Technabob » ceatec

Panasonic Shampoo Robot is Like a Car Wash for Your Head

Conner Flynn — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 12:30:38 +0000

Panasonic’s new Shampoo robot, recently shown off at CEATEC 2011, has hairdressing salons scared. Okay, not really. They don’t have anything to fear from this thing just yet. Although it looks like it might feel like a good massage (until it peels your scalp clean off when it becomes self-aware), it is as slow as Jessica Simpson in a physics class.

This thing is basically a car wash for human craniums. It soaps you, scrubs you, rinses you off and repeats. It may not be perfect, but shampooers everywhere have been put on notice. You might want to turn down your volume for this video clip since the sound is all wonky, but you don’t really need to hear it to see what’s going on:

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

It won’t be long before this robot is washing hair in hospitals, salons etc. Once they tweak it some more, I can even see it dying grandma’s hair blue and giving people rough haircuts in under 5 minutes. Maybe it could even cut some pre-loaded designs into people’s hair and tattoo skulls. Personally, I don’t care what it can do, I won’t be trusting my fragile skull to this thing.

[via robots-dreams]

Facial Recognition Tech Helps Tvs Save Power

Technabob — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 13:05:28 +0000

This new technology from Hitachi automatically detects when you’re actually watching your television, then shuts the display off whenever you’re not looking.

By using advanced facial recognition technology, the monitor can tell when your eyes are on the TV screen, and keeps it turned on only when you’re actually watching. Jump to the 45 second mark on the video below to see an early prototype of the technology in action (or watch the whole thing to see some other cool Hitachi display tech from the CEATEC show)…

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

Both Hitachi and Sony have been working on versions of the system, so maybe that lends it some added creedence. I’m just not sure how much power this will really save, especially now that more and more TVs are moving to LED backlighting, but I suppose every little bit helps. I also think I’d turn off this setting the minute I got up to the kitchen and tried to watch my TV from the other side of the room during the football game.

[via BBC News and Engadget]

Fujitsu Shows Paper Thin Flexible Color Display

Technabob — Tue, 03 Oct 2006 16:14:32 +0000

So called electronic paper and electronic ink technologies have been showing alot of promise lately, especially with the upcoming release of Sony’s eBook Reader coming out next month.

At this week’s CEATEC show in Tokyo, Fujitsu showed off a prototype of a 7.8-inch paper-thin panel that can show 4,096 colors. The device shown was in a rigid eBook reader device, but the technology is capable of being used in flexible displays as well. In addition, this new prototype does not require that power be applied to display the image once it’s drawn, reducing power consumption significantly.

Refesh times are still a little slow – ranging from one to four seconds, depending on image complexity.

[via Macworld UK and Akihabara News]

Sony Shows Web Browser for Playstation 3

Technabob — Tue, 03 Oct 2006 16:06:07 +0000

At this week’s CEATEC show in Tokyo, Sony showed off their web browser for the Playstation 3 console.

The browser is navigated by moving two analog sticks (one for moving the cursor, the other for scrolling up and down the page). The browser also supports multiple windows, which is often lacking in thin web browser clients. it’s not yet clear how text will be entered, but I’m guessing there is some sort of on-screen keyboard controlled with the joystick.

With both Nintendo and Sony showing web browsers for their consoles, I think it’s only a matter of time before Microsoft builds a version of IE for the Xbox 360.

[via Impress]