9.25.2018

Add fragrance to games and movies

Asia's largest game trade show Tokyo Game Show 2018 was held in late September. Most of the exhibition booths are related to games, but Kyoto startup Aromajoin exhibited the gadgets they are developing. It is Aroma Shooter 1 which adds fragrance to games and movies.





This is a palm-sized miniature gadget, but it can instantly switch and release six types of fragrances according to the progress of the linked games or movies. When you connecting this to PC or mobile with USB or Bluetooth, it releases multiple scents from the built-in aroma cartridges. The advantage of this is that there are no remaining fragments. Existing aroma diffusers diffuse water and liquid perfume as the mist, so the fragrance drifts throughout the space, and it will never disappear. But Aroma Shooter 1's aroma cartridges are of a solid type and use air to release only aroma molecules like laser beams, so even if the interval of releasing multiple fragrances are short, they are not mixed. They use large numbers of patented technologies for development.
They have released APIs for Windows, iOS, Android, Java, NodeJS, Unity on the website, and developers can develop contents linked with Aroma Shooter 1.
Color variations are white and black, prices are USB version is 192,000yen, Bluetooth version is 240,000yen, and each aroma cartridges are 6,095yen.
Though they may be expensive, but they have not started full-scale mass production yet. If they establish mass production system it will be cheaper.

8.11.2018

Speaker to chant Buddhist sutra

n mid-August, Buddhist customs Obon to honor the spirits of one's ancestors be held in Japan. It is a tradition with a history of 500 years in Japan, but the number of people who can chant Buddhist sutra gradually decreases. Therefore, Let's Corporation, who is engaged in hardware development released the portable speaker that supports Bluetooth to chant Buddhist sutra.




When you press this power button, this will play Heart Sutra's solo and repeat. Also, this body has an LED light that reproduces candle lights, you do not have to worry about accidents due to fire of real candles. Of course, if you pairing this with another gadget by Bluetooth, this can play sounds other than sutra.
The color variation of this are brown and pink, and they also start the service of shipping by recording the user's favorite sutra as an option. It is equipped with a built-in lithium battery, you can use it for about five consecutive hours. When charging, you can use the included USB cable. The size is 98 mm × 165 mm and the weight is 410 g. The price is 7,560 yen (tax excluded).

8.01.2018

Summon a virtual family

If your favorite character appeared in the real world? If he or she talks with you everyday? They are just the future and the ultimate dream. IoT startup Gatebox has released a new model of summoning gadget that you can live with your favorite character.



They have already released the limited production model of it at the end of 2016, but the new model released this time is a slim body than that, the price is 162,000 yen (tax included) and it is 50% of the conventional price.
"Living together expenses" of 1,500 yen per month are required separately. This is a virtual home robot that can communicate by displaying virtual characters inside a box by projection technology and sensing technology. It has a dual microphone on the top, you can speak to the character from afar. In addition, it also has a camera and a human sensor, recognizing your face and movement, smiling for you when it find your face. For example, when you go home, this will auto detect you and talks "Welcome back". They will deliver trial version of their original character Azuma Hikari along with the release of the new model. You can enjoy voice dialogue, active action by face recognition, and chat linked with messaging application LINE with her.



They will release her official version in December. In the official version, you can use features like celebrating your anniversary with her. It costs 1,500 yen (tax excluded) per month to live with her, but it is free until the end of March 2019. The size of this is 210 mm x 277 mm x 549 mm, weighs about 5 kg, and power supply is AC100V ~ 240V. They have already started reservation reception and delivery is scheduled for October or later.

via https://gatebox.ai/home/

7.12.2018

Next Generation Fish Picture Book

It is the best season to play at the sea and river right now. You may go out to there with family or friends. What would you do if you saw fish that did not know names? Although Google image search is also good, but mobile application "fish" making use of AI is easier.


This app uses AI to analyze the photos of fish in your smartphone and tells their name, You can not know the names of the fish, but also their types, characteristic, and which recipe is suitable for them. If the fish were a dangerous kind with poison, that information is also displayed.
B.creation, who released this brought the fishing boat reservation site, they asked their users to cooperate, and gathered about 3 million fish photos and made a database. They added the tags of the fish kind to the each photos and let AI learn. They increased the accuracy of AI by letting one kind of fish learn various photos with different conditions such as brightness and angle. Now, the application corresponds to 80 kinds of fish. Application download is free(iOS/Android).

7.10.2018

Speaker making a bathroom into a studio


Sing in the bathroom --- it may be experienced everyone. If you use bathCAPSULE, a bath speaker accessory, your bathroom will be studio and you will have more fun singing.
Gadget company BoCo sells the bone conduction speaker docodemoSPEAKER which radiates sound by vibrating places and things that placed it. They started selling bathCAPSULE, the bath accessory for docodemo SPEAKER for supporters only at the crowdfunding platform Makuake.



When you attach docodemoSPEAKER to bathtub with bathCAPSULE, the whole bath vibrates and becomes a speaker. According to the developers, it is particularly good for bass reproduction, and the sound of the acoustic wood bass that is difficult to play with ordinary speakers is wonderful. It is common to use at the edge of a bathtub, but when you sink it into a bathtub, you can feel the vibration of the sound throughout the body. Of course bathCAPSULE is waterproof and you can easily put docodemoSPEAKER in it.
The size of docodemoSPEAKER is 77 mm × 54 mm and weighs approximately 360 g, if you charge it for about 3 hours using a micro USB cable, it will run for about 7 hours continuous.
You can purchase a set of docodemoSPEAKER and bathCAPSULE at 20,700 yen ~ 42,851 yen. In addition, they have released color variations of Silver Black, Violet Blue, Royal Burgundy and Chrome Yellow.