Using a mirror spinning at a ridiculous 20Hz—20 revolutions a second—researchers at the USC Institute for Creative Technologies have created a fully-functioning monochrome “holographic” display. While holographic displays are pretty common, most implementations don’t allow true 360-degree walkarounds. This puppy does.

I was going to pooh-pooh the practicality of home implementations, but surrounding the spinning mirror with a protective bubble wouldn’t be that impractical. Getting the overhead projector with beams in the image on the mirror into something more compact would likely be a bigger challenge.

However you slice it: very, very cool.

ICT Researchers Win “Best Emerging Technology” Award at SIGGRAPH 2007

Since early this year, Yamakawa Jozo, a soy sauce brewery based in Gifu prefecture, has been selling a type of Tamari soy sauce specially designed for use on ice cream. With the sauce’s rising popularity and a growing number of restaurants using it on their dessert menus, the company sold 5,000 bottles (70 ml for 350 yen/$3) in the second half of August.

A small amount of the rich, dark brew is said to give vanilla ice cream a caramel-like flavor, while a more liberal dose apparently makes vanilla ice cream taste more like mitarashi-dango (skewered rice dumplings covered in sweet sauce).

According to the president of Yamakawa Jozo, the company developed the soy sauce specifically for use with vanilla ice cream, but consumers have come forward with a number of unexpected recipes. In addition to claims that it goes well with other ice cream flavors like strawberry and chocolate, fans of the special sauce say it tastes great on kaki-gori (shaved ice) and on toast, and that it makes a great mixer for shochu (distilled liquor).

Afterthought: This special soy sauce would undoubtedly make a great topping for a number of this summers mouth-watering ice cream flavors

Soy Sauce on Soy Sauce Ice Cream 醤油アイス

Pit Viper Ice Cream まむしアイス — The pit viper, or mamushi in Japanese, is one of the most dangerous poisonous snakes inhabiting the Japanese archipelago. And a bite into this reptilian flavored ice cream can certainly seem deadly. Drives fans into hiss-terics. Pit viper is regarded as an aphrodisiac in Japan, but the terrible taste makes it hard to fall in love with this ice cream.

Indian Curry Ice Cream インドカレーアイス — Definitely not a taste to give others if you’re trying to curry favor. Curry flavored ice cream goes a long way toward putting the bomb into Bombay. The adventurous who try this ice cream will be rewarded with the taste of curry lingering in their mouths for hours.

Pearl Ice Cream　真珠アイス — A real pearler and a cooler alternative, perhaps, to pearl jam! This ice cream is a true Pearl of the Orient. A flavor that’s boisterous for the oysterous. Lucky — or brave — types may even find a gem in their punnet. But this oyster-based ice cream has the kind of taste to make some just wanna clam up.

Salad Ice Cream サラダアイス — An ice cream that is one salad definitely needing to be tossed. This ice cream, packed with chunks of veggies, is the sort of food that turns kids off their greens.

Charcoal Ice Cream 炭アイス — The “coalden” child of Japanese ice creams. A must-eat for the coal miners. Not cool, but undoubtedly “coaled.” An ice cream that could char reputations. But the taste? Char-ming.

Miso Ramen Ice Cream 味噌ラーメンアイス — An ice cream that really gets on the noodle of some, but the ramen and miso are both Japanese culinary favorites. If only the delicacies had been left in the noodle bowl instead of blended with ice cream.

Chilli Pepper Ice Cream 唐辛子アイス — Before partaking of this fiery ice cream, perhaps its best to remember that it’s made of the same stuff used in the capsicum spray turned on those in an uncontrollable rage. Probably one of the only ice creams in existence that makes the mouth burn when you taste it.

Cheese Risotto Ice Cream チーズ・リゾットアイス — “Mama mia!” Italians are famous for raising their arms and gesturing in exasperation at the slightest provocation. Now imagin how they would react seeing that… one of Italy’s national dishes as Ice-cream

Natural Salt Ice Cream 天然塩アイス — How sweet — salty ice cream. A real salt-of-the-earth taste for some, but others feel there’s little fine about this brine.

Grated Yam Ice Cream とろろアイス — When grated, yam creates a gooey paste somewhat akin to clag made out of flour and water. Which kind of raises the question of how it ever ended up as an ice-cream flavor in the first place.

Cypress Tree Ice Cream やすらぎの檜アイス — Cypress is a favorite when making the barrel-like baths. Though it contains fragments of cypress wood for flavoring, some may find the taste of this ice cream influenced more by the bathwater than the material used to make its container. Frankly, this tastes like ice cream on a wooden stick without the ice cream.

Cream Cheese Ice Cream クリーム・チーズアイス — It’d be wonderful to say this flavor creams all others. It may be true when it comes to bread spreads, but it sure aint the case with ice cream.

More Soy Sauce Cream Ice Cream 醤油クリームアイス – If simple soy sauce flavor, or soy sauce on soy sauce ice cream simply isn’t enough, there’s always this — the crème de la crème of vile ice creams. This ice cream has kick, oh man, does it have kick.

Squid Gut Ice Cream いしりアイス　– Squid innards are often used as a condiment in Japanese cuisine, which I suppose makes it a natural to find its way into ice cream. Absolutely an ice cream that should only be partaken of by the brave, we should be fortunate Squid Gut ice cream is not the full squid.

Squid Ink Ice Cream ネーロセッピア（イカ墨）アイス — If the idea of Squid Gut ice cream seems unpalatable, perhaps this Squid Ink flavor is more of a tentacled taste-bud tantalizer.

Char Grilled Seaweed Ice Cream 焼きのりアイス — As if the thought of grilled seaweed is not enough, this ice cream has the added bonus of the seaweed having been burned to a crisp before being added.

Hot Spring Water Ice Cream 温泉アイス — Soaking in the steaming waters of a hot spring …hhhhmmm…. Located in volcanic areas, Japan’s hot springs are subjected to wafts of the pungent odor of sulfur, which, of course, closely resembles the fragrance of broken wind. Know the smell, know what the ice cream tastes like.

Dracula Cool Garlic Mint Ice Cream にんにくとミントアイス — Called “Dracula” because of its supposed effectiveness against vampires due to the garlic it contains, the unfortunate addition of mint flavor almost seems enough to drain anybody’s blood. A taste that seems to leave the mouth in a state of the undead. Definitely not to be eaten in daylight (and nighttimes are best avoided, too).

Genmai Ice Cream (unpolished rice) 玄米茶アイス — It shouldn’t be surprising that this ice cream has a taste that’s a little, well, unpolished. But genmai is certainly healthy and this treat actually gives credence to that idea that rice is nice.

Rice Straw Ice Cream イグサアイス — Rice straw forms the tatami mats some call the essence of Japan. Igusa makes for great wabi and sabi, and a not too bad tasting ice cream flavor, either.

Environmentally Friendly Miso Ice Cream 地球健康味噌アイス — Another miso-based flavor, but this soy bean paste ice cream has the added advantage of being environmentally friendly. Judging by the taste, it would have been much friendlier had it never existed.

Finland Ice Cream フィンランドアイス – An ice cream to get your teeth into, especially as it contains xylitol, a substance said to be beneficial for oral hygiene. Recommended by dentists, probably because, like the makers of this ice cream, they’re used to putting awful tastes in people’s mouths.

IT Media reports that netizens have been having fun with the Japanese version of WikiScanner. WikiScanner lets you review the IP addresses of computers that have been used to edit Wikipedia entries. So far, amateur sleuths have turned up addresses linked to various Ministries and the Imperial Household. In many cases, the edits are for entries which relate to issues which are in the portfolio of these agencies. Others, however, clearly are private interests of individual employees. For instance, the Communications Ministry has edited the entry on electronic voting, particularly security concerns, around ten times. The Education Ministry deleted a reference to the scandal involving Masaaki Honma who resigned as the head of the Tax Commission when it was revealed he was living with his girlfriend in swanky subsididized government accomodation. They also edited an entry on Community Schools to praise their own website. The Health Ministry has edited entries on drugs but one official also appears to have added a lengthy explanation of an adult game based on the anime “Nanatsuiro Drops”. Perhaps inevitably, the Imperial Household seems to have concerned itself with editing speculation about the Imperial Family. The Agriculture Ministry has been particularly prolific but most of the entries found so far relate to Gundam (image above). The article notes that Wikipedia guidelines ask that users refrain from editing entries which relate to them directly.

BEIJING (Reuters) - China´s Shaolin Temple, the cradle of Chinese kung fu, is demanding an apology from an Internet user who said its monks had once been beaten in unarmed combat by a Japanese ninja, Chinese media reported on Friday.

Shaolin Temple, in the northern province of Henan, became famous in the West as the training ground for Kwai Chang “Grasshopper” Caine in the 1970s “Kung Fu” TV series.

Ninjas — professional assassins trained in martial arts — date back to mediaeval Japan

“The so-called defeat is purely fabricated, and we demand the Internet user to apologise to the whole nation for the wrongs he or she did,” the Beijing News said, citing a notice announced by a lawyer for the Shaolin monks.

Relations between Chinese and Japanese are sensitive at the best of times, with emotions still running high over Japan’s invasion and occupation of parts of China in the first half of the 20th Century.

The Internet user, calling themselves “Five Minutes Every Day”, said on an online forum last week that a Japanese ninja came to Shaolin, asked for a fight and many monks failed to beat him, the newspaper said.

“The facts that the monks could not defeat a Japanese ninja showed that they were named as kung fu masters in vain,” the Internet user was quoted as saying in the post.

The Shaolin temple “strongly condemned the horrible deeds” of the user, the newspaper said.

“It is not only extremely irresponsible behaviour with respect to the Shaolin temple and its monks, but also to the whole martial art and Chinese nation,” it quoted the monks as saying.

[1:26] Sven Okonomi: the worse thing is, sometimes hacked software performs BETTER. :P

There would appear to be no looking back for Nintendo as far as the console contest goes, with the Wii outselling Sony’s PlayStation 3 in Japan by a sensational six units to one. And with the machine still in relatively short supply, some retailers have opted to try and cash in on the craze by offering overly priced overseas models instead.

One outlet in Tokyo’s Akihabara district for example is desperately trying to draw in the more determined with a U.S. version of the Wii for the decidedly not discounted price of almost 60,000 yen (500 dollars) – twice the cost of a Japanese model.

The management somewhat unwisely deciding to display the console on top of its even more outrageously priced American PS3.

Which at a whopping 128,000 yen (1,000 dollars) has, perhaps not surprisingly, been unsuccessfully on sale since January.

Whilst millions of people with a Tokyo address do, at least to a certain extent, live in the kind of close-quartered neon-lit landscapes depicted in foreign films and media, countless others lead a rather more relaxing life. The latter being especially true in regards to those living in Hinohara-mura on the metropolis’s western outskirts – the only village in the Japanese capital.

Yet despite being a considerable distance from the city’s downtown area, the residents of this sleepy little settlement are still a part of Tokyo, presumably meaning that they have to put up with all the high prices associated with the capital without any of the benefits. The place doesn’t even have a convenience store for goodness sake.

That said, they do have a nice two-tone tarmac road that is ideal for driving on, or (weather permitting) even walking along.

And should meandering along this road somehow become a little mundane, Hinohara also has a river running through it. The village even employing a local old man to sit on the bank and wave to those foolish enough to have ventured so far in the vain hope of seeing something interesting.

To be fair though, it should also be added that the village is relatively well known for the foodstuff konyakku, which, perhaps rather aptly, is somewhat on the bland side.