Fivefold Shadows

The shadows cast from a lamp that has five tiny LED lights embedded in it.

I tried to take a break from writing about the earthquake, but these photos merely remind me of Richter scale measurements.

The Touch Screen System Reaches Vending Machines

(Tokyo Station.)

The latest in vending machines: 47-inch touch screens that display different items depending on the season or the hour of the day. The machines also have a sensor that detects the customer's age and gender, and displays products that are targeted towards specific markets. (Supposedly there are no recording devices installed, so I would like to know how they are able to gauge the two factors.)

Another major feature (more for the sellers' benefit than the buyers) is that whenever a product is out of stock, instead of displaying a "sold out" sign, it is simply removed them from the lineup.

The machines first made their appearance in Shinagawa Station in August 2010, and have gradually expanded to other JR East stations -- Tokyo, Shibuya, and Ikebukuro. This one was taken at Tokyo Station. As you can see, it piques the interest of many a traveller.

Big Brother Watching You Get a Buzz

"We're watching you 24 hours."

(The kanji on the bottom right of the machine) "Liquor."

Despite the extreme creepiness, I doubt there are any consequences to being filmed on camera while purchasing a can of beer. Not unless the video is being surveilled by people who have immediate access to the police. However, if the police don't want to have to go after a 15-year-old buying drinks, Japan could simply get rid of vending machines selling alcohol. It's not like we don't have 24-hour conbini selling the same things.

Inadvertent Skype Advertisement

A seemingly innocent want to see actress Gloria Reuben's IMDb page resulted in me almost calling "1-800-Missing" on Skype, which is merely the name of her short-lived TV show. Clearly, Skype needs to learn boundaries.

By the Heat of the Flame

Pilot's Frixion Point, a water-based ballpoint pen with a rubber tip attached at the end. Use the rubber end on what you've written, and it works like an eraser! My initial thought was that this would come in handy when writing resumes, as resumes in Japan have to be individually hand-written and don't allow any mistakes. Even using whiteout is verboten! (If you make even the tiniest mistake, you have to start over.) Alas, Pilot puts itself out of the running for Potential Lifesaver© by including the following warnings in the fine print:

"Do not use for forms or addresses."
-Because the info can be easily erased, I assume. But this includes resumes.
"When exposed to heat over 60°C, the ink will become invisible."
-This must mean the friction generated to erase the writing in the first place is approximately 60°C.

As a test, I wrote with the pen on a piece of paper and held it over the heat of a candle.

Like magic!

How to Dismantle a HDD

Owing to my father's paranoia, I spent this morning with a driver set, disassembling hard disk drives from three different computers and scratching them up so the information inside would be rendered unreadable. It was every bit as tedious as you would expect, but also unexpectedly complicated. (IBM, you should be proud of yourself. Your parts were the most meticulously put together.)

This whole process made me think of electronic waste, more specifically of the people whose jobs involve disassembling computers, cell phones, and other electronics. Most exported e-waste is sent to China, where people risk their health in so many different ways to collect the often toxic metals inside. This work is done by hand, and I can't imagine that they would have all the different-sized Phillips screwdrivers and Torx drivers that would make it a tiny bit easier.

When I finally managed to pry open the lid covering the HDD, I was startled to see this needle and disc, which clearly reminds one of a record player. It functions similarly, with the needle reading the memory in the disc. The disc rotates courtesy of a tiny motor, another major invention of the past. Though quite obvious in retrospect, it struck me that the computer is the distilled result of all the technology humans have accumulated thus far. I now have more empathy for science nerds.

From Micro to Macro

(In Shibuya.)

From postage stamp-size to billboard proportions: the latest in QR Codes. This is an ad for Transcosmos Group, a company that specializes in IT marketing.

If, like me, you held your cell phone up in the air to see if that code was truly readable, then you are a chump.

Incidentally, it was perfectly scannable, but you have to be far enough away from the billboard so that it fits into your phone screen.

Accumulating Dots to Make a Non-Illusion

I'm still slightly mystified by the QR Code reader ("quick response" reader, or "barcode reader") program in my mobile phone. The system has been around for a few years now, but for the longest time I thought it was used to scan for prices, like you would in a supermarket. These barcodes actually function as quick links to websites, and are scanned with and accessed through cell phones.

When I finally understood that the computer chip-like accumulation of black dots arranged in a square were barcodes, I started seeing them everywhere. They're used most predominantly to advertise websites for companies, and can be seen in the corners of ads everywhere,
from posters in trains to magazines to postcards that come in the mail. I even saw one on TV once, in a sweepstakes promotion: "to apply, just scan this barcode with your phone and follow the instructions on the website!" (The TV screen changed while I was still scrambling to activiate the barcode detection program.)

While the mere thought of viewing the internet on a narrow cell phone is enough to make me feel claustrophobic, the fact is that over half of cell phone users in Japan use the internet solely through their phones. This number is expected to rise in the coming years. Having gone from pilot project to phenomenon before acheiving ubiquity, the next step, it seems, is breaking away from the ugly black molds. This can be evinced by the Estee Lauder ad in the photo, with its cute Christmas tree icon. (Or it could be that they've already run out of variations of black dots and have decided to use color.) In the future, we'll probably be able to use photos as barcodes, zapping away at ads with our cell phones. I wonder if I'll still be loyal to my computer when that time comes.