ANS TechGlance

RIKEN has announced that its researchers have   successfully developed a revolutionary new polymer film that changes shape upon irradiation with UV and visible light.  The announcement continues, " Described in  Science , the film is the largest-ever example of a material whose molecular elements are ordered in three dimensions on a macroscopic length scale, marking a breakthrough in techniques for molecular design and processing." When this technology becomes popular, the direct conversion of light energy into a mechanical force may enable us to obtain a highly efficient energy conversion method from the solar light energy. Source: RIKEN News Release 11/17/10

National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) has announced that the institute successfully developed the electron holography method stereoscopic technology which enables the ultimate viewing zone angle of 15 degrees and 4 cm diagonal display size color video display .  In this development, by applying its own display technology to increase viewing area to high-resolution device with  3300  mega-pixels, the newly developed device is able to gain three time wider viewing zone angles than  conventional devices and about two times broader two times broader video  holographic display. It seems that 3D video display technology development is accelerated to bring us to a virtually "real" world without glasses. Source: NICT's news release (Japanese) 9/28/10

" Metamaterials ", artificial materials, seem to have great potential to create brand new and unprecedented applications for our future life. The electro -magnetic properties of Metamaterials could be artificially controlled by using metal nano -structures, so that refractive index could be changed or controlled. This suggest that we may be able directly to see virtual view, such as something beautiful flowers behind the screen of obstacle, or virtually to create a transparent person who might wear clauses made by Metamaterials . Source: Metamaterials Laboratory's page of RIKEN web-site 7/21/09

Ultra-high speed video camera systems demonstrated by Keyence reportedly provides 24,000 frames per second, that can analyse extremely high speed movement. High-tech just keeps enhancing its capability. Source: DigInfo News via YouTube 6/15/09

Tribute to digital technologies, there seems to be no boundary between a photo shooting camera and video camera. A major camera supplier like Canon announced the dual functions camera while major consumer electronics devices manufactures, such as Sony and Panasonic that have video cameras as one of major product portfolio are starting to sell newly developed dual-mode camera. NOTE: This YouTube video will be replaced with an English version soon. Source: DigInfo via YouTube 4/7/09

How quickly to find a star or stars in the sky depends on clearness of the sky, whether conditions, knowledge level of a planisphere and on quality of an astronomical telescope. StellarWindow seems to ease us quickly to find a star by putting up a flat panel screen (actually tablet pc ) with which an USB type sensor is connected and StellerWindow software is installed. This fantasy animation video well present on how to use it. According to the supplier, 3 TEC , the package price which includes the software package and the USB device but excludes the tablet PC, is Japanese Yen25,000.- plus consumption tax within Japan. Source: 3 TEC Corporation & its groups' page 3/6/09

There are a few good sites that well summarize a trend of Japanese science and technologies in English. This video site created by National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology ( AIST ) is one of the good ones. Its URL is http://www.aist.go.jp/aist_e/video/ . More sites would be expected to be provided by many other organizations maintaining at least this level of quality in English. 3/5/09

An active scope camera proposed here is a rescue robot. Covering the entire cable of robot in cilia , the camera is capable to propel itself forward if the cable is contacting with the surface. According to this video reported by DigInfo, some discussions and technology evaluation are in process for commercial production. Source: DigInfo News via YouTube 1/15/09

This video borescope seems to be very easy to use.  As presented in this YouTube video, there must be a variety of industrial applications. 12/18/08

TOMY has announced a new digital camera that has a built-in printer inside.  It is a full-featured 5 Megapixel digital camera with a built-in full color ZINK (trademark)  priner that is powered by ZINK Imaging Inc's printing technology.    The new product has been born by the marrige of the two technologies of digital camera and printer.  It allows you to capture, view, and immediately print their images without ink, anywhere.   The new products will be available first in Japan late November, 2008.   Source: ZINK Imaging & YouTube 11/6/08

Is the water ball left in the air? This short movie is amazing. This extremely slow and detailed motion pictures were reportedly taken with Photron's high speed video camera at 4,000 frame per second. Photron , a Tokyo based company, offers a series of high speed video cameras to manufacturing industries, the medical field, film laboratories, television and movie studios, as well as to the military worldwide. According to the company's web-site, Photron seems to be engaged in developing and supplying advanced image processing systems. Going into the broadband network era, high speed and high resolution images will be demanded and become more popular not only for industrial analysis but also for new discovery and even for pleasure. 2/28/08