Slashdot Mirror

commanderfoxtrot writes "According to the BBC, Narita airport can hire out PDAs capable of translating 50,000 Japanese and 25,000 English spoken words. This is all part of the e-Airport scheme at Narita: The speech-to-speech technology was developed by NEC, tested in Papero robots and then put in PDAs. ... Papero (Partner-Type Personal Robot), is the first robot to translate verbally between two languages in colloquial tongue."

apirkle writes "As reported in this article on EEtimes.com, NEC has claimed today that they own 'essential patents' on carbon nanotubes, and that all companies who make or sell nanotubes must purchase a license. NEC has a press release stating that they have already sold a license."

An anonymous reader writes "TechJapan has posted a translation of an Impress Watch Article regarding a new technology developed by NEC and the Nara Institute of Science and Technology, that lets people use their cellular phones with cameras as scanners. It says all you have to do is move your phone over the surface of the piece of paper while recording a movie, and the technology (some sort of software I presume) will construct a high resolution image from the individual frames of the video. Here is the original (Japanese) NEC press release." I'd love to see before and afters to see how well this works.

Mister.de writes "NEC Plasma Display Corporation today announced the launch of two 61-inch wide plasma monitors from the PlasmaSync(TM)61XM2+series (a grey bezel model, and a silver bezel model) that are equipped with "Enhanced Split Screen" ability - a high quality, high performance Double Picture function. Sales will commence on February 1st, 2004 to meet various uses mainly in multimedia presentation and public display applications with different release dates for each region. NEC Plasma Display Corporation is targeting 25% of the world commercial market share with its 11 model line up. See the source with picture or Read the Main Specifications." The 1365x768 resolution definitely means this is more TV than Monitor, but who wouldn't want it in their office?

Mister.de writes "NEC Plasma Display Corporation today announced the launch of two 61-inch wide plasma monitors from the PlasmaSync(TM)61XM2+series (a grey bezel model, and a silver bezel model) that are equipped with "Enhanced Split Screen" ability - a high quality, high performance Double Picture function. Sales will commence on February 1st, 2004 to meet various uses mainly in multimedia presentation and public display applications with different release dates for each region. NEC Plasma Display Corporation is targeting 25% of the world commercial market share with its 11 model line up. See the source with picture or Read the Main Specifications." The 1365x768 resolution definitely means this is more TV than Monitor, but who wouldn't want it in their office?

Vegan Pagan asks: "We've heard plenty about RDRAM and DDR-SDRAM, but what about 1T-SRAM? According to conjecture, a fan report and a press release, it makes Gamecube efficient, but are there any tests that compare 1T-SRAM to RDRAM and DDR-SDRAM?" According to the fan-written report, 1T-SRAM uses a combination of a single transistor cell and "multibank" architecture to deliver low latency in a cheaper chip with less complex circuitry. Sounds good, but has anyone here put one of these things through it's paces? How well does it live up to the hype, especially in comparison with time-proven memory architectures?

return 42 writes: "NEC will start selling 61-inch monitors next month. No pricing yet (if you have to ask, you can't afford it)." I'll promise to return it if NEC sends me one for review. Honest. Cross my heart. Update Chrisd sent us a related note, here's a 63" that got stolen. One of a kind of kind souvenir baby!

Capt. Mondo writes: "Just found this press release on NEC's Web site featuring a wine glass with a diameter of 2,750 nanometers. Normally this sort of thing would make me think it's some silly holiday-themed publicity stunt for nanotech -- like the world's smallest ad placed on a bee for guinnessworldrecords.com -- but the fact that NEC is claiming to have a new process for creating nano-sized objects in 3D (with the "glass" being the result) makes this a bit more interesting. Apparently the new process uses an ion beam with a diameter of 10nm, a gas containing the base material for construction and good ol' CAD. "

Reality Master 101 writes: "Saw this originally in Pop Science, but check out NEC's press release. More like a capacitor than a battery, it can be recharged in 5 minutes and has a life of 10s of thousands of cycles. NEC claims it has the highest energy density of any electrochemical device, as well as a current discharge rate 20 times higher than lead batteries (20mAh device: 9A in 10 seconds... electric cars, anyone?). To top it off, they can make it in a credit card-thin format. Very cool, and about time!"

gupg writes "NEC has a new personal robot in "incubation"; the FAQ says that it's a prototype developed in their research labs. The web page is really amateurish and the robot doesn't look too aesthetically pleasing, but it seems to be much smarter than the AIBO. Looks like they are trying to add a court jester to your house who will switch TV channels, check email and do small-talk with you. Only problem is that the battery lasts for about 1.5-2 hours and recharging takes 2-3 hours. " Believe me, after sharing an office with Rob's Aibo, there's a lot of ground to cover before we've got digital pets.

gupg writes "NEC has a new personal robot in "incubation"; the FAQ says that it's a prototype developed in their research labs. The web page is really amateurish and the robot doesn't look too aesthetically pleasing, but it seems to be much smarter than the AIBO. Looks like they are trying to add a court jester to your house who will switch TV channels, check email and do small-talk with you. Only problem is that the battery lasts for about 1.5-2 hours and recharging takes 2-3 hours. " Believe me, after sharing an office with Rob's Aibo, there's a lot of ground to cover before we've got digital pets.