Slashdot Mirror
Why Japan Gets the Cool Stuff
haahr writes "Good article about why the coolest electronics products are available first in Japan and may never make it to the U.S., in Slate."
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
I'm just angry that it takes so long to get my translated import copy of Urine Cop VI. The japanese make my kinda stuff, but oh, the waiting!
1. The Japanese have a national obsession with gadgets. They just can't get enough of them.
2. Japanese companies will give Japanese consumers what they want.
What's next on Slate? Articles telling us that Italians like pasta, Russians like vodka and Brazilians like football?
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
...before you read the article... ...dont even bother to read it... ...its just more mindless guesses like "the japanese seem to be good with technology" nonesense... the reasons in the article have nothing to do with the real reason which is much mor complex... the entire economy of japans workes different than The US and so say that it plays no factor is nonesense...
this is not a troll or flaimbait... i am simply dissagreeing with the article on its quality of info not on anything else...
unzip; strip; touch; finger; mount; fsck; more; yes; unmount; sleep
Look at...
g r ce3
OS X
iMac
iMac2
iBook
iPod
PowerBook
Handsprin
Newton
Palm Pilot
CrossPad
ViaVoice
Metal Gear Solid: Sons of Liberty
Spider-Man
Lord of the Rings
The Matrix
The Matrix:Revolution
VooDoo
VooDoo2
GeForce
GeFo
GeForce4
Quake3
Doom3
I'm sure there are more.
GPL Deconstructed
- 4. The Japanese are more feature-conscious than price-conscious. Japanese consumers want the smallest, lightest, most feature-rich laptop they can proudly show off to their friends.
...
Interesting"The Japanese are experts in small."
That's why asian chicks dig american men.
Doesn't this article look like a big advertisement for at Dynamism importing?
The Japanese are experts in small
Sony. Because caucasians are too damn tall.
perhaps because they aahh make them. Same reason why mexico has the best mexican food, and aaah irland has the bast dark ale
Since when did David Lynch start making mice for laptops? I know I would pay extra for a dark and disturbing, surreal input device. I guess Japan really does get all the cool new stuff...
--All your stolen base are belong to Rickey Henderson
Japanese companies keep their staff employed for more than six months at a time.
A minor point, but meetings don't make money, and middle managers don't build products.
If you take a trip to Japan and buy some electroncs, etc, be sure and carry your passport with you to the store and you will be exempted from paying the 5% sales tax.
They will fill out a little card, put a stamp on it, and staple it into your passport. When you exit the country, they will take the little card out of your passport.
Some of the the electronics stuff is labelled to run on 100V AC, but it works fine over here. And remember, don't buy a DVD player unless you really want the region 3 encoding!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I've been to Akihabara several times. I think many geeks in the USA overhype this place. As far as computers go, there really isn't much you can get there that's not available in the USA. And the prices aren't that great either. For example, looking for MP3 players, I saw the same old 32mb, 64mb or 128mb models you can buy here... none of the small spiffy hard-drive based ones. And the prices were more or less the same. You might be able to buy a Sony Vaio laptop model 6 months before its American counterpart is released. If that's worth dealing with customs and japanese warrenty support, go for it.
The problem is most of the japanese innovation is in their cellphones these days. Now the cell phones are cool, but useless in the USA.
The only stuff that comes first to Japan is the stuff that is made in Japan. Everything else gets here way late, or never gets here at all.
I'm still waiting for the concept of office LAN's, firewalls, and relational databases to really catch on here.
"Reactionaries must be deprived of the right to voice their opinions; only the people have that right." - Mao
The Japanese economy is quite sad. A (w)hole nation of Enrons. They only hope that the can let the hot air out slowly, and that it doesn't burst.
The trend of the 80's for American companies to bring in Japanese consultants has been reversed. Japanese corporations are now bringing in American consultants to show them how to emulate American prosperity.
I'd like to see the Japanese make a better on one of those.
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
Of course, the software thing is what really burned me up. I mean there isn't any reason why these games, that come out in Japan can't come out in the US. I remember the escalating mod chip war on the Playstation. The kept updating the technology to block import games from playing on my system (which had 0 effect on pirate games, incidentally) purely to prevent me from playing Megaman III on my Playstation! It was this that first made me aware of IP tyranny, before DeCSS. Not Rockman III, but the whole concept that I needed to mod my Playstation to play games I had legitimately purchased! My brother recently experienced the same thing (after I tried for ages to get him interested in the DeCSS fight) when he found out that the original, Japanese version of the movie Ring (live action) was being supressed in the US market in favor of the upcoming American remake (which I'm sure they'll Westernize to make more hip and scream-like...)
(Incidentally, Dreamcast owners should mod their consoles, there are some _seriously_ cool Japan only games for it.)
This is why I keep hoping South Korea will come out with a TV console. I like my GP32, and it is so open compared to Gameboy (of course, the game selection isn't nearly as good...) a similar concept in a console would be cool.
Of course, anything cool in video gaming can still be gotten from Hong Kong, for the moment.
As to laptops, I'm perfectly happy with my Tibook. I think it has all the cool factor of the one he mentioned.
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
In the end it all boils down to money.
We have too many conglomerates that won't spend to produce "cool" gizmos unless they can make huge returns.
They aren't interested in providing a service because it would be useful, rather only to make money.
No sig for you!!
I agree that those statements are offensive. It is a good thing that they were not included in the article referenced, or I really would have been angry.
My other first post is car post.
What is wrong with those statements? The author has the right to his opinions.
Free speech and all that, you know. They're hardly inciting racial hate, as you suggest.
... read on for an explanation of why the chinese always seem to get the cheap plastic useless gadgets before we do!
Seriously, people, a "good" story on slate? that'll be the day.
This comment is fully compliant with RFC 527.
It seems to me that in countries like Japan, the consumer base is smaller than in America so it is essential to their survival to quickly release better and better models to continue to drive consumer demands (not to be confused with meeting consumer demands).
Japanese place a huge value on packaging and aesthetics, not only with gadgetry. For instance, when looking at fruit, the most expensive watermelons are the roundest, consistantly greenest, and the stem forms a perfect 'T' shape. These perfect watermelons can cost $20 or more and may very taste bland.
his being stationed in Japan.
He had some interesting stories:
You would get your check in USD and stand in front of the bank line waiting for a favorable exchange rate between USD and YEN. Then when the numbers were right, the tellers would be mobbed.
There was this huge gomi pile of abandoned electronics that were almost brand new but no longer wanted; because there was a new model that just came out that had more gee wiz features.
If money falls on the street in Japan, it will usually lie there till it rots or is cleaned up and thrown away; he said it was beneath Japanese to pick up money or objects that have fallen on the ground.
People walk into a sushi/food bar and pick from freshly prepared items on a conveyor that moves past the patron. You pay on the way out.
People regularly sleep in what seems like morgue cabinets. Complete with miniature amenities.
What an interesting place!
Codifex Maximus ~ In search of... a shorter sig.
No, you do get terrorists. Those chemical weapon attacks in the subways, for example.
Japanese companies are better at giving Japanese what they want than American companies are at giving Americans what they want.
The reasons for Japan's preeminence in consumer electronics is simple, and completely absent from this article. The major reason is plain: kaizen.
Japan has a different system of product development. It dates back to ancient methods of production of artworks like lacquerware. Specialists in certain production methodologies allow the tasks to be separated. Many specialists were hereditary lineages, some families had practiced and continuously improved their techniques over hundreds of years.
And THAT is kaizen. Each product builds on the strengths of the previous generation, and eliminates weaknesses (or at least tries another approach). The Western approach is to build a product (or the packaging, at least) from scratch each time. Kaizen products are frequently updated, with minor incremental improvements. In many ways, it is a predecessor to Open Source methods like "release early and often" or "many eyes make bugs transparent."
The other factor is the short lifetime of fads in Japan. Fads like the Tamagotchi build to hysterical intensity in mere weeks. I still have an ad from the Asahi Shimbun with an apology from the President of Bandai. He apologizes at the inadequate supply of Tamagotchi, and promises Bandai is building new plants and within 2 months they will be able to produce 2million units a month. Unfortunately the fad was over long before the plants got up to speed, and Bandai ended up with millions of units they couldn't even give away. Bandai lost billions of yen and the President had to resign. So you've got to be nimble to keep up with quick-moving fads.
So anyway, how come complete idiots with NO knowledge of Japan get paid to write crap like that article? Jeez, the stuff I just wrote is far more informative than Slate's rubbish. I wonder if the author has evern BEEN to Japan.
and based on the prices I saw on some of the units for sale, I strongly doubt they come with legally licensed software.
hehe. only on msn will you find journalism like that.
/bin/fortune | slashdotsig.sh
Actually it's a big question. We are afraid to test the waters and move forward. While we pioneered these technologies Japan will put a semiconductor in anything - at least once.
America is quite like the fall of the Victorian Empire. She has become a nation afraid of progress and if something doesn't change she won't stay towards the top of the heap.
Off-topic, somewhat:
There is more, that is actually on topic, but I can't find the page now. I don't want to misquote either. Basically we pioneered that technology, invented the PC but the majority of parts aren't even made here - and I don't mean assembly - I mean the companies who own the RAM factories etc.
This is just a preview of things to come.
Get your Unix fortune now!
"I will not expose the flaws in the slashdot moderation system."
And clean the brushes when you're done!
The Japanease government provides a considerable assitance and incentive for their companies to cooperate as well. Such a proposition is unheard of in the US, where much effort is spent ensuring systems DON'T inter-operate, all in the name of profit. SMS is a prime example, in Europe or Japan, you can cross systems seamlessly, such a simplistic seeming idea would take an act of god here.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
So I click to see what this cool laptop is like. I find an article long on hype, short on content, and right slap bang in the middle of it, an ad for slate (a MSN and thus M$ outfit, right?) with a picture of a dazed, beat-up penguin.
That's pretty tacky. And transparent.
Dangit, I can't even find out if the durn thing will run Linux or if anyone is selling it with Linux pre-installed. :-(
-- This
Ahem... the Japanese taxpayer pays more to support the US bases in Japan than the US taxpayer ever did. It's part of the agreement.
The Japanese electronics companies, (and many american ones), use the US military AAFES and NAVEX stores overseas to test market a LOT of stuff.
Certain lines, or models, or even entire formats get a testdrive at the larger military stores. They have a captive, technoid, consumer group. if it flies there, you may see it in BestBuy.
Anyone remember the ElCassette? Mid '70's cross between a cassette deck, and a reel to reel. Fidelity of a reel, with the pop-in convienience of a cassette. I had a Technics model. Of course, they didn't sell that well, so it never showed up in the States.
> Americans typicaly spend much more money on things like mortgages,
> cars, and insurance than the Japanese do.
Nice theory, but not likely. Have you seen typical Japanese rents? For that matter, even the average European apartment rent is higher than the average American mortgage. Cars maybe, but not apartments. Even so, cars might not sell well in large Japanses cities, but overall Japan is still one of the largest automobile consumers in the world, so someone must be buying them.
You need high-tech gadgets to fight off rampaging Gojira.
GOOOOOJIIIIRRRAAAAAAAHHHH is COOOMING!
Hand Phone Laser Cannon.. ACTIVATE!
Very true. actually, I did see some cool stuff in the back alleys. vintage stuff too.. one guy was selling off a bunch of old macintosh Plus computers!
Then they came for the Japanese, but I didn't watch anime, so I didn't care...
Statements like "The Japanese are a close-minded, insular people without any of the warm, loving characteristics of Europeans." is not only false, it is dangerously close to Nazism.
What makes the Libretto so great is that it takes up very little space. At 10.5 inches wide by 6.6 inches deep, it actually sits between the keyboard and monitor of my desktop, allowing me to check mail on one machine while running Photoshop full-screen on the other.
Wow, that "feature" alone makes me wish I had $2k to dump into a product like that. At work I have a 15" monitor and PC next to my 15" Dell (L)Attitude screen, just so I can have my email up all the time. Email is becoming enough of a killer app for some people where it is worth paying for a device like this which really is a PC, not some crippled appliance to fufill solely that function.
This may be an emerging market segment. I believe the whole Japanesse only thing has to do with the culture of the companies. Car companies are the same way, just look at the Nissan Skyline, Subaru WRX (now here), Mitsubishi Lancer (an not the crap they are selling in the US now), etc. Electronics companies are no differrent.
-Pete
Soccer Goal Plans
but that philosophical idea has been around for a long time and that alone would not have made it cool. The way it brings that concept to life may be what made it cool, and if so, there are plenty of other philosophical ideas that are sitting on a shelf, gathering dust, waiting to be brought to life in such a similar way.
Great, so the Japanese have an even GREATER affinity for buying shit that probably doesn't work as well as its advertised to work, that they don't need in the first place, and that they probably can't even afford, than we do.
Is that something to celebrate about?
The most important decision for one should be cost-effectiveness, overall. That doesn't necessarily mean just the purchase price, but everything considered.
I'm sitting in front of a 19" monitor. It is big; it takes up a lot of room in all dimensions. It costed me about 300 dollars. Now, I could have spent and extra 300 dollars or so and gotten a flat-screen monitor.
That would definately be smaller and cooler.
But would it be worth it to me?
Well, NO.
I have plenty of space, so size is not an issue. I also value resolution and monitor integrity, so the flat-screen would blow. Flat screens have poor resolution (ever tried reading fine text on a flat-screen?), and their colors change depending on the angle you view them from. Also, I find the edges of flat-screen monitors to be very annoying.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
And what arguments do you feel would be worth considering?
I have been pwned because my
To here an American say that. May I welcome you to a place known as the rest of the world.
Nerd: Derogatory term typically directed at anybody with a lower Slashdot ID than you.
Just continual refinement, ie. miniturization?
I think the reason Japan has so much cooler stuff is that they are willing to take risks. In the USA, if a particular device or software/game is not going to "make millions" by attracting mainstream buyers, then there is little chance it would ever make it to the market. Publishers and manufacturers here want to take only the safest bets. Ever wonder why the USA is full of so many crappy movies, games, and me-too products? Why take a risk when you can copy something proven?
In Japan, they release just about anything that their minds and conjure up. Surely they have the same economic business sense as those in the USA, but perhaps their consumer market is much more willing to risk buying innovative stuff (this is basically what the article seems to conclude). Also, maybe because of Japan's small size, companies don't have to spend very much money on initial production runs?
Not, of course, your maths: 2002 - 1991 (ignoring a few non-recession years in the middle) = 11 years...
But: I remember in 1990 discussing with an American friend of mine (I'm British) that an Economist article said that Japanese productivity growth was significantly lower than in the US.
He laughed, and told me (basically) that the US was doomed and that we would all be speaking Japanese in 10 years.
Oh how times change...
--- My dad's political betting
Weekly charts (updated every... weeks)
:
http://www.asahi.com/tech/rank/weekly.html
This week, Apple's iMac G4-800 SuperDrive is #1 and eMac G4-700 with CD-RW Drive is #5.
Here's the monthly charts
http://www.asahi.com/tech/rank/monthly.html
Another good example is Ken Kutaragi, CEO of SCEI (Sony Computer Entertainment, Inc.). When he proposed that Sony get into the gaming business, he was almost laughed out of the room.
Effectively, Sony succeeded with the PS and PS2 not because of corporate foresight, but because Kutaragi never let the parent company pull the rug out from under him financially.
If the PS had failed, you can bet the he would have been out on his ass in a flash, though.
I would think that the obvious answer to why Japan gets things first is that they are closest to the International Date Line. It always gives Japan a huge jump on the rest of the world. ;-)
Since the US has been founded, the US has prided itself on being bigger and better than everybody else. Just look at our automotive industry: the Corvette, it has gobs of horsepower but no decent handling, and for about the same price one could get a Lotus Elise that handles beautifully and maybe does not have the "image" but sure does smoke the corvette in the slaloms gas mileage and in overall acceleration. For the most part the Corvette is only good for speed races, not complex races with hairpin turns. You could also look at the Us during the cold war, everything the USSR did the US had to do on a grander scale. The soviets have a massive cargo plane that can fit 12 tanks in it, we will have one that fits 13 etc. and then there is the venerable Xbox. The epitome of American hardware. It is large, it has gobs of horsepower (mhz) and it is home grown in the US ( microshaft) but is it really that good? It has horrible handling ( controller ) and gets the same performance as the smaller lighter Gamecube with less horsepower. So really the US prides itself on being the biggest with the most. What the US does not realize is that less is more. Apple has that down. Well except in the fact that they have a massive 23 inch flat screen HD display ( I have one, it is total bliss, but I do not need it) The first time I went to New York I saw the Sony MZ-R90 MiniDisc recorder. At the time I was listening to my crappy (MASSIVE) CD walkman that I purchased a week earlier. Seeing the sheer size of the MiniDisc reocrder that offered more functions and a better battery life than my crappy CD player I had to give in. since then I haven't used a CD ( except for video games) at school people are like "ew what is that?" I'm like "yeah it's my MD recorder," they are like " why would you want that? It is so small, there is nothing there at all." Not realizing that my MiniDisc recorder is superior to their Emerson CD player with 10 second anti-skip. America is crap. End of rant.
Just look at our automotive industry: the Corvette, it has gobs of horsepower but no decent handling, and for about the same price one could get a Lotus Elise
To be picky, not in the states they can't. The Elise isn't allowed on USA roads, EPA stuff (emmissions, crash regs). Lotus will soon import it, finally jumped over the EPA hurdle, but you can't say thats the reason now.
What are you talking about?
Only one of these are "shallow" copies. That's if, by shallow copies, you mean not identical except for the translation and enchanced Japanese content (I can't read Japanese, but I think I can assume that a Japanese Amazon will carry japanese books, a Japanese Yahoo Japanese sites, a Japanese Google Japanese translations).
I suppose if you mean shallow as in feeling, well, I don't get it. Websites don't exactly have feelings -- especially corporate websites...
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
They get the good and the bad products.
Hopefully the bad products are weeded out through the testing of an entire country, and we and up with the best combination of price and features later on.
I'd rather have a TV or laptop that's 2 or 3 years out of date than one that is more expensive and is full of features I don't need or want.
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
I can't help but think that a lot of what keeps stuff out of the US sooner are the regulations that go into a lot of electronic products.
I can think of quite a few things. I think of Celphones (any Nokia phone takes forever to get approval here), pieces of Video Equipment with low pass filters that the FCC puts on to protect other things from being interfered.
It's the way that things work in america. With the FCC, with the FDA, anything like that. America isn't bleeding edge like Japan, but we do it for a reason. It prevents us from putting out headache medicines that cause birth defects in children, and Cell-phones that disrupt pacemakers.
That's life.
/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
That's what I want to know: did Dynamism.com pay Slate for this infomercial, or did they just pay the "journalist" directly?
So the Japanese are a trendy people in a crowded country? That's news? Here's some more news: Americans are big cowboy-looking folks, constantly pioneering the next frontier. Brits keep a stiff upper lip, and they have to, too, because their food is so horrid! Germans are big on punctuality and order....
Here's some more news: you read Slate, so clearly you're not up to buying a laptop in Japan or on eBay, and figuring out where to get the right drivers! Oh no! You read Slate, you use Microsoft OSes, and you need your hand held when it comes to those daunting techie questions!
That's why it's so much MORE cost effective for you to PAY 30% ABOVE RETAIL for Dynamism.com to take care of it for you. After all, those trendy Japanese will pay almost anything to get it one inch smaller! Aren't YOU that trendy? You're not a LOSER are you? Prove it by giving Dynamism.com $500 bucks for installing an OS and shipping Airmail from Japan. Did we mention that all the cool kids get their toys at Dynamism.com?
By the way, it's Dynamism.com. Did we mention Dynamism.com?
Admittedly, the author concludes he won't pay the mark-up, so I'm probably going overboard. But I don't buy the pop-sociology, and it still reads like an infomercial.
Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
Akihabara is to electronics what Las Vegas is to gambling!
This is the ONLY point on earth where you will find the newest products at reasonable prices (prices depend on item).
I purchased an MD player there in 97 for 25,000 yen (at the time roughly $200 US). The same MD player came out in the US 4 years later and cost $700 US. That is an extreme example but there are lots of good bragains for things like plasma TVs, and cameras etc...
Remember Akihabara is electronics store after electronics store in a 5 square block area. Most stores have 5-8 floors and are very competitive. Don't even think of comparing the US's biggest electronics stores to this place.
Just went there last weekend for a few hours looking for a CD-ROM drive for my laptop, and here's what grabbed my attention:
- 24x slim (laptop) CD-ROM drives, barebones, for Y1000 ($8)
- 20x slim CD-RW for Y7000 (which is what I bought)
- USB fans. No, not to cool your CPU, but to cool YOU. A little desk fan that just draws power from USB.
- USB cellphone recharger. Like the fan, it uses USB solely as a power source. USB -> Universal Power Outlet
- 4" LCD monitor unit that fits into the space of three 5" drive bays in an AT case. This has me stumped. Coolness factor: 110%, practicality: 0%.
- 15" LCD monitor with astounding 800cd brightness (approx $400).
- Junk used TV/VCR remote controls for Y800, cell-phone display models for Y300.
- Lots of porn
uh, what is with the gratuituous use of a Japanese word? "Keitai" means "cell phone". It doesn't have any cultural significance. Why not just say "cell phone"? There isn't anything unique about "keitai" which warrants you to use the Japanese word. Now be a good "gaijin" (foreignor) and use "eigo" (english) unless "nihongo" (Japanese) is "hitsuyo" (necessary) to "wakaru" (understand) a concept.
Anyways, recently, the youth of Japan don't work so much. This is becoming a serious problem in Japan. Many youths prefer to get part-time jobs instead of becoming "salaryman" at large Japanese companies. Now it is my turn to use a gratuituos Japanese word -- "furiitaa". It is a relatively new word (from english "free" and german "arbeiter") which refers to these part-time workers. Furiitaa rather get a part-time job in the service industry and spend their money on beer and toys, instead of getting married and starting a family.
Oh, and that walk signal timer we have in American cities too. There is one in Harvard Square.
And I agree, don't use the jet wash toilets. Especially if you are not sitting on them.
to see his face on the screen.
..at the bottom of the article:
"After spending more time with file-sharing programs, I heartily recommend LimeWire"
So it's alright to share files, as long as those files aren't from MS.
My IP is 192.168.1.100 Hack it if you want.
I almost agree with you, but in actual fact 'keitai' is not necessarily equivalent to cell phone.
Keitai can be used as a general term for mobile phones, but it is also used to distinguish the normal cellphones from PHS phones (which have a more limited range to the base station, but are cheaper, have longer-lasting batteries and provided faster data services before keitai did).
So, you could say that 'keitai' is used to indicate a particular type of Japanese mobile phone, whereas 'cell phone' is a more general term (if you were really pedantic, of course).
Sure, but in his post he wasn't using "keitai" in order to refer to only non-PHS cell phones. Thus, I still believe that cell phone was a more appropriate term to use.
>Perhaps you meant to reply to the parent of my post
Yo. Sorry 'bout that. Its a bad day, and if you're not surfing at -1 it screws up the reply (or so it seems) when there's an AC reply below...
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
Yeah, for sure. (Remember I said "if you were really pedantic" ;)
This guy is NOT up with the news. Even old news. You can get a laptop like the libretto, but with a built-in dvd/cdrw, to boot. It's called the fujitsu P-2110, I'm typing on it now, and it only cost me $1,545US (plus tax, shipping, etc, etc.) Why buy the libretto when you can have something just as small (okay, a half-inch deeper, and a wopping ~3lbs) with a higher resolution screen and a removable optical drive? fujitsu 's p2110 site. There are multiple battery options, too, that allow it to run up to 15hrs (theoretically, 8-9hrs realistically) on battery. Suck on that, toshiba.
:)
Stats: 867mhz crusoe, 256mb sdram (upgradable to 512) 10.5" 1280X768 LCD (widescreen, baby!,) 30gb hd, built-in wireless, ethernet, (win)modem, 16x dvd/cdrw, etc. etc. And to kick it all off, it runs debian quite nicely.
When I first posted the above, the ridiculous troll it was a reply to had been moderated up. Shortly afterwards, it was moderated up a second time. Then an hour or so later, a couple of moderators clued in and moderated it down to oblivion. This crack might be unfunny, or off-topic, but it's not a troll.
The Japanese are striving to control products and innovation whilst the Americans (Corporations) are trying to emulate Microsoft by suppressing innovation while they fight for control of standards/transport.
TIME is the Aether...
There's no purpose in going to Aki to buy it when you can stay in the US and buy it where uncensored is the default...
With the voltage conversions transformers so cheap you just have to watch out for the possible 50Hz gear.
Bleh!
Speak for yourself. I'm technically a genius (by I.Q. standards)...
I've heard this kind of talk since the early 80's. We keep waiting for it to happen and it doesn't.
But it's really been happening since the 70's. Read the book.
Why is the phrase "Japanese Innovation" nearly an oxymoron?
Innovation is one thing, making money and controlling the markets is important also.
Get your Unix fortune now!
How hard is it to roll out fiber and build towers across a land like 1/100 the size of the US.
God spoke to me
Metal Gear Solid: Sons of Liberty
u SURE about that one?... Hideo Kojima made that one... IN JAPAN...
Right, but it was actually released in the US first.
Wherever there's a will, there's a motorway.
The Enola Gay
its not "faked" but its ow quality copies with packaging that looks similar... they are either consumer grade blank vhs or burned dvds... these are what you must look out for...
unzip; strip; touch; finger; mount; fsck; more; yes; unmount; sleep
"keitai" just means portable. You can have a keitai nanny goat if you put a handle on her.
"Reactionaries must be deprived of the right to voice their opinions; only the people have that right." - Mao
For years the Japanese have been keeping some of the best Video games to themselvs; mostly the puzzle games, war sims and RPGs, and indeed, even great consoles in their many variations like the PCEngine.
Importers made (make) a fortune out of these "Japan Only" games, and when you get them, learning how they work is a puzzle on top of the game itself.
Very rarely, there is a software switch to turn English on in a game; Klax for example on Hu Card had this feature, but that was written in the USA.
You can forget titles like "Strip Mah Jong" having english switches.
ATH0 Bitcoin: 1DnwFLXczVZV8kLJbMYoheUrpqHesjxrSi
Er... no.
'Keitai' does mean portable as an adjective, but in the last five years (used as a noun) it has come to indicate cell phones.
Sorry to be naive, but isn`t the reason that the Japanese electronics industry (and infrastructure) is so advanced is becuase of the terms of the VJ-day treaty, which prohibits Japan from ANY military R spending. SO that all the guys who would have made weapons of mass destruction work for Sony, et al? The same level of R that has been put into Military uses in the US and UK has been piled into gadgetry in Japan. Similarly, their infrastructure is so advanced becuase the government has speant nothing on defence in over 50 years.
Just my $0.02
alnya
I'm looking for an MP3 player which is small, light, can be taken running and has several gigs capacity.
Maybe no such thing exists, but if it does, then importing from Japan would seem to be the most obvious choice.
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
Ahem... twelve years in Japan and counting. I used the word 'apparent' because I, too, have had no problems. That does not mean that nobody has any problems.
Learning that everyone is not the same as you is an important step towards becoming an adult - I suggest you work harder at it.
Oh my, what has September 11th done!
:)
I must say, that this is a GOOD topic. I have wondered the same thing myself (why the goods from Japan never come available to rest of the _world_). But found just a bit annoying that it just sees the world of electronics/IT including consumer markets as a sum of two countries; Japan and United States.
Sheesh... nice attitude from the days of British Empire ("Let me out from this prison! I'm British!").
Anyways - have a nice weekend
-- Mikko
Perhaps Japanese cell phones work in all of Japan and perhaps even at the same price. Japanese companies are pretty good about responding to what sells, so this would make sense.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
Does Japan have any kind of software industry? Nope.
What country has the biggest console-industry?
If you visit the area, small chance that you will come away with only "some" electronics. They have some unbelievable stuff there, and the things that are sold in the West will be unbelievably cheap sometimes. Oh, if you forget your passport, ask for the taxfree deal anyway. Some shops are not too particular about giving you the discount slip anyway. Also, the sales staff in many shops in Akihabara will on demand whip out their PDA's with wireless internet conn, and find out which DVD model can be made region free and how.
That is what I miss most from Japan. Hassle-free wireless Internet, anytime, anywhere, at ISDN speeds and at very decent rates. The best we can do with GSM, after all this time, is GPRS, which is (in the Netherlands anyway) 56K max (if you're on top of the antenna and no one else is around), and is charged at a whopping 2-5 euro/$1-$2.5 per MB.
Another note on difference in how toys and electronics fit in their culture: it is not just the younger male population that craves toys. A stroll around Akihabara may reveal:
- A 65 year old guy playing a playstation 2 on a display stand, fanatically fighting a younger boy in some fighting game.
- 2 Girls in a high-school uniform, in the process of buying a CD rom burner, with the intent of building it into their machine themselves.
- A boy taking his girl out to an arcade, or even groups of girls visiting an arcade to play the games.
- An older executive type frantically whacking away at some game in the same arcade, briefcase on the floot next to him.
- When an office computer, copier or whatever fails and the user happens to be lady, they don't run to the nearest male crying for help like they do in the west (well, mostly), they start whacking it or taking it apart like most men would.
To say that the Japanese are more toy-minded does not even begin to describe the cultural difference.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
Who even cares what ethnicity the marines were? If I go to Japan and people don't treat me right because I'm black, they're wrong no matter what, even if the 12 year old was raped by a group of black marines. "Modding down" an ethnicity won't make you look smart, it hasn't here in the U.S., and it really doesn't look smart from people who know themselves they've had problems accepting other ethnicities and are trying to change that perception of their nation.
The article has some contradictory ideas about copyright. First notice that it says not to buy from auctions because I strongly doubt they come with legally licensed software. Of course, the possibility of putting linux on the computer is totally ignored. Then, to increase the insanity level he spends a paragraph at the end talking about filesharing software without ever mentioning the legality or possibility that some of the files could be illegal.
The vast majority of Japanese will never have a oportunity to have a expensive mortgage to pay off, & don't have rooms for boats, caravans or even cars. So they really have buggerall alternatives than to spend their money on gadgets.
In other places people either can't afford to spend their money on gadgets, or if they do have the required incomes, they have the mortgage alternative.
Pop out of nowhere. Either they're too dumb to make an account so they can post with a real identity, or they have one and would like to keep their ignorance unknown. God, we here in the U.S need to make incest punishable by death, so then maybe hicks wouldn't pop out these inbred retards.
Elecom, a Japanese company specialized in making computer peripherials has released a 24 color optical mouse - 24 different light colors from the optical part.
m l
http://www2.elecom.co.jp/products/M-GUWSRLFC.ht
(Page in Japanese, you will need the fish to translate for you.)
The mouse is translucent and the color from the optical sensor LED is capable of varying in 24 different colors. It will cycle through all the colors when idle and you can select any one color out of those 24 when the mouse is in use (when it is moving, the color will stay).
I say it is kind of cool and I have just bought one for my Mac.
Oh, you should also see their indoor wireless phones from Sharp, Victor, Pioneer, SONY, Sanyo just name a few, they have features richer than your PBX + cell phones.
---
Sic? What sic?
They just share genre types. Both of them are considered cyberpunk in nature, and they just share the current trends in symbolism for this genre.
I suppose Sony will want to release a Linux kit for those too.
From my Autobiography - "Lifestyles of the Sad and Desperate"...
Uh, a lot of the principles of modern kaizen were developed by an American guy named W. Edwards Deming based on the work of a former Bell Labs (another one) employee named Walter Shewhart (who invented something called Statistical Process Control). Granted, Deming did most of his work on the project in Japan, where he went at the request of the US military during the occupation in the '50s, ostensibly to teach the Japanese "American business methods."
However, what the military didn't know or didn't realize was that Deming had some ideas of his own that he'd been trying to get US industry to adopt for years. Most US industry at the time wasn't interested in the concept of systemic quality, however. (Most of them were satisfied with Quality Inspections and an "acceptable defect rate.") The Japanese adopted the idea wholeheartedly, after hearing Deming lecture. The Japanese Union of Scientists and Engineers, the Japan Management Association, and the Japan Standards Association supported the lectures, along with the US military. Eventually, Japanese scholars like Kaoru Ishikawa added some new ideas (like Quality Circles) to the mix.
In North America, the resulting system is usually called Total Quality Management. It started in Japan, but it started because of W. Edwards Deming, who was really instrumental in turning Japanese productive systems into the powerhouses they are today. (Ask your parents and grandparents about the time when "Made In Japan" meant "This Is Junk.")
On the other hand, to be fair to the Japanese, they adopted the system almost overnight, and used it to become a world manufacturing superpower, more or less, in under 10 years. US industry is still trying to get used to kaizen/TQM, even though the basic system's been around for almost 50 years...
I'm not a geek, I'm just a clever script.
Wait. Apple has one unique feature - it's its hardware PPC platform. Wich works even better under Linux/PPC, which is more about Linux rather than about Apple.
Less is more !
I write this to remind you if your responsibility towards the the reader community. Please NEVER NEVER NEVER again post a link [to the slate article] that links further away to sites like dynamism.com. This is torture. I don't know how many divorces, maxed out credit cards and spontaneous Japan trips this will result in, but one thing is for sure... Checking out the slimtops and gadgets on that page got me shivering like a crack addict that has a rock the size of the Washington monument in clear view.
Thank you.
(gotta clear the line for airline reps to call me back...)
+++ath0
Yeah sorry about the paragraph thing, I have ADD....sometimes I get carried away. The older corvettes haandled fine, the newer Corvettes do not. My dad's friend from Boy Scouts owns a dealership that sells 15 different brands of automobiles and he says the handling of the newer Corvettes are awful. As for the Elise, it is over here now. I ususally see a few floating around where I live and you can look on ebay and you will find a couple for sale every couple weeks or so. I have even seen the Motorsport Elise for sale on ebay by a dealership in Florida and by another dealership in Colorado. They are not released in large quantities, but through many import dealerships near my house they sell them on special order. There even is an Elise Racing Club that races at the various local tracks. And perhaps I do have small hands, but what I have noticed is that the general consensus is that the US Xbox controller is too big, uncomfortable and heavy. The controller type S has been found to be more user friendly. About 75 % of the people i know that have purchased the 'box have gone with the Type s as their main controller.
Couldn't find exact data on it, but from the Peters projection (a map projection that conserves relative area) Europe looks to me to be slightly smaller geographically than the US, but not by much. (Note: Russia isn't really part of Europe)
However, I'm pretty sure the total population of Europe is greater than the US, but again, I don't remember the figures.
Japanese people are like carneys... "Small hands".
Everything in Japan is Mini-Me sized not only because it is cool but also because they can still use it. Ever try to see someone 6' tall try to dial on one of the newer ultra-microscopic cell phones? The market isn't demanding smaller-sized electronics because they'd be unusable.
"Please mash the pad with your hand to receive a specialized dialing-wand".
There are places like this in the US too. "Frying Fish" in Little Tokyo has a conveyor belt thing going on too. There's a place in Palo Alto like this too. The old New Meiji chain here in Los Angeles had a few places with conveyor belts...the one in Marina del Rey was super-cool.
Basically in all places you stack up your plates after you eat each order of sushi. There are people who go from table to table and tally up what they see from time to time. Once you are done, you ask for your bill. Usually it's a lot more than you had budgeted for...mmmmm...sushi... ^_^;
A net-friend of mine always visits his family for Oshogatsu (New Year's Holiday) For the past couple of years Iron Chef has had a special every New Year's, and he tapes it and brings the tape home to the US and trades it. (However, after the travesty that was "Iron Chef Japan Cup 2002 I don't think there will be any more of them) He doesn't cut the commercials...which actually is quite cool. Japanese commercials are a total hoot.
It was very funny to see a commercial for "Kappa Sushi" which apparently is the big "McSushi" kind of place in Japan...the kids are basically begging Mommy to go take them for sushi. You would NOT see that here. "Eww, sushi...Mom, let's go to Chuck E. Cheese!"
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
I'd say the going monthly cell phone rate is about 15000yen/month or ~$125/month. I don't know too many people who pay that much in the US.
I'm a gnu world man.
I can second this (although, I wouldn't say "everybody"). When I went to college in Japan, most other college students had between JPY40,000-120,000 in excess each month, often times given to them by their parents (college students are less independent there than they are in the US and elsewhere). It wasn't unusual for college students (or even high school students) to be spending over JPY10,000 just in cell phones. A night out with friends would typically cost at minimum JPY4000, plus, perhaps an additional JPY1000 just for transportation. Jobs generally paid well too, with McDonlads paying up to JPY1000/hour for late shifts.
The above only applies to college students and high school students, who, in more cases than not, still live with their parents or are dependent on them economically but can have fairly high-paying part time jobs. This changes a little when they become independent after college (shakai-jin, society person, is what they call it) when the cost of living catches up. But it still gives the economy an extremely wealthy youth market, that, IMO, helps drive the gadget market.
BTW, when I was there JPY120 ~= USD1.00
---
Open Source Shirts
I'm a Japanese... and I don't dig American men. Who are you to say that? Someone mod this down... it's getting me mad enough to post flamebait *cries* :'(
Megumi
:)
If you are expecting 0% unemployment in an economy well don't hold your breath. No one even thought our previous levels of sub 5% unemployment were possible.
T op%20Financial%20News&s1=blk,&s2=ad_right1_topfin& tp=ad_topright_topfin&refer=topfin&T=markets_bfgcg i_content99.ht&bt=ad_position1_topfin&middle=ad_fr ame2_topfin&s=APSXcahUaVS5TLiBF[/url]
As for the people not "BEING HIRED BACK" well you are wrong. [url]http://quote.bloomberg.com/fgcgi.cgi?ptitle=
This link will tell you that "Unemployment rose from 5.8 percent in May, and payrolls increased by 36,000, compared with the 75,000 expected in a Bloomberg News survey of economists." While job growth was lower than expected, it was still growth.
Also, do you think that just because someone went to college and is "highly-qualified" whatever that means, that they are entitled to employment? During the boom a lot of people studied fields that they thought would lead them to VERY lucrative careers. Well thats the thing about booms. The economy never needs as many people in any specific field as everyone says it does. So those who graduate at the end of the boom get screwed.
The recovery, while slow to start, is very real. "The U.S. economy grew at a 6.1 percent annual rate in the first quarter, the fastest in more than two years, after falling into recession in March 2001. Growth is expected to have slowed to a 2.7 percent pace in the second quarter, which ended last month. It may pick up to a 3.5 percent pace by year's end, economists surveyed by Bloomberg News said. "
So you know a half-dozen people who are unemployable. Big deal. Here in Boston our unemployment rate is actually below the national average. Does that make me think everyone in the nation has a job currently? No. So why does your own admittedly anecdotal experience lead you to believe things are so dire for our nation as a whole?
"So all of the people out of work now *should* be out of work, right? There have been a half million layoffs (and those are only the reported ones) in the last 18 months, with about 40,000 of those happening in the last two."
Well to put it succinctly, yes silly. We had a huge run up in the supply of workers and a huge drop in demand for them. Supply and demand. Economics 101.
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
Unemployment rose from 5.8 percent in May
Unemployment only measures those receiving UI. The real unemployment rate is probably double what's reported.
So you know a half-dozen people who are unemployable. Big deal.
It's a big deal for them.
We had a huge run up in the supply of workers and a huge drop in demand for them
A huge drop in demand? I thought unemployment was only 6%?
The Bloomberg article quotes support my point:
Unemployment rose from 5.8 percent in May
The U.S. economy grew at a 6.1 percent annual rate
That's companies laying off workers to boost the stock price.
The fact is, people are out of work, and when they do find work, it's temporary at best, and underpaid. Companies are still laying people off TODAY by the tens of thousands while the economists claim 6.1% growth, and people who are qualified to do just about any job can't get work running 10-keys and filing. The rest are stocking shelves at Wal-Mart to pay off their student loans. They're told they are "overqualified" at interviews while they borrow money to feed their kids.
An economy that fails to keep it's best minds employed is a failed economy.
Its not a failed economy just because your precious degreed friends can't currently get the jobs that they want. No economy can employ every single able bodied individual at the same time. Its just not going to happen. Those companies are laying off not just to boost the stock price, but also to reduce costs. You want them to go out of business just so they can keep those surplus workers employed? Geez. You make it sound like there's starvation in the streets with people going jobless for 5 or 6 years. Following Japan's example of making sure everyone has "employment for life" is disasterous. It causes the companies to constantly lose money necessitating constant government bailouts, loans and subsidies. Healthy economies have companies that are allowed to die if the market dictates so. This creative destruction then presents opportunities for other or new companies to come along and profit where the previous one could not.
Before this whole dot.com boom it WAS customary for recent grads to have difficultly landing their first job, often taking up such jobs as Wal-Mart cashiers or some other low wage job just to survive. Only recently in the 90's did everyone start to think that you're just "SUPPOSED" to get a job immediately after graduation and never want for a job until you wish to retire.
The huge drop in demand took us from around 4% unemployment to the current 5.9%. Thats a large difference if you study economics, especially here in America. Considering how almost no other industrialized nation has an unemployment rate as LOW as ours still is, perhaps you simply do not realize how good we still, and will continue to have it here.
As for those not counted because they aren't receiving UI, well they must not be that bad off if they don't even apply for it.
During the boom time 90's there were simply TOO MANY PEOPLE WORKING. Add seriously retarded business plans and shaddy accounting practices, IPO's influenced by consulting firms that also managed those same IPO's and you have a recipe for a significant correction in the economy. Thats what we're seeing right now. The fundamentals of our economy are still sound however and the economy is still growing. You can have a jobless recovery you know. It doesn't stay that way for long as the increased production absoultely eventually necessitates an uptick in hiring.
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
Yeah, I'm fully aware of "roaming" being a purely administrative issue. (If one company owned all the towers, it wouldn't make much sense that they'd care which tower your call happened to be carried on.)
My point, though, is that with a large enough country, you'll most likely have several competing providers - and thereby such hassles as roaming charges. Cell towers aren't exactly cheap to install and maintain. When you cover a large number of square miles, it starts to cost much more to send your installation and repair techs out to all of those remote locations.
Japan may have much more population density, but at least they don't have some company trying to maintain a group of cell towers over 1,500 miles away.
As far as Canada and Australia having better cellular coverage than the U.S. - it's entirely possible. I've never made a cellular call in either of those countries. The U.S. is behind the times in several ways when it comes to telecommunications. It's sort of the curse attached to our being first with the original phone technologies. I remember Canadian friends telling me about cheap T1 circuits into their homes and inexpensive ISDN lines before that. In the U.S. - ISDN has generally been a rip-off. $149 a month or so for 128K of bandwidth was the norm here in the Midwest. Our telcos didn't want to offer it until the federal trade commission ruled that they had to offer it everywhere by a certain date. It required a number of phone switch upgrades, so they wanted all the ISDN users to pay for those upgrade costs. In other parts of the world, the newer phone switches were all they had installed to begin with - so adding these services was pretty inexpensive and easy.
Yeah, I'm fully aware of "roaming" being a purely administrative issue. (If one company owned all the towers, it wouldn't make much sense that they'd care which tower your call happened to be carried on.)
Which is the case in Japan, Australia, and Canada I think.
My point, though, is that with a large enough country, you'll most likely have several competing providers - and thereby such hassles as roaming charges. Cell towers aren't exactly cheap to install and maintain. When you cover a large number of square miles, it starts to cost much more to send your installation and repair techs out to all of those remote locations.
That's true enough. In Australia the main Telco was until recently government-owned, so they just put up a tower at each of the main exchanges.
We also have a much smaller population distribution than the US. Almost 50% of our land is uninhabited.
Japan may have much more population density, but at least they don't have some company trying to maintain a group of cell towers over 1,500 miles away.
Well, they do actually. Japan is about 1500 miles end to end, just not side to side. In total area it is about the same size as California , and it has better coverage than California.
In the U.S. - ISDN has generally been a rip-off. $149 a month or so for 128K of bandwidth was the norm here in the Midwest. Our telcos didn't want to offer it until the federal trade commission ruled that they had to offer it everywhere by a certain date. It required a number of phone switch upgrades, so they wanted all the ISDN users to pay for those upgrade costs.
We also had the same problem with ISDN, because of analog exchanges. Now ISDN is cheap, and nobody wants it because of co-ax and ADSL. This was more a matter of government policy though.
>>
I am the director, and this is my movie
I agree the Fujitsu is a worthy competitor and bests the Libretto in most categories. However, the Libretto does beat the P-Series in some aspects -
Video: The P-Series uses the rather archaic ATI Rage chipset, which is rather embarressing in this day and age. The Libretto has the much more impressive ATI Mobile Radeon
Keyboard: The Libretto's 18mm pitch is slightly larger than 17mm on the P-Series. Okay, this is only a tiny difference, but for the amount of typing I do, I would prefer as large as possible.
Size: I'm kind of ambivalent about the DVD/CD-RW on the P-Series. On one hand, it's certainly cool to have it double as a really slick portable DVD player, and burning ability is nice. On the other hand, I rarely use the CD-R on my PC. Sure, once in a while I burn something, but most of the time, I just use it to install a program and that's about it. I'm sure I could get by without a drive on my portable and it would make it that much more svelte and smaller.
Overall, though, I would agree the P-Series is a more attractive package. It's got a larger resolution, firewire, SPDIF, S-video out... not to mention it's availabe and supported in the states (for a very attractive price). No need to import direct or pay Dynamism's markup.