Why I am Broke
Why I am Broke
Many technologies find their first and last sales in the Japanese market. You can find countless items that you may never need or never knew existed. It seems as technology that is even quite intrusive has become purely second nature to the citizens of Japan. You can see it in the train system, bathrooms and pants pockets of the majority of the country, but it is most evident in the fickle consumer technologies market. It's always the latest and greatest in Japan, but much like the computer market, you have to learn to accept the fact that although you may buy the best today, there will be something out that is twice the speed and half the price, rendering what you bought obsolete. Still, it seems to me that they are afraid to release the smallest and coolest stuff in the U.S. for fear that it is too small for American hands AND that the American consumer is not quite as cavalier as their Asian equivalent.
Technologies I've appropriated so far:
Here's a picture of the camera, front and back, taken by itself and then JPEGged harshly. You see the lens twice, once upside down, because the back was shot by rotating the lens 180 degrees, one of its many convenient features.
Getting a digital camera was one of my top priorities and I did actually manage to get it one of my first days here. I won't tell you how much I paid for it, but let's just say it's about midrange for a digital camera in the US. Needless to say it is light years ahead of anything available stateside.
At 2X, the zoom is a little weak, but the white balance, aperture and flash all work very well, especially in automatic mode. In fact, it's pretty nice that the thing has an aperture and white balance. In daylight and with flash this camera makes a beautiful exposure. Of course, being a control freak, I need to use it in manual mode (I'm also embarassed to use the flash in public) which is why some of the pictures you see I'm posting might be less than perfect. Well, I'm still learning how to use the thing.
At 1280 X 960 the resolution is overkill for the web work I am currently using it for, but it is nice to know it is capable of producing a quality that is suitable for a 5 X 7 print. It is also always best to use the best quality source before compressing. It has a beautiful LCD that measures over 2" diagonally. This large size may help drain the batteries more than usual, but I've been told it shouldn't make a big difference. Either way, it looks great at 32-bit, and it is good to have such a large preview so you know you go the shot that you want.
Connectivity is excellent for Mac via serial cable, Irda v.1.1 or PC-Card adaptor. The only thing that gets difficult is when you start to use the camera's unique features, which are really coming in handy for me. The camera has several modes for stills, i.e. night, day, action, sepia, B&W, but it also has a panorama mode and movie mode. It is capable of recording short movies, up to 13 seconds long, without sound, but the panorama mode takes the cake. It allows you to take up to 9 regular shots, but between each shot it overlays the edge of the previous shot, to allow you to record a circular panorama perfect for QTVR. Within the realm of the camera, everything looks great. Things get difficult when you want to get movies or panoramas off the camera, because the camera records the images as JPEGs and then composites them as panoramas or movies within the camera. When you dump the memory from the camera, it is just JPEGs, so you have to use included software to stitch the panorama together or recreate the quicktime movie. On the page about the bullet train, you can see me using both QTVR panorama and quicktime clips; as I continue to post I should be able to get even better results from it.
Those of you in NY, you will have to see this little thing to believe it when I get back.
Speaking of seeing is believing...
I still can't believe I bought this, because I am so traditionally anti-Sega. I passed up Genesis in favor of Super Nintendo, and skipped Saturn to go with PSX and N64. I really thought I would skip Dreamcast and wait for Playstation 2 in 2000, but there it was, and I had to have it. I had seen videos and commercials for it and it looked so dope.
Well it is truly incredible, but combined with the digital camera, it creates a bit of a cash flow problem for me, so if anybody is interested, now I have a brand-new not-available-in-the-US-until-Q4-99 Dreamcast for sale. These are selling in Chinatown for $600-$700, so I will take offers.
I purchased the core system, plus the requisite PDA/memory card thing (which it should have come with). I bought Sonic Adventure because it looked so good. With the system you get a little music CD and a Christmas card from the President of Sega... i.e. Thanks for giving us another chance, yours truly, President of Sega.
Here are some shots from Sonic. I think we're talking 128-bit graphics here. The game is super-fast and the graphics are absolutely awe-inspiring. I believe the system runs at 640x480; backgrounds are absolutely photorealistic and 3D never slows down like N64. I didn't expect this level of arcade-caliber 3D power. Now I have to get Virtual Fighter 3 and another controller now because I hear VF3 is pretty awesome as well.
Sonic is loads of fun to play, but I've found a couple of flaws in the 3D world programming, which makes me think that they rushed development on this and other games to get the system out so fast. I mean we only started hearing about the thing 6 months ago, and now I have it in my hands.
Anyways, hopefully I won't have to sell it, because when you buy each game you really do feel like you have something comparable to what is in the arcades NOW. That doesn't really happen with a home console.
I hope the new Star Wars arcade game comes out for this console. I finally found it in an arcade in Osaka. It's all in English, so I really don't know why it isn't out in the states yet. It is made by Sega, called "Star Wars - The Arcade Game", and it is brilliant. There are several stages including piloting the X-Wing over the surface of the Death Star in Episode IV, taking down Imperial Walkers on Hoth in your B-Wing a la Episode V, and the speeder bikes on Endor from Episode VI. If you finish any one of these stages (I finished two of them), you get to dual with, for one, Boba Fett, and then Darth Vader. With your lightsaber. The thing looks amazing, and I think Dreamcast is capable of playing it.
PHS is the acronym for Personal Handy System, the Japanese version of PCS, which is what most digital phones are sold for in the U.S. The phones are tinier than any of the digital phones in the U.S. and they are much more functional as well. When you sign up for service there are literally over a 100 of the little phones to choose from; some more appropriate for the school-age girl, who of course all have them all the way down to age 11, but all hilariously too cute for the many businessmen and macho males that use them.
I didn't feel like a member of society until I had phone of these. It is beyond peer pressure; everybody has one of these phones. I've seen what had to be people's grandmothers pulling these out on the train platforms. It is THE way for everybody to keep in touch with eachother, exchange numbers, etc.
A friend of a friend got me a loaner for 2 and a half weeks. I was told it was the latest model. I was very appreciative but still often embarrassed to use this particular phone, because it really is expressly for little girls.
Mine allowed me to create little customized faces for stored numbers. As you can see, I put myself in with my big trap open as usual. And there the phone is next to a small mug to give you an idea of the size.
Pretty nifty, huh?
And others that definitely caught my eye -
GPS NAVIGATION AND TELEVISION LCDS IN CARS
This has become standard fare in every new car, and many people have retrofitted their cars with them. I know that they have been trying this out in the U.S. but I had know idea it was so ubiquitous here. You can watch television on the LCD, that blanks out while the car is in motion, for your safety. All functions in the car are wired into this screen. It's pretty impressive just to see people using it. And the navigation is very comprehensive.
I found this very cool. Just behind the door you dial up the number of your car. This big mechanism goes and retrieves your car from a stack on either side, and deposits it ready to pull out of the garage. Talk about combining space constrictions, necessity and convenience. What will they think of next!
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the stack of cars