I don't know who makes the biggest LCD TV but it might currently be Sharp's 37 incher. I saw it today in Yodobashi camera. I've personally never liked the plasma displays. I can see each pixel on a plasma display as there is a space between each one so for me it's like I'm looking through a wire screen. I was happy to see this LCD TV did not have that problem. To bad it's about $8K!

In a land of gadgets even the normal phone has to be full of features. You'd probably be surprised at the number and types of phones in Japan. In America it seems like the majority of our phones are basic. They call. They might store a few numbers. Otherwise we go for style like the Mickey Phone or the Swatch Phone etc. Here though it's gadgets, the latest being the Pioneer TF-LS70S It's got a color LCD display and supports "L−MODE".

I was walking through Sakuraya yesterday and I noticed they have Cassiopeia E−65s, the same model I use for only something like 5900 yen which is about $50!!! If you want one now would be a great time.

You have to check this out! It's a small vacuuming robot, it's only $200 and according to MIT it actually works.

This doesn't appear to be new but I didn't know it. Sony sells a joypad for their Clie series of palm based PDAs.

Panasonic has just released their first broadband video receiver here in Japan called the Broadnow. In other words you can download movies over the net on this thing and watch them on your TV.

Features include, download and watch movies over the net, listen to internet radio, use as an HDD recorder to recorder normal broadcast TV programs, if you forgot to program it you can access it through their website from any browser including your cell phone to tell it to record something. You can also connect it to your PC in which case it can access your PC's hard drive for example to play MP3s off it and visa versa, your PC can access the videos it's recorded/downloaded.

Sanyo just released the GorillaDX NV-DX850 Car Navigcation system. What's the big deal? It detaches so you can use it as a portable DVD player. How gadgety is that? 😛

I stopped by the new Panasonic Center in Odaiba a few days ago. I'll put up more about that later but one thing they were pushing up front is the latest Panasonic MD player. The MJ15. On top of having 101 designs it runs for up to 193 hours on one AA battery.

I was in Akihabara a couple of weeks ago and I saw these funky car stereos.

Today I was looking at the Japanese version of a Replay TV/Tivo. I've been wanting one for about a year. A common complaint among foreigners is how boring Japanese TV is. It's so boring that I almost never even turn my TV on anymore. But, in order to learn Japanese I NEED to watch more TV. TV interesting enough that I will actually watch it instead of start to daydream about something else. There are a few programs I find interesting but I'm almost never home to watch them so last August I started looking.