Category: Technology

Robot receptionists to debut

Jan 26, 11:39 AM (ET)

TOKYO (Reuters) – Need temporary help on your company’s reception desk? One Japanese employment agency is suggesting you try recruiting a robot.

For just under 50,000 yen ($430) a month, a fraction of the cost of a human temp, the PeopleStaff agency will dispatch Hello Kitty Robo, a robotic receptionist capable of sensing a visitor’s presence, greeting him or her and holding simple conversations.
The Nagoya-based agency is also offering the services of Ifbot, an elderly-care robot that chats and poses riddles and arithmetical problems to train the brain and help avoid dementia. Spaceman-like Ifbot, which also quizzes people about their health, is aimed at hospitals and old peoples’ homes.

A spokeswoman for PeopleStaff said it would cost more than 300,000 yen a month to employ a person for this type of work, but warned that the robots were not capable of doing everything human employees can do.

The future is a filthy place

And you thought that Taiwan’s cyborg god-pigs were the ultimate runaway technological threat of the 2030’s. Even though they’re a month old already, I only just ran across these truly disturbing photos of China’s first face transplant, and they are just the first taste of the unspeakable horrors to come.

My prediction: Ten years from now Nicholas Kristof will be doing a series on multimedia heavy columns for the New York Times web site about the sad lack of response byinternational humanitarian groups to the new problem of sex tourists in SE Asia buying children to have them smuggled across the Chinese border to underground surgeries where they are transformed into half human/half beast chimaera to fulfill the deviant sexual desires of men (and a smaller number of women) who wish to realize their fantasies of laying with say, a centaur, mermaid, harpy, or some twisted creation of their own mind.
Imagine the furry phenomenon, except instead of just being stupid and slightly hilarious, it is instead the most evil species of crime ever perpetrated by humanity against itself.
On the plus side, if I get into a disfiguring car accident, I can probably go to China and get half of my face replaced with that of some endangered animal species, like a gorilla, or maybe a lion.

Japanese Only?! Outraged over location discrimination

Some of you may have heard about all the great Internet media content sites popping up in Japan recently. I sure have. They’re offering hit shows and the latest music for a small fee, so I couldn’t happier to finally be able to access Japanese TV/music easily from my home in the Washington, DC area. Let’s try these wonderful new services, shall we?

Second Nippon TV: “You can only access this site from within Japan.” Crap!

iTunes Japan: Yes, you CAN access iTunes Japan if you buy a special card from the infamous jlist.com (Thanks to Wikipedia for the tip). Unfortunately, people overseas can NOT access iTunes Japan without giving J-List (or J-Box) a cut.

Yahoo!Japan Music: “Q: Can I download if I live overseas? A: Yahoo! Music Download is not compatible for purchasing songs from overseas. We are using a system that does not allow downloads from people connected from overseas (from IP addresses outside Japan). Based on the policy of the content providers, the distribution of the content outside Japan is not permitted, so we are using this system. Please understand. Hint: If you cannot download, no charges will accrue.” Huh? Now I’m rejected AND my intelligence is insulted!

Final Fantasy XI (MMORPG): OK, This I can use and play along with thousands of Japanese otaku. Um, thanks but no thanks guys!

Just a small but representative example. Listen up, Japan: I would gladly PAY for a lot of this stuff! PAY! MONEY! And I know there are thousands if not millions of Japanese and non-Japanese people who would similarly pony up. So what’s the deal?

I don’t know for sure, but here are a couple guesses based on what I know about the Japan situation:

1. I don’t know the ins and outs of Japanese copyright law, but I DO know that it is arcane and essentially designed to screw the consumer at every turn. One example: There is no general concept of fair use in Japan, making your run-of-the-mill Ultraman clip a possible lawsuit target! Copy protection on CDs is commonplace, criminal charges were filed against the creator of Winny (a P2P file sharing program in Japan) and of course let’s not forget about Sony’s mistaken belief that they could pull the same crap in the US that they get away with in Japan.

Of course, the recording industry in Japan has had mixed results in its efforts to clamp down on piracy. They made something of a compromise in the 90s to allow CD rental to take hold in Japan (for copying to cassettes and later MiniDiscs) by first making sure they got a percentage of each rental.

Nevertheless, the Japanese content providers, not to mention their consumers, are notorious copyright Nazis (see this iTunes forum post to see what I mean if you can read Japanese). The government, who would of course never miss a chance to suck up to big business, has gone so far as to run train ads featuring celebrities against consumer unauthorized downloads and use of pirated DVDs/designer bags etc. This may have something to do with it.

2. iTunes, for its part, had a hell of a time convincing record companies to go along with its business model (especially since some of them (Avex and Sony) run their own digital services). Not allowing songs (or dramas et cetera) to be distributed abroad could in some way shape of form protect the interests of labels who might have ditribution deals in Asia, where Japanese content is hugely popular. Another worry for the content masters may be that allowing the Chinese, for instance, to download high-quality video of their precious content would only lead to more pirated DVDs.

3. Avex’s service apparently suffered an attack from Turkish hackers in August 2005 (check here to see what it looked like — contains the F word!). Banning foreign IP addresses might be a convenient way to protect oneself from some of the less initiated loser 13-year-old hackers out there.

4. In the end, this is most likely the same logic that is applied to DVD region codes and blocking Japanese video games in the American market and vice-versa. Controlling when and where the goods are sold makes it possible to coordinate marketing efforts (and of course set prices). But, at least in this case, what’s the point if the vast majority of the content offered is a) In a language most people overseas do not understand, and b) Not intended for export? As ADV films has found, the type of people who would seek out your product without the help of a coordinated marketing effort are the same people who will build a market for your product for free.

I haven’t seen too much discussion on this topic (but then I don’t frequent tech forums). So why is this? Does anyone know for sure?

JR, Hankyu Smart Tickets Now Mutually Compatible

This is just one more stop on the long, slow road toward mutual compatibility in so-called high-tech Japan. JR East and West still have separate RFID tickets (Suica and Icoca respectively — click links for image character goodness), but at least they at some point became mutually compatible. Now it looks like there is some hot Private train-on-public train action going on (Abstracted from Nikkei):

Icocca, Pitapa Services Mutual Compatibility Begins, Commemorative Ceremony Held at Hankyu Umeda Station

Mutual use of JR West’s Icoca and the PiTaPa service (which despite its wacky name amazingly does NOT seem to have a cutesy image character associated with it! Oh wait, I should have known…) used on private-owned Keihan, Hankyu, and the public Osaka City Subway (Note: JR East, West, and all other regional branches of JR are also technically private but still considered separate from the 私鉄 or “private” train companies, which are in turn separate from city-owned subway lines.) became mutually compatible starting January 21. Yoshimi Taniguchi of the Kinki Transit Bureau (which collects statistics and manages licenses in addition to apparently administering an interpreter exam for tour guides) expressed hopes that such tie-ups would expand to buses and other modes of public transportation.

Customers praised the convenience of no longer having to buy a ticket when switching lines (Note: Of course, the chief benefit to regular users of both lines would simply be to no longer have to carry an extra card in their wallets…)

There are differences in the two systems, however, that complicate matters: Icoca is a pre-paid service (like Washington DC’s SmarTrip), while “post-pay” PiTaPa collects funds from bank accounts. When customers use PiTaPa for JR, they will have to revert to a prepaid system and insert funds at ticket terminals at the station.

Windows’ Japanese edition uses haiku error messages.

Actually it doesn’t, but apparently there is (was?) a net legend to that effect.

Yesterday it worked.
Today it is not working.
Windows is like that.

Sadly, such messages are fictional. The list of haiku messages circulating on the Internet is culled from a 1998 contest organized by Salon, an online magazine, which challenged readers to come up with error messages in haiku form. Salon received more than 200 entries from which it picked two winners: Three things are certain:

Death, taxes, and lost data.
Guess which has occurred.

and

Everything is gone;
Your life’s work has been destroyed.
Squeeze trigger (yes/no)?

TSA to Offer Shorter Lines if You Bare it All for them: MF Has a Suggestion

The TSA (Transportation Security Agency or as some people call them “Thugs Standing Around”) has officially announced its Registered Traveler Program:

New travel plan would require in-depth checks

Beyond shorter lines for airline passengers, benefits are vague.

WASHINGTON – The government is asking airline travelers to give up potentially a huge amount of personal information for what, at this point at least, could be little more than shorter waits at airport security checkpoints.

The Transportation Security Administration announced details of the Registered Traveler Program on Friday, but officials said the benefits for travelers were still being worked out and might not include an exemption from security searches.

Under the voluntary program, which begins in June, travelers would have to submit fingerprints and allow officials to conduct in-depth background checks, including in some cases providing access to personal and financial histories, to prove they aren’t terrorists.

No incentive, you say? Why not integrate this new background check with the government’s security clearance process? If I could put government clearance on my resume without actually having to work for the government, that would be more than enough reason to give up my personal information.

Thoughts?

Quick Koizumi Awesomeness

  • Koizumi rides in Keio University-designed electric car, loves the “awesome speed.” (For video, go here in Internet Explorer, wait for it to load, click “skip,” click “1ch,” then click the 3rd link down with the picture of the car. Worth all the effort I promise!)
  • Koizumi has to teach notoriously unsophisticated former PM Yoshiro Mori how to do the Japanese tea ceremony while wearing awesome kimono. (Click “300k” for video)

Nippon TV’s Online Video News Site Improved

The video news site of Nippon TV (日テレ) has undergone a rebirth; no longer known as Nippon News Network 24, they have renamed themselves “NTV News 24.” In addition, the video streaming is much smoother at 300kbps and comes in clearer. Try the full-screen version!

Now all they have to do is make it a constant stream for it to be perfect. I wouldn’t mind if they included commercials even, as long as it kept me up to date on the goings-on in Japan. Sometimes the print news sites (such as Asahi with its appallingly tiny photographs) just don’t cut it.

Taiwan’s pigs grow ever more fearsome

You may have already heard that researchers here in Taiwan have just perfected the technology of genetically modifying pigs to glow in the dark. This is apparently going to be very useful for research, since every scrap of pig material also glows green, and I imagine lets you more easily locate bits that you’ve dropped on the floor.

According to the report, “In daylight the researchers say the pigs’ eyes, teeth and trotters look green. Their skin has a greenish tinge.”

There is no word yet on how bioluminescence will affect the God Pig industry. According to a report last year in the Taipei Times “some farmers even pour metal into their pigs before a contest in order to increase the swine’s weight.” All said, we seen to be well on the way to one-ton partially metallic bioluminescent god pigs. All it takes it one minor lab accident and we’re in the middle of a 1950’s horror movie.

International dialing

Figuring out exactly how to dial a phone number in one country while in another country (particularly if neither one of them is a country with which you have much telephonic experience) can be a huge pain in the ass.

Just a few minutes ago, while making sure I was telling someone in Japan the correct way to reach my apartment line, I stumbled across this very handy website. It lets you specify a dialing and target location and very conveniently breaks down the entire dialing sequence into whatever international, national, or local dialing prefixes apply.