ANS TechGlance

A Japan national project, Japan Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Demonstration Project driven by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry demonstrates its result at the Fuel Cell EXPO 2009. It is important to point out that the result has brought up with a cross border collaboration involving not only Japanese auto manufactures, oil and gas suppliers but also US and Europe based companies, such as Toyota, Nissan, Suzuki, Mazda, General Motors, Mercedes Benz, Nippon Oil, Tokyo Gas and so on. Click here to see a video and text description for further details. Source: DigInfo 5/6/09

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

Bio-sensor that has been enabled by a combination of semiconductor technology and biotechnology.  According to this video, there will be a variety of applications considered while practical applications for mass production will be available in 2.5 to 3 years. Source: DigInfo via YouTube 3/23/09

Fuel cells use hydrogen and oxygen as the raw materials to generate electricity, while there are many ways to get hydrogen and oxygen.  The phosphorice acid fuel cell presented by the following video reportedly allows two types of gases to get the two essential gases including city gas and bio-gas.  This system sounds pretty environmentally friendly with a high efficiency rating of power generation. Source: DigInfo via YouTube 3/11/09

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

Bio Battery sounds interesting .   The technology product seems to be changing our concept of battery when it's commercially available in the market.  Source: DigInfo via YouTube 3/4/09