With T-Mobile just now rolling out it’s 3G network, it’s pretty apparent that the US is lacking in awesome technology. Japan and other Asian countries get to watch mobile broadcast television via DVB-T or 1-SEG, which can make a morning commute a lot more entertaining. Unfortunately, iPhone users have been left in the dark – until now. Released in conjunction ...

Burial plot prices are skyrocketing in Japanese cities, so one company built a facility that uses RFID technology to help store the dead. At Nichiryoku, mourners visit a “prayer area” where they swipe RFID cards to have the cremated remains of their loved one are lifted up from an underground storage vault. CScout Japan has some excellent videos of the ...

You probably think that I’m talking about some autonomous robot that digs into the side of a mountain, right? Wrong, suckaz. I’m talking about a robot built by a Japanese man that spends all day digging and submitting stories to everyone’s favorite vice, Digg.com. He was recently arrested in Nagasaki and judging by the above video, it doesn’t look like ...

Back in the 1800s, if you got shot in the leg, it came off. Broke your arm? Let’s drink some whiskey and saw it off. Modern medicine has been well aided through anatomical drawings from centuries past. Kaibo Zonshinzu has not only drawn some of the most intricate, beautiful medical scrolls, but takes it the extra mile by depicting pain ...

There is an entire sub-culture of geeks who live in a world of Speedcubing. For you not of the geek persuasion, Speedcubing is the attempt to solve the Rubik’s cube as fast as humanly possible, sometimes in extreme situations, such as blindfolded and underwater. Available now in Japan is this Pro Rubik’s Cube Kit, which comes with all you need ...

Sharp is not a major player in the phone industry outside Japan, but it has definitely attracted a sizable group of cult followers. However the company has not been launching any high-end phones since more than 2 years ago (Sharp 903/ SX833/ WX-T91), well this is about to change this year. Earlier this month FCC has given go-ahead to a ...

Researchers from the Tokyo Institute of Technology and the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) in Japan have developed a modular robot, called M-Tran, which changes its shape depending on the situation it is in. The robot is compiled of a number of different modules which each contain different sensors and uses depending on the situation. M-Tran ...

Samsung has announced plans to release a line of phones through KDDI Japan which will have AMOLED (Active Matrix Organic Light Emitting Diode) displays. This technology has been in the works by various companies, yet this is the first of these phones being mass-produced, going beyond the concept stage. Japan always gets lucky with this cool new technology, though once ...

It appears that no matter where you live, you can be sure that the government is wasting time on your dollar. For example–a Japanese bureaucrat was reprimanded recently for neglecting his duties so that he could contribute 260 modifications to the Japanese-language Wikipedia entry on Gundam. Apparently, the problem is not confined to one man and his love for gigantic ...

We would have been a little more excited if somebody else had leaked their software by mistake and allowed everybody to download for free, nonetheless we are slightly excited to learn that Microsoft Japan mistakenly put Internet Explorer 7 (Japanese version) on Windows Update this afternoon. The above screen cap was taken at 2:57 pm Tokyo time today. Some Japanese ...