Technabob » sharp

Calculator with Built-in Abacus: Double-Check, Double Solve, Double Nerd

Lambert Varias — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 17:00:35 +0000

The 2012 Mobile World Congress kicked off today, and that means new smartphones and other cutting edge mobile technology. But here at Technabob we’re more about cutting strange, so instead of looking at the future today let’s take a look at the past. Portable digital calculators were taking off in Japan during the 70s, but old habits die hard. Especially if they’re centuries old. Hence these Japanese calculators with built-in abacuses:

The calculators in these pictures were both made by Sharp and released during the late 70s. They were informally known as sorocal or soroban calculators, soroban being the Japanese variant of the abacus. Another alternative name for it would be sorotaku, for soroban dentaku, dentaku being the Japanese term for calculator. Another name for it would be redundalator. Or maybe not.

Partners & Spade is selling these Sorocals – the one with brown beads is the EL-8048, while the one with white beads is the EL-428 – for $80 (USD). That’s like, a lot of beads.

[via The World's Best Ever, Retro Calculators & X Number]

Toshiba Shows 6-inch Display with 2560×1600 Resolution, Beats Apple’s Retina Display

Technabob — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 01:00:43 +0000

I have a 27-inch iMac sitting on my desk in the office, and I can’t get enough of its gorgeously sharp 2560 x 1440 resolution display on that machine. Well, pretty soon, you might be able to enjoy a similar resolution on a small tablet, if you can believe it.

Following in the footsteps of Apple’s sharp iPhone 4/4S Retina display, Toshiba is now showing off a 6.1-inch display with an astounding 2560 x 1600 resolution. If you do the math on that, it works out to a whopping 496 ppi. In comparison, Apple’s Retina displays are already a razor-sharp 326ppi. The image above is an example screen from the display. Here’s a zoomed in section from the image to give you a sense of how much detail it holds:

Enough resolution for you? The prototype LCD/TFT display offers a contrast ratio of 1000 to 1, a 176-degree viewing angle, and support for a full 16-million colors. Not too shabby for a display which could almost fit in your pants pocket.

No word on when we’ll actually see these displays in a production device. I’m still waiting for the TV in my living room has the same resolution as a 4K digital cinema.

[Toshiba [JP] via Newlaunches]

Sharp AQUOS IS11H Phone: For Ultimate Girly Girls

Hazel Chua — Sat, 21 May 2011 13:00:56 +0000

Sometimes, all it takes to size an object up is one look. It doesn’t have to be a very long gaze or detailed inspection. And in the case of Sharp’s new AQUOS IS11H Phone, it just takes a second or two to glance at the images and know that these phones are geared towards Japanese women. (Japanese, since they’re being released in Japan for now.)

The entire phone is pink and the phones in the promotional image have a similarly pink and flowery wallpaper to boot. Need I say more?

I don’t know about you, but I’m a girl myself and I do not really find this phone appealing. I mean, it looks okay and all that, but I think there’s such a thing as too much of a thing. Appearances aside, it’s a smartphone that is capable of displaying 3D graphics on a 960×540 3.7-inch display. It runs on Android 2.3 and even has an 8.5 megapixel CMOS camera to boot. You can also use the AQUOS as a mobile wallet and watch some TV on it, and typing is made really easy on it with the slide-out keypad.

All these features make the phone seem and sound more worthwhile. I just can’t swallow all that pink, though. Maybe if it came in black or white… Now that’s more up my alley.

[via Gizmodiva via New Launches]

Sharp Creates Awesome Video Room for Theme Park

Shane McGlaun — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 03:05:22 +0000

The first time I ever saw a 3D movie was at a theme park. Each time we go to the beach we end up having to take the kids over to the IMAX theater that is nearby too so we can see something on the giant screen. The larger the screen you use to watch the video, the more immersed you become. Sharp has created an awesome video screen room that may be the most immersive video attraction ever.

The attraction is called the 5D Miracle Tour, and its space is being constructed for a theme park in Japan called Huis Ten Bosch Co. Ltd. The video room opens on April 29, 2011 and will have a total of 156 massive 60-inch Sharp PN-V601 LCD panels inside it. The front wall, ceiling, and floor each get 36 of the screens and the wide walls each get 24 screens.

The overall effect of all the screens makes for a video wall of 200-300 inches surrounding the viewer. I’m not sure what the deal with seams is though. The rendering clearly shows seams and the press release says that the display is seamless.

[Sharp via Akihabara News]

Sharp LED LCD 70-Inch Aquos HDTV: Bigger Than Your Friends’ TVs

Range — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 11:40:09 +0000

You got to admit that a 70-inch HDTV is pretty big. Prices have come down significantly for big screens, and the Sharp Aquos brand is no different. Their biggest LED LCD HDTV is probably bigger than a lot of your friends, at 5’10″ diagonal. Heck, hopefully you won’t have trouble finding a space that’s big enough to showcase it.

To put the size of this set in perspective, Sharp says that a 70-inch screen has 62% more screen real estate than a 55-inch screen. The LC-70LE732U is the largest LCD HDTV on the market right now. It’s got Quattron four color pixels, full LED backlighting, and Netflix, CinemaNow, and Vudu Apps. There are three more 70-inch models coming this summer that will have 3D. This one doesn’t, but honestly, do you really need it?

The MSRP for this monster is $3,799 (USD), but I’ve seen it retailing for about $2,650 online right now.

Computer Parts Robot Has Intel and AMD in Its Bloodstream

Technabob — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 15:17:07 +0000

I always wonder what to do with all the bits and pieces of obsolete technology I have lying around. Sure, I donate what I can to schools, but I’ve even been turned down there when the tech is too old or unwieldy. Maybe I should do what Mike over at Total Geekdom did, and turn my old electronics into a robot.

Mike had a bunch of parts he was going to put in the trash, and decided to give them new life as a robotic sculpture. He gathered up discarded circuit boards and parts from friends and family too, and managed to build a robot with quite a personality.

He’s got body parts from Dell, AMD, IBM, Maxtor, Toshiba, Sharp, Gateway among others. Nice touch there with the CPUs and flash drives for his brains.

I especially like the eyes – which came from some old Canon and HP digital cameras. You know that thing they say about the eyes being the window to one’s soul, right?

All in all, it’s a loving tribute to technology that at one point was an integral part of someone’s livelihood, education or entertainment. I think we need to build an entire shrine to old technology filled with these guys.

[via Total Geekdom]

Sharp to License Pioneer Elite Brand for TVs in US and Canada

Shane McGlaun — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 13:22:29 +0000

Pioneer Electronics has a line of high-end gear that it sells under its Elite brand. That gear has Blu-ray players and AV receivers among other things and all of the gear is high-end and expensive. The line at one point had produced TVs as well, but those were discontinued.

TWICE reports that Pioneer is now licensing the Elite brand to Sharp to bring new flat-screen TVs to the market in the US and Canada to complement the line of other Elite offerings directly from Pioneer. The TVs will be marketed by Sharp and Pioneer together.

Sharp is also an equity investor in Pioneer Electronics. There is no word on when exactly we will see the sets land or how much they will cost. The Elite line is not cheap so expect the Elite TVs to be priced accordingly.

Gundam Robot Phone: Only in Japan?

Range — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 16:27:32 +0000

If you don’t have an iPhone or an Android phone yet, why not get a Gundam Robot Phone instead?

This phone will be released by Japan’s third biggest mobile phone carrier, SoftBank Mobile, who has 25 million subscribers. The phone itself is based on a Sharp 945SH, which has 3.2-inch VGA display, 12.1MP CCD camera, video recording in 720p, digital TV tuner, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and is waterproof. That’s actually not bad for a basic cell phone. Do I want one, though? Nope, I’ll stick to my old SonyEricsson Cybershot K810i.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

At this point, you’ll have to live in Japan if you want one. There are no current plans for this phone to be released in the US or Europe.

[via CrunchGear]

Sharp’S New 3d-HD Camera for Your Phone: Film Your Own Low-Budget Avatar

Range — Thu, 13 May 2010 12:51:35 +0000

3D is going to be everywhere this year, thanks to James Cameron’s Avatar. I recently read that even Mars would be filmed in 3D on those Pathfinder drones. Now, it looks like Sharp came up with a new and cute little add-on that will allow you to film 3D with your phone!

This little gizmo will work with mobile devices, digital cameras and portable gaming systems. That’s pretty cool, although I wonder how much footage they will be able to capture with their limited storage. There aren’t many details available, however Sharp says that the module will allow you to shoot both 3D photos and 3D videos in 720p.

If you thought this was going to be released in a few years, you’d be wrong because Sharp plans on shipping these to hardware makers as early as July. Mass production will follow later this year. I guess it won’t be long before kids will be shooting 3D footage with their Nintendo DS gaming systems.

[via Crunchgear]

Sharp Intros 4-Color 3d Television Tech

Technabob — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 17:27:51 +0000

Now that you just ditched your new flat-panel for one that supports 3D, Sharp has one-upped the competition with the announcement of the first 3D sets that use 4 pixel colors (RGBY) instead of just 3 (RGB).

According to Sharp, their new 3D LCDs will offer greater color saturation and depth than conventional 3-color LCDs. In addition, the new sets will feature technologies which are said to increase brightness by as much as 1.8 times over other 3D displays – which often lose brightness due to the polarizing shutters on their glasses.

To be more precise:

“The newly developed 3D LCD by Sharp offers a radical new solution… by combining four of Sharp’s unique, one-of-a-kind LCD technologies, including (1) UV2A technology, Sharp’s core technology for LCD TV panels, (2) four primary-color technology, (3) FRED technology, and (4) side-mount scanning LED backlight technology. This LCD is optimized for 3D TV, as screen brightness when displaying 3D images is 1.8 times higher than that of the conventional displays, and crosstalk is extremely low. Sharp’s four-primary-color technology utilizes four primary colors, adding Y (yellow) to the three conventional primary colors of R (red), G (green), and B (blue). This technology contributes to brighter, more vivid colors thanks to higher light transmission efficiency through the panel and a wider color gamut (range of colors that can be reproduced), which had been difficult to attain on conventional three primary color displays.”

Sounds good to me. Guess it’s time to throw my lowly 3-color 3DTV in the trash.

Initially, the sets will only be available in Japan, and you can check out more over on Sharp’s 3D technology website.

[Press Release (translated)]

Sharp’S New Cordless Phone has an LCD Touchscreen Sidekick

Lambert Varias — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 11:00:23 +0000

The recently introduced Sharp JD-7C1CL/CW cordless phone may have a pretty vanilla handset, but it joins the touchscreen bandwagon with its companion 7″ LCD (800 x 480 resolution) touchscreen panel. According to Akihabara News, the panel has various integrated functions like a calendar, a clock, and a phone book app that allows users to store pictures with the numbers.

The panel can also be used as a picture frame (but of course). Pictures can be transferred to the panel’s 128 MB internal memory via infrared or from memory cards through its card reader. I hope Sharp builds on this and adds some kind of videoconferencing in the future. That would be awesome.

It’s nice to see new and useful upgrades to the old landline phone. What’s not nice is not knowing the price and availability of new and useful upgrades to the old landline phone. But I’m sure we’ll get more details in no time at all; secrets and unknowns don’t last long on the Internet.

Sharp’S 5-Color LCD Renders 99% of Real Colors: Will Price of LCD Tvs Go Up by 99% Too?

Lambert Varias — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 12:00:43 +0000

In a breakthrough that will undoubtedly lead to more expensive LCD TV models that people like me can only dream and write about, electronics giant Sharp has developed a 5-primary-color LCD display that will supposedly lead to more lifelike images. Apparently, the traditional 3-color (red, green and blue) setup has some trouble recreating certain colors as they appear in real life. Sharp mentioned the color of the sea, brass instruments, and roses as examples.

That’s just an Aquos LCD TV, not a picture of the LCD display in question. Sorry. But what I can share with you is that the new “Multi-Primary-Color Technology” is able to display 99% of the “real surface colors” thanks to two other color filters: cyan and yellow. Normally, more color filters also means larger power consumption, but Sharp claims that the 5-color setup compensates for that because it’s able to use the display’s backlight more efficiently.

It will take some time before the technology finds its way down to consumer products, but the 60.5-in, 1920 x 1080 full HD prototype is already on display at the ongoing Society for Information Display (SID) 2009. I bet it’s showing footage of roses cruising on a sea using brass plated boats.

[via Gadget Venue]

Sharp 52-Inch LCD TV Just Over an Inch Thick

Technabob — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 16:41:53 +0000

While most of us who cut our teeth on CRT televisions think of LCD and plasma screens as really thin, Sharp certainly doesn’t seem to think they’re thin enough yet. The Japanese electronics maker recently showed off a prototype LCD screen that’s just 1.14-inches thick.

For comparison’s sake, most of today’s 52-inch LCDs measure in around 4 to 5 inches deep at their thickest point. The new televisions are expected to offer a super-wide color gamut as well as an astounding (but likely to be exaggerated) contrast ratio of 100,000 to 1.

While not much else is known about the prototype design, Sharp does intend to take it to market in just a couple of years (2010 to be exact.)

[via Impress via Engadget HD]

Sharp Bd-Hp20s Blu-ray Player Coming Soon

Technabob — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 16:01:55 +0000

Electronics manufacturer Sharp has revealed their first Blu-ray high definition video disc player. The BD-HP20S is expected to hit stores towards the end of this year and looks like a pretty nice player overall.

The BD-HP20S will feature full 1080p resolution with 24 frame-per-second playback, which is ideal since most movies are shot at 24fps. The player will also have an HDMI 1.3 interface and Dobly TrueHD audio playback as well. It’s also supposed to offer a new “Quick Start” capability which should have movies playing faster than previous players.

It’s expected to retail for around $499, but with a likely PlayStation 3 price drop any day now, I wouldn’t be surprised to see street prices go lower than that.

[via High-Def Digest via Gizmodo]

Sharp Em One: a Pocketpc Heavy Hitter

Technabob — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 13:54:40 +0000

Sharp just introduced a shmancy new handheld in Japan, called the EM ONE. Highlights of the new PocketPC include a large 4.1-inch touchscreen display and dual-slider tray that provides easy access to a full QWERTY keyboard and navigation controls.

The Windows Mobile 5.0-based device is designed for both productivity applications and media playback, and its hardware looks like it’s up to the task. With the EM ONE’s staggering 800×480 resolution, you’ll be able to browse the web without squinting this time. Just as importantly, you’ll be able to surf quickly, with both Wi-Fi (802.11b/g) and 3.6MBps HSDPA connectivity built in. The device is jam packed with goodies such as nVidia GoForce 500 graphics, a 520MHz PXA270 CPU, a 1.3 megapixel camera and Bluetooth.

The EM ONE will launch at the end of March in Japan for

LCD Permits Different Content From Different Angles

Technabob — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 13:43:46 +0000

This new LCD system from Sharp Electronics allows you to display different images on the screen when viewed off axis.

Sharp’s European laboratory has developed a system that takes advantage of a concept called the “parallax barrier,” which limits what light can be seen along specific angles. This principal has been used before in the development of Sharp’s 3D LCD panels. This latest concept provides greater control over viewing angles and has the potential to allow multiple viewers to watch different programs on the same tv at the same time based on their seating position.

[via Engadget]

52-Inches of (Flat Panel) Paradise

Technabob — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 13:12:53 +0000

Sharp Electronics isn’t sitting idly by in the “whose is bigger?” battle. Hot on the heels of announcements of Sony and Samsung’s 52-inchers, the folks at Sharp have announced a new series LCD screens in their Aquos line.

Each set supports 1080p resolution, and they range in sizes from 42-inches to 52-inches diagonal, with either side or bottom speaker locations. The new panels are said to offer improved contrast (2000:1 dynamic) using “Black Advanced Super View Full Spec HD LCD panels”, and a fast 4ms refresh rate. These specs don’t sound quite as good as the Samsung specs, but they’re still a significant improvement over prior years’ models. US pricing and release dates have not yet been announced.

[via Akihabara News via Gizmodo]