Many of the players in the articles haven't been announced for domestic (the USA for me) release.
Just glancing over, these two m:robe players from Olympus, the Aiwa S710BT, and the Toshiba gigabeat haven't been announced for release anywhere outside of Japan. As far as I know, anyway.
It's Memory Stick Duo, by the way...smaller than a normal Memory Stick. But yeah it is quite expesnive.
Still, what the does incompatibility have to do with backing up saved games? You plug your PSP into your PC, and copy saved games over from the Memory Sard. All compatibility issues Memory Stick Duo may have beyond that are of no consequence. The fact that the PSP provides all the hardware and software needed to transfer save games over to a PC from the Memory Stick makes your point invalid. In fact, any compatibility that Memory Stick Duo provides AT ALL over this is an "added bonus."
Since you're the one making Nintendo DS parallels, I'll make on myself:
The DS doesn't even have removable memory. "Yeah but you can save games to your cart," you say, but this doesn't provide nearly the same range of options as keeping save games and game software in two different places (as the PSP does).
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.
But would this be simple?
Maybe for you, but for the market of this device, no. The article explains that there are only 4 icons that appear when the device is powered on, stuff does not need to be double clicked, etc...
It uses England's Picsel Technologies browser, which opens 20 different file formats, right from said application.
Sure, there may have been other devices in the past with the same functionality, and certainly cheaper options are available, but NEC's focus for this device is ease of operation. This is one of the reasons they are marketing it towards municipalities for tourism, it's intended to be usable by anyone.
I chose "suprisingly affordable" because the main product I was comparing the NEC to is Sony's Airboard, which retails for 136,500 yen (around $1,300 USD) just by form factor. Obviously, the Airboard has more functionality, but details on the NEC device are still scarce.
I've never used one myself, but I remember seeing a video - I think on the Philips website (sorry no link) - where they had a demonstration of the guy "flipping" the page. It took all of...2 seconds?
And yes, I'm sure the technology could be developed to play video. However, before that, I think color would be more useful. The current E-Ink system is VERY dual-color oriented. It consists of positively charged black particles, and negatively charged white particles. You can imagine the difficulties that would arise in trying to add more colors to this. I'd give it a couple more years before we see color E-Ink.
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.
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.
Slashdot Mirror
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
Err, sorry the site went down; wasn't expecting anybody to really care about that article.
I had forgotten to turn Xanthia caching on, too, which doesn't help.
Many of the players in the articles haven't been announced for domestic (the USA for me) release.
Just glancing over, these two m:robe players from Olympus, the Aiwa S710BT, and the Toshiba gigabeat haven't been announced for release anywhere outside of Japan. As far as I know, anyway.
You're exactly right. The Japanese price I posted includes a 5% sales tax.
I didn't realize this until after I submitted the article. Sorry.
Looks like the English press releases are up (still PDFs, though):
Release date, price
Package details
December launch title list
Also, I apologize for the error I made in formatting the original post. I was sleepy and in a rush.
It's Memory Stick Duo, by the way...smaller than a normal Memory Stick. But yeah it is quite expesnive. Still, what the does incompatibility have to do with backing up saved games? You plug your PSP into your PC, and copy saved games over from the Memory Sard. All compatibility issues Memory Stick Duo may have beyond that are of no consequence. The fact that the PSP provides all the hardware and software needed to transfer save games over to a PC from the Memory Stick makes your point invalid. In fact, any compatibility that Memory Stick Duo provides AT ALL over this is an "added bonus." Since you're the one making Nintendo DS parallels, I'll make on myself: The DS doesn't even have removable memory. "Yeah but you can save games to your cart," you say, but this doesn't provide nearly the same range of options as keeping save games and game software in two different places (as the PSP does).
I put that in there because I didn't want it to look like we at TechJapan are the ones who did the interview. All we did was translate it.
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.
But would this be simple?
Maybe for you, but for the market of this device, no.
The article explains that there are only 4 icons that appear when the device is powered on, stuff does not need to be double clicked, etc...
It uses England's Picsel Technologies browser, which opens 20 different file formats, right from said application.
Sure, there may have been other devices in the past with the same functionality, and certainly cheaper options are available, but NEC's focus for this device is ease of operation. This is one of the reasons they are marketing it towards municipalities for tourism, it's intended to be usable by anyone.
Believe it or not, I'm the one that wrote that.
I chose "suprisingly affordable" because the main product I was comparing the NEC to is Sony's Airboard, which retails for 136,500 yen (around $1,300 USD) just by form factor. Obviously, the Airboard has more functionality, but details on the NEC device are still scarce.
I've never used one myself, but I remember seeing a video - I think on the Philips website (sorry no link) - where they had a demonstration of the guy "flipping" the page. It took all of...2 seconds?
And yes, I'm sure the technology could be developed to play video. However, before that, I think color would be more useful. The current E-Ink system is VERY dual-color oriented. It consists of positively charged black particles, and negatively charged white particles. You can imagine the difficulties that would arise in trying to add more colors to this. I'd give it a couple more years before we see color E-Ink.
Grrr....last thing.
The actual pixel resolution of the device is 800x600. On a 5 inch screen, that's pretty damn good. Source? See my first post.
Oh, and I forgot to mention - those of you complaining about the small text size? The device supports magnification up to 200%.
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.
Thanks: last time someone linked me I didn't have any problems. Oh well.