. It's fast in all respects and does not have the flash write limitations.
Watch and see, this stuff is the death of the IO bound spinning platters folks! Good riddance!
I am just hoping that Hitachi realizes their spinning platters business which has been losing money since day one may be saved by innovation and may be more valuable for it's namesake than it's non-solid state design tech. They need to start building SPRAM based SSD's.
http://www.hitachi.com/New/cnews/070213.html

I purchased a 100MEGABYTE Conner Peripherals IDE harddrive for $850.00 back in the day (I have probably burned more than $200k on junk that I wish I could convert back into cash again). I am tired of being an early adopter and paying exorbitant prices for new toys. These flash SSD's are the new "Conner 100MEG Hard Drive" for me. No thanks...

Power consumption specs for programming PRAM are not stated in many places but
I was able to find a reference here:
http://www.hitachi.com/New/cnews/051213.html

And for comparison to flash memory, here is the 512Mb 1.8v part from ST Micro:
http://www.st.com/stonline/products/literature/ds/ 10058/nand512r3a.pdf

The specs do not line up exactly.
PRAM: 100uA at 1.5V for programming each bit cell
FLASH: 8ma at 1.8V for programing one page (256 bytes), internally rebuffered in SRAM

from the source: http://www.hitachi.com/New/cnews/030902.html

hitachi.com

"by the only real power left in the world, and that is the United States, when it suits our interest, and when we can get others to go along."

Well, as you already started the subject I can not resist and clarify that it's not the first time Hitachi made a vibration related device.

Enough to run a goole search about famous Hitachi vibrator.

Look at the Hitachi RPTVs. What do you notice? All of the current models have a DVI input.

Some camcorders take up to 1,998 pictures to DVD. And some offer 1MegaPixel resolution. Like the Hitachi DZMV380A, Panasonic also has one, and Sony has one on the way. But battery life will be an issue. Of course I would think that would be a problem with a regular camera also. But since it records to DVD-RAM, you should be able to delete the ones you don't want to keep.

While the software side of things seems to be pretty similar to that of the Zaurus (Lineo Embedix, Trolltech QTEmbedded/Qtopia, Insignia Jeaode JVM, Opera, Hancom Office suite) there are some important hardware differences. Rather than any of Intel's StrongARM based chips they're using an Hitatchi SH7727[PDF] and are citing USB Host Control as a capability of the device. I'm an owner and big fan of the Linux-based Zaurus, but the SA-1110 leaves a lot to be desired when USB connectivity is concerned. It can only act as a slave device and the silicon has numerous bugs and conflicts with general USB support and the USB CDC Spec (just check out Intel's own docs on the chip if you want to check up on this). This causes great problems with connectivity. The SA-1111 companion chip adds USB Host capability and some other nifty features, but is not used in any Linux handhelds that I know of. It would also increase size and power consumption if used. It will be interesting to see how the SH7727, with it's similar approach to "handheld on a chip" functionality stands up against Intel's offering. It could end up showing the Pro's and Cons of these chips at the core of the devices more than the handheld as a whole. There's also more info on India's movements into the handheld market here

Who in their right mind spends $2000 on a television?

Now if you don't like TV, or watching movies, or playing video games, then complaining about how people can spend $2000 on a TV is a moot point since you're not an enthusiast to begin with.

If you want to wonder about people with too much money, go see the Prada store in NYC and find someone who is casually spending $3,500.00 on a jacket. Now that's scary.

I don't know anything about this code/documentation-stealing thing, but is 84% of the market a monopoly?

I interned at IBM working on PCOMM in the summer of 1998, and at that time everyone was all worried about Hitachi mainframes eating up their hardware business, and terminal emulation from Zephyr

Apparently the hardware part was due to Hitachi's continuing to use bipolar technology for their CPUs (which is what IBM used as well), where IBM made the leap to CMOS - this gave Hitachi an advantage for about two years, but these days, CMOS again has the performance advantage, and IBM was there first.

On the software side (and this is a big deal, because when you sell hardware, usually you sell tens of thousands of software licenses as well), the Zephyr software seemed to be just generally more modern and "better", and that's probably as true today as it was then.

I saw this on the news a couple of nights ago. Hitachi makes the RFID. According to Hitachi the chips only contain 128 bits of ROM which is most likely only enough for a unique ID to trace the product or passport, etc. Perhaps another flaw in their design is the use of the 2.45GHz band which is already in use for 802.11b and microwave ovens. What's going to happen if they scan my passport while my portable microwave generator is outputting 100mW? That's surely enough to interfere with all RFID chips in the local area. I am also curious as to how these devices will power themselves considering they are .4mm^2.

Hmm.. didn't know that. In comparison, the SH4 (SH7750) has 16 32-bit General Purpose Registers (GPR). Got the info from the hardware manual for the SH7750 off of Hitachi's site (pg 42). General purpose registers allow programmers to put info into a quick safe place that is near by. The GPRs aren't always necessary, but sometimes are useful for storing results of operations like add, mul, div, comparisons, etc.. More registers are useful because if you are out of general purpose registers then the programmers (or more likely compiler toolsets) other alternative is to use the stack which is stored in on chip memory if it can fit (~5ns), or off chip memory (at least 30-50ns penalty with external bus), or worst of all virtual memory (10,000ns not sure, but dont think ever. don't write compilers so not sure). However, that being said there are always tradeoffs and GPRs are not the only way to say one proc is better than another. Yes, more than four is better, but 16 isn't necessarily the end all solution. There are definitely many other architecture points to evaluate as well. These numbers are rough estimates so corrrect at will.

JOhn

What struck me as odd was the blurb at the end of the article, where they talk about adding SAN and wireless 'soon'. How the hell are they accessing and storing 6TB of data without a SAN or NAS in place? Considering that data availability is worth $136,000 an hour to them, one would think they'd have already put a premium on high-availability storage systems.

My take: Hitachi has an expensive (and therefore slow-selling) product called the E-Plate. So, someone gets the bright idea to repackage this bad boy with an even more expensive and power-hungry display solution.

And this improves on the iPaq how?

-Mr. Cranky (dvd_tude)

As a result, when you turn the drive on and off regularly, it should last much longer and wear less, according to Maxtor. The company rates the drive for at least 50,000 on/off cycles with a component design life of at least five years.

Maybe I just got lucky, picking a couple drives at random from these sites? Maybe a "Contact Start Stop" is different from Maxtor's new 50000 "on/off cycles" ??

I tried to look up the similar spec for my little Hitachi DK23AA-12 laptop drive, which I've abused in so many ways while working my my little homebrew mp3 player (ok, shameless plug)... but Hitachi doesn't seem to have a spec about the number of times you can start/stop the drive. Just for one last try, I pulled up one of IBM's laptop drives, the Travelstart 20GN (page also covers larger models), and they have a spec of 300000 "Load/unload cycles". I wonder if a "load/unload cycle" is similar to a "contact start stop".

Sometimes I wonder if hard drive specs (other than formatted capacity) really mean much anyways.

The link is not broken or slashdotted, the server just won't serve up the page if the URL is typed in, for some reason. If you go to www.hitachi.com, and click on DVD Cam, it loads fine.

"Hitachi preps first DVD-RAM camcorder" on ZDNet
"Hitachi to hit market with first DVD-RAM camcorder" on ZDNet
"Hitachi shows DVD-RAM camcorder" on IDG
The Google search I used to find all this stuff
I can't find a hitachi mirror on their global or japanese sites.

--------

Ok so the perfect output device for the HDTV could just be this 42 inch plasma flat panel but where do we source a HDTV signal?
Can anyone actually get this via cable or satelite? Whats the other hardware requirements invloved in the ultimate HDTV experience?

I'd like to see someone integrate one of these into a notebook.

Well, Mitsubishi has the AMiTY CP and XP. They use the WACOM technology for their LCD displays/digitizer tablets. Heck, they use standard Intel mobile Pentium chips, 2.5" notebook harddrives, and run Windows 98, so installing Linux or BSD would probably be fairly easy.

Not using WACOM parts, but still related are the ePlates from Hitachi. These are quite interesting; however at about the same size and weight as the AMiTY tablets, and with Windows CE instead of Windows 98, they might not be as much fun. Cheaper though.

There are a number of other tablet computers on the market. They're just a bit more difficult to track down than your standard, boring old notebook. Oh, and a little more expensive.

First of all, I have been working on MicroMouse for the last two years, and one of the things I have been really been hunting around for is a microcontroller that has enough memory (both flash and RAM) as well as enough processing horsepower to do motor control, navigation, etc. We needed something with built-in serial interfaces, timers, interrupts, I/O ports, etc. because we wanted to make this thing as small as possible. I have looked at many different parts including PICs, the SX, various 80186 processors, the Hitachi H8 and SuperH, ARM, and many others that I'm not thinking of right now. The first thing I've learned about these devices is that the newest ones (and the ones we wanted to use) use either insanely small pin spacings (which requires a custom PCB) or they are of the BGA type (which requires a minimum 4-layer PCB with soldermask as well as special mounting equipment). We finally settled on the Hitachi H8S/2357 even though it was a 128 pin QFP with 0.5 mm pin spacing.

The things I don't like like about these newer, highly integrated processors are that they are more expensive, they tend to be a pain to mount, and chances are, you probably don't need that much processing capacity anyway. While our current versoin of the MicroMouse uses an H8 as the main processor, it also uses a couple of SXs to operate the sensor array. While these SOC's will certainly have a market, it will certainly not eliminate devices like PICs and other smaller microcontrollers from the industry.

Admittedly their model looks really really sweet, but if I can't get it, then who cares :(

It says something about not selling their notebooks in the US market on their site.

http://w ww.hitachi.com/products/information/computing/note books/index.html

Are they available from some place that imports foreign laptops?

Dreamcast does not use MIPS. It uses SuperH by Hitachi (specifically, the SH4).

The DC is more or less a Hitachi SH4 CPU along with a PowerVR graphics chip, a sound chip, a goofy CD drive (the "GD-ROM"), and a TV-out. Just about all the components in a Dreamcast, or their near equivalents, are not made by Sega.

What is it that comprises "Dreamcast technology" other than parts built by companies other than Sega? Why is this anything other than yet another "Internet Appliance" venture? I understand why Sega would want to get deeper into that market, I just don't understand what is so special about "Dreamcast technology."

I won't argue with you, using an x86 for a console, is a MAJOR flaw. However what do you mean that consoles usually have specially developed CPUs? Consoles usually use an existing chip (or some slightly modified variation) because it's cheaper than developing a new one, testing it, and then having it manufactured. Nintendo and Sega don't have the resources to do that and maintain their central business. The Dreamcast's SuperH4 chip is just a standard component you can get from hitachi as far as I know. Other console's CPUs (OTTOMH) are: Master System/Game Gear -- Z80, NES -- 6502, Genesis -- 68000, SNES -- 65c816, Saturn -- SH2 (two of them), and Playstation and N64 both have MIPS processors (R3000 and R4300 respectively?)...

I won't argue with you, using an x86 for a console, is a MAJOR flaw. However what do you mean that consoles usually have specially developed CPUs? Consoles usually use an existing chip (or some slightly modified variation) because it's cheaper than developing a new one, testing it, and then having it manufactured. Nintendo and Sega don't have the resources to do that and maintain their central business. The Dreamcast's SuperH4 chip is just a standard component you can get from hitachi as far as I know. Other console's CPUs (OTTOMH) are: Master System/Game Gear -- Z80, NES -- 6502, Genesis -- 68000, SNES -- 65c816, Saturn -- SH2 (two of them), and Playstation and N64 both have MIPS processors (R3000 and R4300 respectively?)...

Researchers at the Hitachi Cambridge(UK) Lab at Cambridge University are developing a new memory device named 'PLEDM' - Phase-state Low Electron (hole)-number Drive Memory, which they believe to be 'a promising candidate for the multi-Gbit memory chip which is scheduled to become available early in the next century'. In principle, it is possible to make a fast non-volatile PLEDM cell by modifying the barrier-structure in the channel, and they are confident that many of the present day data storage devices (eg: computer hard disk drives) could be replaced by PLEDM in the future.

The Hitachi press release

• Semiconductors & IC Home Page
  
• Microcontrollers & Microprocessors
  
• 8/16-bit H8 MCU
  
• 32/64-bit SuperH MCU/MPU
  
• Flash MCU
  
• SuperH enabling Windows CE
  
• Memory ICs
  
• Flash Cards
  
• LCD Drivers/Controllers
  
• QAM Demodulator
  
• Logic ICs
  
• Optoelectronic Components
  
• RF Power Amp Modules
  
• Discrete Devices
  
• Packaging
  
• Developer Information
  
• Mass Storage Products
  
• CD-ROM
  
• DVD-RAM
  
• DVD-ROM
  
• Hard Disk Drives
  
• Multimedia Recorders
  
• MPEGCam
  
• M2 Multimedia Recorders
  
• Handheld PCs
  
• LCD Projectors
  
• 8mm Camcorders
  
• ATM Products
  
• Accessories
  
• Analytical Instruments
  
• Belt Sanders
  
• Brake Hose
  
• Bread Makers
  
• Broadcasting & Professional Cameras
  
• Chemical & Nuclear Plant Equipment
  
• Chiller Heaters
  
• Circular Saws
  
• Color TV
  
• Compressors
  
• Dealerboard Products
  
• Desktop Computers
  
• Digital Printer
  
• Drills
  
• Enterprise Professional Services
  
• Fans
  
• Full Size VHS Camcorders
  
• Gears
  
• Genetic Systems
  
• Graphics Tablets
  
• HMCA Diagnostic Ultrasound
  
• HMCA Nuclear Products Division
  
• Imaging Software
  
• Industrial Video Products
  
• Interconnection Materials
  
• Inverter Welders
  
• Inverters
  
• Jig Saws
  
• Large Motors
  
• Mainframe Computers
  
• Mainframe Storage
  
• Mass Transit Systems
  
• Massager
  
• Microwave Plasma Etching Equipment
  
• Mini-Notebook
  
• Miter Saws
  
• Monitors - Color
  
• Multimedia Vision
  
• Nailers
  
• Notebook Computers
  
• Open Systems Servers
  
• Open Systems Software
  
• Orbital Sanders
  
• PBX Products
  
• Planers
  
• Power Plant Equipment
  
• Power Semiconductors
  
• Power Steering Hoses and Assemblies
  
• Premise Wire
  
• Printed Wiring Board Materials
  
• Printed Wiring Boards/Assemblies
  
• Printers
  
• Printers - Color Laser
  
• Programmable Logic Controllers
  
• Projection TV
  
• Projection Television Tubes
  
• Reciprocating Saws
  
• Rice Cookers/Food Steamers
  
• Roll Mills
  
• Routers
  
• Semiconductor Materials
  
• Shavers
  
• Submersible Motors
  
• Super TFT Color Displays
  
• Super TFT Color LCD Monitors
  
• Synchronous Optical Network (SONET)
  
• TFT Color Displays
  
• Test & Measurement Equipment
  
• TradeLink
  
• VCR's
  
• Vacuum Brake Hose
  
• Vortex Blowers
  

Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction.

Here's a list of products from their web site's Product Finder:

Semiconductors & IC Home Page, Microcontrollers & Microprocessors, 8/16-bit H8 MCU, 32/64-bit SuperH MCU/MPU, Flash MCU, SuperH enabling Windows CE, Memory ICs, Flash Cards, LCD Drivers/Controllers, QAM Demodulator, Logic ICs, Optoelectronic Components, RF Power Amp Modules, Discrete Devices, Packaging, Developer Information, Mass Storage Products, CD-ROM, DVD-RAM, DVD-ROM, Hard Disk Drives, Multimedia Recorders, MPEGCam, M2 Multimedia Recorders, Handheld PCs, LCD Projectors, 8mm Camcorders, ATM Products, Accessories, Analytical Instruments, Belt Sanders, Brake Hose, Bread Makers, Broadcasting & Professional Cameras, Chemical & Nuclear Plant Equipment, Chiller Heaters, Circular Saws, Color TV, Compressors, Dealerboard Products, Desktop Computers, Digital Printer, Drills, Enterprise Professional Services, Fans, Full Size VHS Camcorders, Gears, Genetic Systems, Graphics Tablets, HMCA Diagnostic Ultrasound, HMCA Nuclear Products Division, Imaging Software, Industrial Video Products, Interconnection Materials, Inverter Welders, Inverters, Jig Saws, Large Motors, Mainframe Computers, Mainframe Storage, Mass Transit Systems, Massager, Microwave Plasma Etching Equipment, Mini-Notebook, Miter Saws, Monitors - Color, Multimedia Vision, Nailers, Notebook Computers, Open Systems Servers, Open Systems Software, Orbital Sanders, PBX Products, Planers, Power Plant Equipment, Power Semiconductors, Power Steering Hoses and Assemblies, Premise Wire, Printed Wiring Board Materials, Printed Wiring Boards/Assemblies, Printers, Printers - Color Laser, Programmable Logic Controllers, Projection TV, Projection Television Tubes, Reciprocating Saws, Rice Cookers/Food Steamers, Roll Mills, Routers, Semiconductor Materials, Shavers, Submersible Motors, Super TFT Color Displays, Super TFT Color LCD Monitors, Synchronous Optical Network (SONET), TFT Color Displays, Test & Measurement Equipment, TradeLink, VCR's, Vacuum Brake Hose, Vortex Blowers


Yeah, gas grills are prolley in there someplace.
[text processing courtesy of awk, btw.]

And no, I don't work for them.