A mysterious exhibition to appreciate the clear sound of the full-digital speaker OVO

From August 11 - 18, a mysterious exhibition was held at the Sendai-Forus, department store in Sendai. It is an exhibition to appreciate the "sound".

This event was held by JDSound, who develops audio equipment such as full-digital speaker OVO. They were established after the Great East Japan Earthquake, with the intention of helping boost the economy of Tohoku by making electronic products in the area. OVO is their main product, and it play clear sound via USB instead of Bluetooth. Advantages include better sound quality, no delayed output, no setting up procedure and no need for battery charging. You simply plug it into whatever device you want to amp up the audio on. Its full-digital logic system can handle audio signals and output digital ones using less power than an analog system. It left and right sound channels for a stereo effect and boosts sudden or loud sounds by drawing extra energy to the speaker when needed.

At this exhibition, we were able to enjoy various ASMR(Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response) sounds played by OVO.

This is how the venue is. It was an exhibition to appreciate the sound, so of course there were no paintings or photos, just black canvases on an inorganic concrete wall.

The title of this work is "not in time and the madness". As I listened to the canvas to appreciate the sound, I heard a quick touch typing sound in it, so I understood the meaning of the title. What impressed me was that, despite the noisy venue, I was able to hear a clear and realistic sound by bringing my ears closer to the canvas. Why was there an event to enjoy sound at a department store with a lot of noise? This was their challenge.

When I looked at the back of the canvas, OVO was directly taped there! A very simple setting :)
However, it is a good technique to get people who are not familiar with sound and gadgets to understand the performance of OVO. Moreover, it is easy to remain in people's memories because it involves an active action of listening to the sound by bringing the ear close to the canvas.

Sounds that seemed to have a relaxing effect such as bonfire sounds, water sounds, people whispering, and sound of cutting vegetables were on display.
It attracted many people's attention and about 3000 people visited here. This is a staggering figure at a local event.

Currently, they are actively working to release OVO in collaboration with local professional baseball teams and virtual Youtuber, and to release a version of OVO that can customize the exterior. Initially, they raised development funds through crowd funding, but raised more than 90 million yen in only in Japan. Now, OVO is also sold on Amazon.

Co-working space with hundreds of years of history

I usually go around various co-working spaces in Sendai, Miyagi Pref. Sendai is a huge city with about 1 million inhabitants, so multiple coworking spaces can coexist. However, the other Tohoku cities, towns and villages are very rural, small in population, and mostly do not have coworking spaces. My birthplace Masuda, Yokote, Akita Pref. is also one of them. Yokote has a population of about 90,000 and is very lonely.

However, the cafe and restaurant Kurawo in Masuda town has a new coworking space in the store.

Kurawo is a cafe and restaurant run by a long-established fermented food production company founded in 1918. They renovated a huge mansion of the Sake factory built in 1745 and used it as a store. Originally, Masuda is a tourist destination characterized by a historic street lined with old merchants houses and shops, among which the Kurauwo store is one of the oldest buildings.

This is what the coworking space looks like. Capacity is about 10-14 people.

Viewed from the store entrance side. Go through the checkout counter and it is on the right side.

This area was originally used as a mini gallery, but they made it a co-working space to use it outside the exhibition period. How much is the usage fee?

Only one cup of amazake(300 yen)! This is a drink using Kouji, a good bacteria unique to Japan. When Kouji live in grains or beans, they start fermenting activities. Their activities have various positive effects on human health. In addition, we can make various fermented foods such as sake and pickles thanks to them. Amazake is one of them. It has a very high nutritional value and is particularly effective as a preventive agent for heat stroke.

There are several outlets on the wall, and of course WiFi, too. For example, if you're sightseeing in Masuda and want to write the report immediately, it's possible if you come here.

Look at this side table. This is the old chest. These are just historical witnesses.

And tatami is used for the chair.

This place is very popular, and depending on the date and time, it may not be available for events or private reservations by group customers, so please check the store schedule on the official website or Facebook page in advance.

You can visit historical buildings, eat and drink, work and buy souvenirs here. Isn't such a place very valuable?

Information of Kurawo
Web Site:
https://kurawo.net/contents/
Twitter:
https://twitter.com/kurawo3710
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/kurawo/
Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/kurawo3710/

Take a VR look inside the heads of popular Manga ONE PIECE creators

Currently, "Hello, ONE PIECE", an exhibition of the popular Manga ONE PIECE is being held at Sendai mediatheque, a cultural facility in Sendai, Miyagi Pref.

Hello, ONE PIECE was originally held in Malaysia to commemorate the 20th anniversary of serialization in ONE PIECE in magazine. Currently, it is traveling around Japan and overseas, and is scheduled to be held in Wuhan, China after Sendai.

The main exhibition contents include handwritten manuscripts by ONE PIECE creator Eiichiro Oda, full-color illustrations, and a reproduction of his desk. His full-color illustrations are especially wonderful. They are just a flood of colors! Everyone will be amazed by his color sense.

In addition, like a modern exhibition, photography is possible in the venue. If you are a fan of ONE PIECE, you can shoot photos as if you were in Manga.

By the way, you can experience special VR content by paying an additional 300 yen in venue.

 The VR HMD used is Dell Visor VR118.

“Look inside the heads of Eiichiro Oda” was the concept of VR content. Specifically, we can relive Eiichiro Oda from his perspective through a series of steps to draw ONE PIECE characters using Google's Tilt Brush. He hasn't done any digital drawing yet, and has done all the work in analog, but surprisingly he was completely familiar with Tilt Brush.

This is a making video. In a way, this shows how intuitive the VR drawing tool is.

His VR work was available on iPad.

This exhibition is held until August 27th. If you live in Sendai and like ONE PIECE, this will be worth seeing.

Cool trap as an interior

In summer, mosquitoes bother people. Fortunately, in Japan they does not carry any serious illness, but when bitten by them, makes the skin very itchy and uncomfortable. Mimimoto No Boon Zero EX10 is a trap for insects that can be enjoyed as an interior with a cool appearance.

It has an LED UV lamp, and it collects insects that have the habit of gathering in the light, such as mosquitoes, small flies, and moths. The frequency of LED UV lamp is 365mm which insects like, and its cover range is 50-100m2. Because it does not use harmful insecticidal ingredients or fire, it does not generate smoke and odors and can be used safely by families with young children and pets. The fan's inlet is covered with a safety guard so that if children or pets touch it, their fingers will not get caught in the fan. Small insects usually become dehydrated and die within 1-2 days, so you only throw them out of the trapping box below every 2-3 days. Of course, you don't have to touch the insects directly.

This is a USB rechargeable type, so if you use it with a mobile battery, it will work even outdoors such as camping. This was funded in the crowd funding platform Green Funding, and has already raised more than three times the target amount. You can buy it from 6500 yen, and if you settle in August, it will be shipped in this month.

Photo social networking service for stuffed toys

Do you know Japanese social networking culture called Nuidori(ぬい撮り)?  Nuidori refers to a way to take a stuffed toys to various places, create a situation by combining items, take photos and post them on social networking.　It has been popular among female users who frequently use social networking services for several years, and if you search for a hashtag of “#ぬい撮り”(Nuidori) on Instagram, you can find over 100,000 photos.

Actually I am one of them and always out with the game character Nameko.

In order to push this Nuidori movement further, doll maker Sekiguchi has released the Nudori-specific photos social networking app nuidol.

nuidol is an app that aims to promote communication between users who like to take photos of stuffed toys. The basic usage is the same as for other photos social networking apps, but the official accounts of characters and doll companies are prepared at the time of release.

These are the official accounts of Sekiguchi, the publisher of this app. Users can see original photos of the dolls and stuffed toys they sell here.

App features and usage are similar to Instagram. Just take a photo, apply a filter, add comments and tags.

When we post a photo, it is immediately reflected in All Post on the top screen. It's a chance for other users to see our stuffed toys!

Adding tags is easier than Instagram. We don't have to enter #.

Certainly, there are already many photos of stuffed toys posted on Instagram. But because it's the world's largest photos social networking app, our photos will soon be buried among many photos. But there are only stuffed toys in nuidol, and only stuffed toys will be visible when we launch it. It's really cute!
Downloading the app is free(iOS/Android).