Slashdot Mirror
The Japanese/American Tech Deficit
Why do the Japanese get all the coolest gadgets, while the U.S. is left with the second-tier, less-innovative ones? The San Francisco Chronicle delves into this age-old mystery and provides a few explanations for those of us who don't live near Akihabara.
Sigs cause cancer.
That article makes a lot of sense, especially about the cultural differences. The extremely tight real estate market ensures that people live with their parents for a long time, and that guarantees a higher level of disposable income. I can relate to that myself. Back in the summer of 1994, while I was working at Babbages and living at home, I bought an Atari Jaguar, and practically every game released for it.
The store manager's wife asked me how I could afford all that, and I told her that I had 100% disposable income. She freaked, and hated me forever for that comment, but it was true! I couldn't afford my own place or even a car, but I could buy all the game cartridges I wanted.
Mike van Lammeren
It will challenge your head, your brain, and your mind.
Because they'll actually buy and use them?
Sigs are for squares. Like pants!
Why do the Japanese get all the coolest gadgets, while the U.S. is left with the second-tier, less-innovative ones?
Maybe, just maybe it's because Japanese made those gadgets.
Or maybe it's just a "grass-is-greener" syndrome.
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
it is a lot harder to change around cell technologies due to how spread out the US is, Japan you have a dense packed population.
if we were all packed into rhode island you would see some awesome technology becuase updating the infrastrucutre would take no time at all.
... having lived in Japan and been to Akihabara I can tell you it's easy to have far more product, and far better quality product, in Japan because it has a massive population on a place the size of Nova Scotia.
With housing costs so high people live with family and have lots of spending money. Money to get this years new "whatever" model.
Wakata?
I didn't bother to read the article. I lived it.
no whining! europeans get 'em even later. AND your mass-produced hollywood "blockbusters" AND the new and "kewl" computer games BUT (sadly) we do get new and more absurd american copyright laws about every half a year :(
1) don't really want them very badly, and
2) don't have the infrastructure to support most of them (see (1)).
The Japanese are largely status-seeking early-adopters, says the article, while most Americans just don't care. Fewer Americans are early adopters, and those of us who are into conspicuous consumption prefer non-technological money wasters, like big houses, Persian rugs, and so on.
I'd say that most Americans I've met resemble those remarks.
There. Now you don't have to waste any time reading the article.
See what I've been reading.
It's all a matter of cultural differences, and these include the forces that drive the market in each country.
Wow! The power of a Plastation *1* with a tiny screen! Be still my heart! Sorry, but small and portable does not automatically equate to "cool" anymore. I feel the same lack of caring I felt when cell phones started having games I played on my Atari 800. TrueEnvy Factor: 0
2. Sharp Zaurus SL-C3000:
Another dumbass tiny computer running a dumber ass OS. Who cares? Why is this cool? TruEnvy Factor: One complimentary BSOD.
3. DoCoMo "Mobile FeliCa" Payment System:
Wow. More ways to spend money. I'm sure retailers like this. Is it that difficult to slide the credit card through the little slot, and then just pay the bills at the end of the month? Have some perspective, folks. People use to have to carry cows, sheep and dughters around with them in order to effect trade. And DoCoMo sounds like a Pokemon creature. TruEnvy Factor: -2
4. The NEC V601N:
TeeVee on my cell phone. Who cares? What sort of deprived life do you have to lead to give a fook about this stuff? TrueEnvy Factor: Undetectable by modern scientific instrumentality.
5. SONY Clie VZ-90:
I bought a PDA once. Within a month I was back to a small Meade paper and pen based scheduling system and never looked back. TruEnvy Factor: Planck's constant.
6. Takara's Dream Factory
New Age hits Japan. I fear for the anime industry. TrueEnvy Factor: Three tenths of a quartz crystal.
7. Sony HMP-A1 Portable Media Player: Wish your iPod could play back movies?
No. Not really.
Sony hopes you do.
Sony would like the PIN numbers to my accounts as well.
Its new HMP-A1 PMP offers 20 gigabytes of MP3 and MPEG-4 playback goodness
*snore*
it even has a video-out jack so you can watch your flicks on a big-screen TV instead of its embedded sharp but tiny 3.5-inch screen.
Thus illustrating its pointlessness. TrueEnvy Factor: One negasphere of nonexistence.
--- Ban humanity.
Market conditions in Japan and America are locked in a cause/effect loop. Underneath the Japanese teen rage for new devices, and the American sloth in buying a few innovations at WalMart, are the marketing machines behind the markets.
"Japan's trade surplus with the United States remains astronomically high, at over $6 billion; yet [Japan] keeps its most innovative and exciting widgetry to itself, selling it only to the domestic market."
Neither Japanese manufacturers nor American stores want to take big risks in marketing untested products to a fickle market, but they also depend on competing with their old devices based largely on "newness". So Japanese manufacturers test their devices in Japan, figuring out which are popular with whom, before they send any to the US to be sold for the big revenue.
None of that is going to change any time soon. The only way for Americans to get stuff first, as a test market, is to make it first. Like we do with content: movies, music, fashion; American manufacturers test that stuff here (even when the factories are overseas), then market the winners over there. It's not so much where the factories are, as where are the innovators and marketers, and the test markets where they can afford to fail before going global.
--
make install -not war
Of course, hearing the word irradiated beef makes one shudder... since people refuse to understand that irradiating food is one of the safest way of preserving it for long terms without the need for refrigeration, artificial preservatives, etc.
As soon as someone can how me ONE study showing ANY danger from irradiated food, and we can start comparing it against the well know risks of all the other preservation methods.
It's a pity that most people do not try to think about this, but reject it automatically.
Have fun posting.
Much of the tech wizardry mentioned in the article centers around telecommunications infrastructure. Rolling out a new generation of telecom in Japan is a lot different than rolling it out in the US. There are many more companies in the US which own the existing infrastructure and a much much larger land area to cover especially with wireless services.
No reason to bring the neat toys to the US if there isn't an infrastructure to make them work. Even Europe has a much easier time rolling out very new technologies because of it's smaller size.
The issue of USA vs. Others on the mobile/wireless world really bothers me, because I feel like the pundits are missing some important factors. First, the US has built a wired telecommunications infrastructure, and we've been doing it for so long that the wireless infrastructure is more of a "like to have" than a "need to have". Second, we have so much more land area and spread-out population that implementing anything requiring wide-scale infrastructure is far more difficult to begin with.
I think you are on to something. A lot of the cool gadgets that I grew accustom to in Japan, purchased, and brought back to America just didn't make sense here. I ended up boxing most of the stuff up.
A lot of their technology solves issues that exist in their culture or environment, but may not exist elsewhere. Most of the gadgets centered around the collection and distribution of business cards fit into this category, I think.
For examples, just look to the telecom and automotive industries. Why are American cars still dependent on oil? Why, for crap's sake, is it not okay for the government to provide free wirless broadband access in Philadelphia? Because the corporations are afraid to give way to advancement and try something new. I'm pretty sure there are not many people in Philly who would not like to have free wireless internet, but they don't get a say because some corporation doesn't like it.
If you ask me, businesses will be the only first-class citizens in this nation very soon. Just look how much sway they hold just by saying to the government "you can't do that, it will hurt our profit margins." For crap's sake, sink or swim. Evolve, or become extinct. Japan is evolving. We are not.
The writer betrays his lack of understanding of the Japanese market, let alone culture. He blunders forward with the usual stereotypes, and totally fails to understand the fundamentals. The issue has nothing to do with "tribes," disposable income, or small housing.
Japan is a small country, where fads rise and fall much more rapidly than in a larger country like the US. This means products tend to compete over much smaller market sectors, with much shorter market lives. Think about the Tamagotchi. Bandai couldn't keep up with demand, they built new factories to keep up with demand, but by the time the factories were ready, the fad had died. Bandai went into bankruptcy.
Japanese markets are like a pressure cooker, products have short lives, and incremental improvements are added to produce new products to replace the old ones. This philosophy of "continuous improvement" is known as kaizen. Products in Japan evolve more rapidly than in other countries.
Japanese consumers are also better educated than other countries. There is a whole industry of magazines devoted to the most miniscule details of every product on the market. I remember seeing one fashion magazine that spent 20 pages just discussing the quality of stitching in men's dress shirts. And Japanese computer magazines are the same, they put US magazines to shame. Japanese consumers will not put up with anything less than the best products, driving the kaizen cycle even faster.
Japanese corporations are quick to take advantage of the home market. There are thousands of consumer products released in Japan that never make it to the international market, and this is intentional. Japan is the test market. Sometimes a product will go through several improvements before it's ready for larger world markets. Products that flop in Japan aren't even considered for internationalization. Japanese consumers are the beta testers of the world.
Can somebody tell me why we should care about it? Seriously, if Japan has cooler toys, more power to them. Who the fuck cares? Are you really upset because you cannot get your e-mail faster? At this point of time, Americans behave like crowds of cattle when it comes to shopping.... Would you like to put more spin onto that?
I certainly do not. Stuff is not what we should care about because as long as we do so, we will always be unhappy with something. Remeber, grass is greener on the other side. I can't believe that this bullshit makes to Slashdot nowadays. Seriously, it sounds like a bunch of stupid teenage girls who complain about boots, dresses and shirts that do not fit.
I can get upset because U.S. students lag behind in math and science, but not because somebody has a cooler DVD camera. Give me a break... P.S.: It is not what you have, it is what you do with it.
Yes, let's.
No amount of technology could sufficiently drive such a dismal reality from my mind. Not that Johnny Sokko would necessarily say that. Nevertheless I'm grateful that where I lived enabled me to escape it entirely.
Because this is the country where we have to put stickers on pop machines that say if you pull this pop machine over on yourself you might die, where we have to print DO NOT DRIVE WITH SUN SHIELD IN PLACE on the back of cardboard sun screens and PULL TAB TO OPEN because sure as you're born there will be some idiot trying to cut the top of the can off with his pocket knife and he'll slip and cut himself.
Yes, we've really become that stupid. Just look at who we elected president any time you're tempted to doubt it.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
So what the article is telling us is that Americans are crappy consumers compared to the Japanese. If we'd only spend all our money on new, expensive, and mostly useless gadgets every six months, we'd catch right up to them.
C'mon people! These megacorporations want to help you, but you need to put in some effort first! Where's your national pride?
[insert witty quote here]
and I'll say it again. The only reason Japan and Japanese have these sweet 500$ cell-phones is because they see it as a perfectly good investment every 6 months to a year. They relish the new phone with new features, or one that is slimmer or cooler than the next.
/rolls eyes
In America we want a 99c phone. That's why we get hamstrung in these ridiculous 3 year or more service contracts. If you actually spend the same amount of money that Japanese do on phones, you'll quickly find you have very similair or the same phone.
Seriously, there is no "reason" why they get cool gadgets and we don't. It's not like there's a huge creature in the Pacific that feasts on cargo ships. We just don't want to pay $400 some odd bucks up front. We prefer low monthly installments.
This also explains the year-18 month lag in tech. We just wait for it to get cheap. (Which is ironic, because we Americans as a whole try to piss money away faster than we can earn it.)
iPod.
They cannot not make the iPod mini fast enough to meet Japanese consumer demand....but the iPod isn't Japanese. Just goes to show that anyone anywhere can create some very interesting gadgets. While it's true that the US has less than Japan, I don't know how many of us need usb aroma therapy....
The only good thing they really have on us is cellular service, but there are a lot of reasons it's hard to do in the US, and honestly, I'm not entirely confortable with my phone doing a lot more things than being a phone....
Monstar L
Japan, whose entire government and economy had to be "rebooted" earlier in this century, has a huge advantage over us in that respect. They know an awful lot about moving consistently forward.
Have you looked at the Japanese economy over the past 5 years? Saying it's in the toilet would be an understatement. It's showing signs of recovering, but our little mini-recession looked like a major bubble compared to Japan's economy.
Why are American cars still dependent on oil?
Because like it or not, it's still the most efficient/economic method of powering vehicles in a country where average travel distances are large. I-C engines also have extreme longevity when compared to many other methods. I've owned three vehicles that passed 75K miles, and one with over 100K miles, all maintained in good condition and running strong. Electrics just aren't economical to maintain for that kind of usage. On the plus side for the future, we finally are seeing some technologies with the possibility of changing this, and one interim method, biodiesel.
Why, for crap's sake, is it not okay for the government to provide free wirless broadband access in Philadelphia?
Because that's not their job. Their job is to provide essential emergency services, maintain the transportation infrastructure and provide defense. They should no more be building wireless ISPs than they should be building multi-billion dollar playgrounds for spoiled millionares (stadiums). Besides, inspite of how cool it sounds, have you ever seen the government do any long-term project right? Most Pennsylvania governments have a hard time keeping the potholes down to non-fatal sizes, and you want them to run your ISP? I grew up near Philly, I wouldn't trust them with tin cans and string.
I'm pretty sure there are not many people in Philly who would not like to have free wireless internet,
It's not "free", the government raises taxes to pay for it, which means a lot of folks who don't want or need it still have to pay for it, and that's not fair.
I'm not trolling, but the guy should stick to writing guides to Cinemas or whatever.
While I'm sure most of his information is sound, he forgot a very important piece of information. The development of better tech toys over there is due to the fact that after the surrender of Japan to US (or Allies..whatever), Japan was restricted to domestic/consumer products. Any military development was frowned upon/stopped due to the fact the US was now stationed there.
An example was after the invention of the Transistor by Bratten/Shockly/Bardeen (sp?), 2 electrical engineers running a radio store took that concept and made ICs to make radios and started what is now called Sony.
So you see, Japan was forced to emphasize domestic consumer goods by the US since developing anything related to Military was a no-no. Thus the head start on everyone else, and why North America is always a couple of years behind in certain aspects of the tech toys.
I was born and raised in California. When I was a young adult, I moved overseas for 10 years. When I returned about 6 years ago, one of the first things to strike me was Americans' tolerance for mediocrity, both in products and services. Just as long as they can get a ton of stuff that work good enough without having to read the manual.
That tolerance, coupled with a pervasive belief that America has the best of everything, from political systems to health care to consumer products (many Americans hate it when I give counter examples--really rocks their world view), suggests a fertile ground for technological stagnation.
Tell me to piss off if you like. I couldn't give a toss.
Europe and Japan have had state-run telephone companies that charge ridiculous rates for land lines. With wireless came competition and cheaper phone service; which of course brought investment for differentiation. Contrast this with the US, where one can call local numbers for "free" with basic service (from 15-30 dollars a month). Our local coverage here extends about 90 miles in all directions. I do own a cell phone, but I get the cheapest service because it's simply a portable phone for me, and not a replacement for my Qwest line (which is also my DSL).
The wheel is turning, but the hamster is dead.