The Train Café, is a members’ only club for adults in Tokyo’s Ikebukuro district that makes it possible for chikan to enjoy a little hands on release for their sexual frustrations.

Membership at Train Café runs 5,000 yen. Then there is a flat “cup of tea charge” 2,000 yen you need to pay each time you visit the club, plus 3,600 yen for a 20-minute “train ride.” Passengers “ride” in a special room that outfitted to look like the inside of Tokyo’s Yamanote loop line along with young women, whom they are allowed to touch and fondle to their heart’s content.

“During the 20 minute session, the trip takes you from Ikebukuro to Meguro (about one-third of the Yamanote Line’s 60-minute complete loop). With each stop, the doors of the carriage open and the girls get on and off the train. We use actual recordings of the conductors’ announcements and LCD screens outside the window display actual footage of the trip along the Yamanote Line,” Train Cafe’s operator said. “We cannot be beaten when it comes to reality.”

The operator of the Train Café claims that the establishment helps to curb crime by providing men who are overcome with temptation an outlet for their desires. According to the report, the women of the Train Café enjoy being in touch with their customers.

“I loath real chikan. But if I’m attacked by one, I’m too scared to do anything and just shut up. I really, really hate it,” 20-year-old Rin tells the weekly. “But here, all the customers are members. You know you’re going to be felt up and it’s a good place to make friends, so I enjoy it.”

Wait a sec… making friends with potential train pervs?

Here’s a commericial hovering around YouTube for the PSP GPS hardware. The GPS hardware is an upcoming release by Sony

Last night Fuji TV aired another special in its series of “Beauty Colloseum” cosmetic surgery showcase series (ビューティー・コロシアム’06史上最大最高大激変SP). Iv´e heard it’s similar to the plastic surgery shows that they have in America, in which contestants send in tapes showing how god-damned ugly they are and beg for the TV program to pay for a fancy surgical makeover, only “Beauty Colloseum” has more Japanese-style pizzaz. Here’s an example:

I need your help!

Somebody put a picture of a squid beside her so we can see
how she’s all wide and fat like a squid <_<

Now let’s look at her 1 year later (after a crack team of
cosmetic surgeons, hair stylists, and makeup experts were finished with her)

When she stands next to the image of herself one year before,
you can see that she’s much better looking. How much did it cost?

Let’s look at a couple other cases from last night’s program:

After a year of work, the celebrity panelists are amazed at how much better she looks! Let’s see:

She lost some weight, and her teeth aren’t so hideous.

It only cost 1.75 million yen! (About $15,000)
dunno… looks a little bit to unnatural, but hey, i
would not complain

Finally we have this girl. She was so ugly that her boss told her to sit in a corner so he wouldn’t have to look at her face. Now that 2.51 million yen ($21,500) has been spent to make her look better, she’ll be treated like a human being at work! “Fantastic”, isn’t it?

Eight youths who engaged in what they called “otaku hunting” — mugging geeks on the streets of Tokyo’s Akihabara district — have been arrested in three separate cases, police said Thursday.

The teens all targeted junior high school students they referred to as “Akiba-kei,” or geeks who like the otaku culture found widely in retail outlets throughout Akihabara.

Police said there have been 25 reported incidents of “otaku hunting” since the start of the year, with victims losing a combined 350,000 yen between them.

“Otaku are weak and they’ve got money, so we went after them,” one of the arrested youths told the police.

Police said one of the cases involved three boys waylaying a 14-year-old boy who was headed to Akihabara to buy an anime doll and demanding he pay them money or he would be bashed. The boy handed over 3,000 yen, the police said.

In two separate cases in July and September, two groups of boys threatened two other boys, cajoling them into handing over 1,500 yen in cash.

Its a earth quake simulator, so big they can build actual buildings on it, to shake them to a heap of rubble in the worst case. The first few scenes showing dry runs and tests with a smaler version of it, and later with full scale buildings on it.

Table size　　　　　　　 20m×15m
Payload　　　　　　　 　 1200tonf
Driving type　　　 　 　 Accumulator Charged/Electro-Hydraulic Servo Control
Shaking Direction　　　 X,Y-Horizontal　Z-Vertical
Max.Acceleration　　 　 900cm/s^2　1500cm/s^2
Max.velocity　　　　　　 200cm/s　70cm/s
Max.Displacement　　 　±100cm　±70cm
Max.Allowable Moment　Overturning:150MN-n 　Yawing:40MN-n

NTT is developing a device that provides advance warning of earthquakes seconds before they strike by relying on data from a nationwide system of seismometers put in place by the Japan Meteorological Agency. The sensors detect an earthquake’s primary waves (”P-waves”), which travel more quickly and are much weaker than the lower-velocity secondary waves (”S-waves”) that cause the major damage associated with earthquakes.

When the sensors detect P-waves, data about the timing and strength of the coming S-waves is instantly delivered to the earthquake alarms via NTT’s fiber optic network, notifying the users in their homes before the S-waves strike. The time difference between the arrival of P-waves and S-waves depends on the distance from the epicenter, so locations farther from the epicenter can receive warnings much more in advance than those near the epicenter. Unfortunately, people located directly above the epicenter, where the earthquake is at its strongest, are unlikely to receive any advance warning at all.

The TV commercial for the device shows a mildly touching dramatization of the device at work.

The commercial focuses on a female college student who is majoring in home economics and living at home with her parents. When home alone, the girl spends most of her free time in the kitchen honing her cooking skills by preparing dishes like goya kinoko champuru, an Okinawan stir-fry made with bitter gourd, mushroom and eggs. The kitchen is equipped with an NTT earthquake alarm.

The first time the earthquake alarm sounds, the girl goes into a mild panic, squandering her 20-second warning by wondering where to set the dish she is holding. She finally crawls under the dining table and all is well.

The next time an earthquake comes, she is prepared. The alarm sounds and the mechanical voice informs her that a magnitude 3 earthquake will strike in 20 seconds. As the countdown begins, she calmly turns off the stove, opens the patio doors, and crawls under the table. The voice instructs her to protect herself from physical harm until the shaking stops, advising her not to run outside in a panic. The voice then instructs her to make sure the gas is turned off and evacuate to a safe place once the quake has passed. Finally, the voice instructs her to pay attention to the information provided by the mass media and the local authorities, again reminding her to remain calm.

Later, the girl’s mother calls to check on her. Having cooked a great deal of food, the girl tells her mother to come home hungry. Later they will feast.
The earthquake was only a magnitude 3 affair, unlike the monster that struck Kobe back in 1995.

I have fortunately never seen the need to duck and cover during an earthquake and I don’t know how well I would fit under my dining table, but nonetheless it would be nice to have a 20-second warning before the Big One hits.

Sony announced fl0w in the PS3 game line-up at the TGS 2006 last week.

FlOw is a game about piloting an aquatic organism through a surreal biosphere where players consume other organisms, evolve, and advance their organisms to the abyss. Play it now here. How different the game will be on the Sony PS3 is not clear.
More details on this site.

The author is Jenova Chen, who did a MFA thesis titled Flow in Games at the School of Cinema & Television, University of Southern California.

About the thesis:
“This thesis provides a unique game design methodology to realize player-centric Dynamic Difficulty Adjustment (DDA) in video games, which creates optimized video game experiences for different types of players.”

It looks like Jenova Chen hit the big times and got his game that he developed to demonstrate his thesis published by Sony on the PS3.

Black Diamond Advanced Technologies, a design firm specializing in development of rugged technologies has introduced a new ultra mobile PC called the SwitchBack at the Embedded Systems Conference taking place this week. The SwitchBack is the world’s first rugged UMPC and it is capable of running several different operating systems.

The SwitchBack measures in at a svelte 7.5” x 5.5” x 2” and utilizes a 1.0 GHz Intel Celeron M processor, 1GB of 400MHz DDR2 and it can run Windows XP, CE, Mobile or even Linux. A built-in thumb keyboard handles data input and storage is taken care of with up to a 60GB HDD. The display is a 5.6” WSVGA sunlight viewable touch screen that can be used with a stylus. Wireless connectivity is also built-in with Bluetooth 2.0, WiFi b/g and GPS.

Data

• 4x USB 2.0
• 1x Ethernet 1/100/1000
• 3x SATA (150 MB/s)
• 2x Serial
• 2x PS/2 (Keyboard/Mouse)

Expansion Slot

• 1x Compact Flash
• 2x Express Card
• 1x PCI Express Graphics

Audio

• 1x High Def Audio
• 1x MIC Input

Video

• 1x HDTV OUT
• 1x VGA
• S-Video
• 16x GPIO
• Component (High Def) ADC & DAC-8 channels ea, 12 bit

SwitchBack is designed for users working in harsh environments and utilizes a magnesium housing that is reinforced with rubber isolators and shock-mounted electronics. Black Diamond designed the UMPC to meet military specifications (MIL-STD) for shock, vibration, humidity and extreme temperatures.SwitchBack is also extendable via a detachable module on the rear of the unit that is used to add additional hardware, devices and connector interfaces.

Module examples that can be used with the SwitchBack are;

• Additional Battery
• Additional Processors
• Additional Hard Drive
• Digital Camera
• Scanner

• SAASM GPS Receiver
• SATCOM Radio
• Terrestrial Radio
• Laser Range Finder
• Breathalyzer
• Fingerprint Reader

• Barcode Scanner
• Mag-Stripe Reader
• RFID Reader
• Smart Card Reader

• Graphics Card
• Joystick Controller

SwitchBack is slated for Q4 2006 delivery with Windows XP.

One thing that is extremely practical is the possibility to recharge a phone or a camera with any kind of AA or 9V batteries. This time, Elecom offers the same kind of solution for Pod, either as a dock or ON THE GO.

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