tokyo

TOKYO--Yodobashi Camera is a massive electronics complex in Tokyo's bustling Shinjuku district. You walk through the neon-lined entrance into a maze of computer, smartphone, TV, and other displays. It's designed to overwhelm.

The plastic shines under the glare of fluorescent lights. Add to that fumes from the bus depot outside, yelling salesmen, and a looped company jingle on the PA system based on "The Battle Hymn of the Republic."

It's a sensory assault. … Read more

People have never been satisfied with just watching the action on a screen, they want to be immersed in it. What better way than with our powerful sense of smell? Japanese researchers from the Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology have developed a smelling screen that puts the nose into play.

While early versions of "Smell-O-Vision" in movie theaters worked by floating odors into the air, the new screen is a bit more sophisticated. The scents can be located on specific parts of the screen. That means a person onscreen could be waving a piece of bacon around in the upper corner, and the smell would emanate from the same spot.… Read more

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This week on Crave, Japanese scientists teach moths to drive mini trucks, and a new app called Dognition claims to improve our relationship with man's best friend. Also, we decide if a $30 million Death Star Kickstarter campaign is worth it, and Montana is apparently full of badasses! Those stories and more, plus a round of "Into It, Not Into It." … Read more

Moths, despite munching on wool sweaters, are pretty innocuous for the most part. Scientists from the University of Tokyo decided to up the ante and put some moths in command of their very own robot vehicle.

The male silkmoths didn't have to pass driver's ed first, they just had to use their natural instincts for tracking down the female moth's sex pheromone. That's right, male moths do pretty much the same thing male humans do when they get their first car: go cruising for girls. … Read more

Is a robot with muscles and bones any more freaky than one with servomotors?

Researchers at the University of Tokyo have been building a humanoid robot called Kenshiro that moves around with muscles that work with small pulleys.

Initially developed as a scrawny kid-bot in 2001, Kenshiro has been packing on muscle mass. With a total of 70 degrees of freedom, or axes of motion, it now has 160 muscles, with 22 in its neck, 12 in its shoulders, 76 in its abdomen, and 50 in its legs.

But it's still designed to mimic the body of a 12-year-old Japanese male, standing 5 feet and 2 inches and weighing 110 pounds. It also has a human-like ribcage, pelvis, and spine made of aluminum. … Read more

NTT DoCoMo lost 40,800 subscribers in November, acknowledging that it's due to customer flight to the iPhone 5, according to Japan's Nikkei business daily.

For Japan's largest mobile-phone carrier, it was the first monthly drop in over five years.

NTT DoCoMo made no bones about blaming its shrinking subscriber base on customers opting for the iPhone 5 at rival carriers.

The company does not offer the iPhone, while rivals Softbank and KDDI do. Both of those carriers posted subscriber gains in November, with KDDI showing net gains of 228,800 customers and Softbank adding 301,900, … Read more

Sony unveiled a smaller, lighter PlayStation 3 at the Tokyo Game Show today, a redesign of its aging console that sports a thinner look and larger hard drive capacities.

Two flavors of the redesigned PS3 arrive this fall in the U.S.: a $269 250GB super slim PS3 option lands on September 25 that includes Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception (game of the year edition) and downloadable content for Dust 514; a $299 500GB slimmer PS3 version sneaks in on October 30 and comes bundled with Assassin's Creed III. … Read more

Learning how to cook can be a frustrating experience. This should not be the case. Aside from an occasional overcooked steak, the process should be an enjoyable one. And considering that one gets to eat the results of one's labor, the aftermath isn't too bad either. (Unless that steak is really overdone.) Understanding that learning how to cook can be thought of as a game, a research team at the Tokyo Institute of Technology has created a cooking simulator designed to give novice cooks instantaneous feedback.

As a novel approach to culinary education, the system is composed of … Read more

They're pneumatic in all the right places.

Giant fembots have set up shop in Tokyo and they're drawing both Japanese businessmen and otaku geeks in droves.

Robot Restaurant recently opened in Kabukicho, one of the world's largest tenderloin areas, with a gimmick that combines giant robots with sexy gals.

The establishment is selling out its cheap dinner shows featuring scantily clad ladies riding around on 10-foot-tall female humanoids, also scantily clad. … Read more