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But that's because only 2000 was produced.

And if Kitty isn't your thing, How about Doraemon?

It features a PXA270 416MHz CPU, 64MB of RAM (work area), 4GB hard drive, 128MB of flash, 640 x 480 display (3.7"), SD card slot, Type2 CF slot, USB port, and infrared port.
....

The battery is a rechargeable lithium ion, with a constant display time of 7 hours (when displaying the calendar). The body size is 124 x 87 x 25mm (W x D x H), and it weighs about 298g

At my site, we posted a two-part article on living in Akihabara. It's apparently not as bad as many make it out to be:

Part One
Part Two

At my site, we posted a two-part article on living in Akihabara. It's apparently not as bad as many make it out to be:

Part One
Part Two

For something that is a "sideshow" Nintendo is certainly pushing hard for it. I don't think that this was a spur of the moment thing. When Sony announced the PSP at E3 2003, it was the start of development. Though Nintendo announced the DS well after Sony, the DS was clearly well ahead of the PSP in its development cycle at E3 2004. Maybe this is because Sony shackled their engineers to the specs announced at E3 2003 (long before the first prototype was made), or maybe the DS was in the works longer than we think.

You still find people saying the DS was rushed. I'm sure that Nintendo hit the gas a little when they heard about the PSP, but they were much better prepared at E3 than Sony was.

Sony started developing the PSP at the time of the E3 2003 announcement. They announced the specs before the thing was off the drawing board. When you do crap like that, it is hard to take back what you said without a negative impact.

I don't know if the DS development started before that or not, but their PR department didn't make grand promises before they could get the thing working. Sony's engineers were probably held hostage by the announced specs and release date.

When will posters/editors learn to use Coral P2P cache? Come on guys it's not that hard. All you have to do is add .nyud.net:8090 to the base URL. Look I'll even do it for you: http://www.techjapan.com.nyud.net/modules.php?op=m odload&name=News&file=article&sid=772

Peripherals: Alpha-Data battery-powered 2.5" HDD case

HDD cases for both 2.5 and 3.5 inch drives are a dime-a-dozen these days. Alpha-Data tries to separate themselves from the pack with the "Copy BANK Case" - a 2.5" HDD case that supports battery-powered operation and can be used independent of a PC as a storage device for digital cameras and mp3 players.

[IMAGE]

Alpha-Data will release a USB2.0 external 2.5" HDD case that can operate on dry cell batteries, the "Copy BANK Case", in mid January 2005. It will have no fixed retail price but the street price is expected to be approximately 6000 yen.

Using the included battery box and 4 AA batteries, the case can be used independently as a portable HDD. The case supports hard disk up to 80GB in size.

The case can be directly connected to a digital camera, mp3 player or self-powered USB storage class device. When the case's "COPY button" is pressed, data is copied directly to the HDD.

The case can be used as a removable drive when connected to a PC. Power is provided by the PC's PS/2 port or USB port using the included cable. Supported operating systems are Windows ME/2000/XP and Mac OS9 or later.

The case is made of aluminium. Think about your breathing. It measures W80 x D140 x H14 mm in size and weighs 80 grams. Included accessories include a number of cables (mini USB-mini USB, mini USB - USB, mini USB - USB (female)) and a carrying case for the HDD case and battery box.

[IMAGE]

Inspired by:
http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/2004/1220/alpha .htm

Homepage:
http://www.alpha-data.co.jp/

Peripherals: Alpha-Data battery-powered 2.5" HDD case

HDD cases for both 2.5 and 3.5 inch drives are a dime-a-dozen these days. Alpha-Data tries to separate themselves from the pack with the "Copy BANK Case" - a 2.5" HDD case that supports battery-powered operation and can be used independent of a PC as a storage device for digital cameras and mp3 players.

[IMAGE]

Alpha-Data will release a USB2.0 external 2.5" HDD case that can operate on dry cell batteries, the "Copy BANK Case", in mid January 2005. It will have no fixed retail price but the street price is expected to be approximately 6000 yen.

Using the included battery box and 4 AA batteries, the case can be used independently as a portable HDD. The case supports hard disk up to 80GB in size.

The case can be directly connected to a digital camera, mp3 player or self-powered USB storage class device. When the case's "COPY button" is pressed, data is copied directly to the HDD.

The case can be used as a removable drive when connected to a PC. Power is provided by the PC's PS/2 port or USB port using the included cable. Supported operating systems are Windows ME/2000/XP and Mac OS9 or later.

The case is made of aluminium. Think about your breathing. It measures W80 x D140 x H14 mm in size and weighs 80 grams. Included accessories include a number of cables (mini USB-mini USB, mini USB - USB, mini USB - USB (female)) and a carrying case for the HDD case and battery box.

[IMAGE]

Inspired by:
http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/2004/1220/alpha .htm

Homepage:
http://www.alpha-data.co.jp/

Jeez, buy rechargables.

I looked at all those options as well, and decided that with the way the market is going, there will be a more kick-arse version of anything I buy within 6 months. (I'm not just talking standard technology advances better, I'm talking everyone getting into the field better)

I know that you specified wireless, (which I considered, as I already have an 802.11g AP plugged into my network) but for now I have ended up getting a Hauppage MediaMVP and putting in a run of cat5 to it.

The MediaMVP is basically just a small remote-control driven, network-connected set-top box which plays content from a server on a win2000/xp machine. Linux drivers have been made though, and the built in mpeg decoder makes it a good combo for the standard Hauppage PVR cards.

On the positive side, the sound quality is good, and the price is hard to beat ($99 retail, can be found for less).

Unfortunately the interface is shit. Very basic mp3 browsing - can move through the directories and playlists on your shared computer and select songs/playlists/directories. Unfortunately, there is no real skipping while playing several songs - the default setup if you choose a song is to play that one song and then stop. You can choose to play all songs in a directory, (shuffled if you wish), but it deosn't let you skip songs - if you choose another song, it just plays that one. The "skip" button just moves to the next page on the directory listing - an even worse interface on this first generation device than on my other first generation devices from preceding years.

The gui should however get better with firmware releases - already the latest firmware lets you add streaming radio stations (although not realaudio) and play divx files (although these have to be transcoded by your server). The MVP internals run on linux as well, so there are good possibility of future improvements.

As I said - there's quite a few similar devices coming out at the moment (eg this buffalo one ), and in six or seven months there will undoubtedly be something much better - but if I really want one of those I can buy it then, and I consider $99 a good price for 6-7 months of music.

Although we will of course have to wait for them to get out of Japan, I wouldn't mind buying a product like these nagase or buffalo players, or even this one

They've been out a while now, so most of the bugs should be gone, and I'd say that with the number of machines coming out, within a year they will be as ubiquitous as those supermarket $70 divx dvd players.

Although we will of course have to wait for them to get out of Japan, I wouldn't mind buying a product like these nagase or buffalo players, or even this one

They've been out a while now, so most of the bugs should be gone, and I'd say that with the number of machines coming out, within a year they will be as ubiquitous as those supermarket $70 divx dvd players.

Although we will of course have to wait for them to get out of Japan, I wouldn't mind buying a product like these nagase or buffalo players, or even this one

They've been out a while now, so most of the bugs should be gone, and I'd say that with the number of machines coming out, within a year they will be as ubiquitous as those supermarket $70 divx dvd players.

Just in case anyone was interested. I don't have more information really, but I do have more pretty pictures. Article is here.

According to this Japanese article reporting on a Mitsubishi R&D event back that I translated back in February, Mitsubishi's dish can download at 20Mbps and 1Mbps.
There's a couple assumptions that go along with my statement though - first of all, this assumes Lufthansa is actually using the Mitsubishi dish for the Connexion service. It also assumes that the actual connection speed is going to be the same as the experimental connection speed, because that's the only figures Mitsubishi provided. Either way, 20Mbps for a plane full of people probably won't be too fast. And I'm sure the pilot won't hesitate to turn it off if there are conditions in which the plane may need power redirected to other systems.

None of the press releases are saying it, but:
All three of the Impress Watch articles say it will cost around 40,000 yen - approximately $400 USD. And this is just for the reader, subscribing to the e-book service costs $5-10/month. They do, however, have the option of just purchasing single books for 350 yen, about $3.25.

PC Watch article

K-Tai Watch article

Internet Watch article

There are also MANY more pictures of the device available at the above URLs. There's even some showing a manga on the screen of the thing, for those of you interested in that sort of thing.

I do have a few pictures posted in my article as well, but it's really nothing you couldn't have found yourself.