Gearfuse

NEC has developed a prototype for a wireless security camera that run off of the power generated by fluorescent light bulbs. The camera just needs to be hung on the ceiling in close proximity to a florescent light source, where it is connected with a wire with a ring-like adapter on the other end.

The flourecent light produces energy through the adapter using electromagnetic induction. The key to the power is not the actual glow, but the magnetic field generated by the AC source in the light. The camera is of VGA resolution, taking shots every 10 seconds and sending the images to a PC through a WiFi connection. — Andrew Dobrow

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Not sure if you have ever noticed that some fluorescent lights do glow in the dark for a while after you’ve turned off the power, that’s because the excited particles (ions) take time to give out the light (photon) after being excited by electrical energy. NEC has extended this behavior of fluorescence material and apply it to their new Hotalook-alpha household lighting system, which was demoed at the Lighting Fair in Japan.

This has captured immense attention in Tokyo as Japan is a country where earthquakes are common, so when the lights go off, you’ll still be able to see around, hide under the table or gather everyone at the exits. This might also be useful in offices, when you would like to check if you have left anything before leaving, or in your bedroom so that you don’t have to fiddle your way on bed after turning off the lights. Another really important use is when the lamp gets smashed, you’ll still be able to see the pieces in dark and pick up the mess. The Hotalook-alpha series has just started selling in Japan, it is priced close to similar products without Hota-look-alpha technology. –Sam Chan

Tokyo Lighting Fair [Impress]

Rumors have been going on that NEC would quit the overseas cellphone market, in fact, it has been a while since we last saw a new NEC 3G device. NEC might not be known to you, but the company has been the largest cellphone maker in Japan for years, with the highest domestic shipping volume. It was only until recently that Sharp has taken NEC’s place and become the number one in market. Anyway, according to the employees of NEC Telecommunications China, the Japanese mother company has already made the decision to dissolve the company, stopping 2G/2.5G GSM cellphone development, whilst retaining the 3G department, it is unsure whether the department will combine with branches elsewhere (Hong Kong perhaps?). Most of the NEC i-Mode phones you see were mainly developed in China, the 8.6mm thin card phone pictured above (years before RAZR) were also designed in China. This might be bad news to Japanese phone fans, with the quitting of Panasonic and Mitsubishi, now we are only left with Sharp and the Eurasian SonyEricsson. No news on how the overseas 3G business or Hutchison-3 partnership would continue, but it is puzzling to see the company being so protective with their domestic technology, their 5 Megapixel phone cameras and VGA+ screens. –Sam Chan

Reviewing the history of NEC [Pcpop]

Looks like the latest trend in Japan is to go for shiny phones, Softbank announced 3 more shiny phones this morning, one from each of NEC, Panasonic and Toshiba. All these phones runs on W-CDMA in Japan and GSM triband when being roamed elsewhere. Cameras on 706N and 706P are 2 megapixels whereas the one on 813T is 3.2MP. The rest of the specs are pretty much standard: QVGA screens, microSD slot, bluetooth, music player, HTML browser… so it’ll be up to personal preference to decide between the trio, perhaps the different user interface. They will all be on shelves before March. — Sam Chan

Softbank

Just 4 hours after AU KDDI’s announcement, NTT DoCoMo announced the new WCDMA 703i series in Tokyo. Nothing out of our expectation as we wrote about before. Also announced are the SonyEricsson BRAVIA SO903iTV DMB phone and Mitsubishi’s double-internal screen D900iDS, both of which Gearfuse premiered on Sunday. The 703i series is the mid-low end of DoCoMo’s 3G portfolio, so don’t compare their specifications with that of the W5 series from AU KDDI. Take note that all these phones will only be available in Japan and Japan only, they will not be unlockable, and neither will other versions be released outside Japan as they are co-developed between NTT DoCoMo and the manufacturers. We have pictures and details of all these cool looking phones after the jump.

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Here’s a really Samsung thing to do, they tend to “borrow” ideas and remarket them. Just when we thought that we should give a “new company” another chance, they ripped off LG- their domestic enemy- with the Chololate-wannabee E900. Now it’s a different level, because they are ripping off other people’s technology instead, it’s the “world’s first Optical Joystick” on their SCH-V960 phone. What does that mean. Basically it is a cursor on screen that you can control with a 360-degrees joystick similar to the track-pointer on smaller laptops. I wonder what’s so new about this idea, because NEC has been doing that to all of their highend WCDMA phones released in Japan since Jan 23, 2003; and they named the technology Neuropointer. We actually feel embarassed to post up the antique NEC N2051 model here for your reference.

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People must like dropping their laptops, because laptop manufacturers continue to churn out ruggedized laptops, such as the ShieldPRO Tablet from NEC. This is one tough tablet: it can survive 3-foot drops onto concrete, -20C to 50C (-4F to 122F) temperatures, dust, sand, even being fully submerged in water. The ShieldPRO is encased in 48mm (1.89 inch) thick magnesium alloy, weighs 3.5kg (7.7 pounds), and is powered by a 1.2GHz Core Solo cpu. It comes with up to 2GB of memory and 60GB of hard disk space, 1024×768 12.1-inch screen, 8-hour battery life, and numerous ports. You can even order the ShieldPRO with Linux preinstalled, and/or a solid state disk for improved robustness. The ShieldPRO will be available for $2,600 in january in Japan. — Mike Payne

[via Engadget]