A white manila MacBook Air case

This case is from avenue-d and comes in a variety of colors. It’s made mostly from cotton, and has a 2mm layer cushion. In addition, the inner layer surface is made from micro-fibers to protect the MacBook Air. The buttons are made from leather.

It is sold in Amazon Japan for 4,980 yen (around $50).



Nice. I’d like to get one. Except, I don’t have a MacBook Air… Dang.

Sony S-Frame – A white digital photo frame

I saw this yesterday while shopping in Kichijyo-ji in Tokyo. The Sony S-Frame is a digital photo frame.

There are 3 lines:

• V900 – The top of the line. Nine-inch screen with a bunch of functions.
  
• V700 - Has a smaller seven-inch screen and basically shared the same functions as V900.
  
• D70 – The low end of the line. Seven-inch screen with less memory and functions. 
  

I’m going to focus on the V900 for this post. Here are the basics:

• The V900 is available in black and white.
  
• It comes with 512 MB of internal storage. 
  
• Supports a wide variety of memory cards, which is a nice touch by Sony. This means you’re not confined to Sony’s memory stick. 
  

What’s cool?

• It has an auto orientation sensor and will always display your photo in the correct orientation. 
  
• HDMI output – Though I have personally never showed or shared photos on TV, but I guess it could be nice for some. 
  
• In addition to displaying photos and slide shows, this frame can show calendars and display the time. It also allows you to show photos with a clock or calendar. 
  
  
  
  

What other functions does it have?

• You can connect a separate sold Bluetooh USB adapter and transfer photos to the frame via Bluetooth. This should really be built in.
  

What’s missing?

• The ability to connect to wi-fi and send photos over wifi or subscribe to photo fees from a photo sharing sites like Flickr.
  

How much does it cost to have in on for a month?
They estimate about 58 yen (around 60 cents) of electricity costs to have the frame on for an entire month.


Pricing and Availability

The top of the line V900 can be found in Tokyo from around $250. It’s also available in the US at Sony Style for $299.99.

It’s stylish and elegant, but ff you ask me, I’d still prefer a Chumby.

Source:

Sony Japan - S-Frame (Japanese)

Gadget Ad: new line up of au mobile phones

This ad features some of the new phones for au in Japan: Sharp's W64SH, Toshiba's W65T, Casio's W63CA, Sony Ericsson's re, and Hitachi's W63H.

Bringing my music collection to my living room wirelessly with the shiny white trio: Mac mini, AirPort Express, and iPhone with Remote app

Using my Mac mini primarily as a music streaming server
I have a Mac mini 1.42 GHz PowerPC G4 with 1 GB of RAM. Up till now, I used it as a media center, but just realized that it didn’t have enough power to handle videos very well. So I have decided to let it mainly do the following tasks:

1. Stream my music collection
   
2. Record TV shows – I have a very old TV tuner (I-O Data GV-1394) that I bought in Japan. 
   
3. Move mail from Gmail to MobileMe account– Since the mini is on 24-7, I could have it move incoming mail from Gmail account to my MobileMe account. This way, on my iPhone, I can see my Gmail and MobileMe mail in one place. 
   

Taking advantage of AirTunes with the AirPort Express
I never really used my AirPort Express with AirTunes, so I thought I give it a try. I relocated my AirPort Express to the living room and connected it to the stereo system.

So having everything wired up, I went to iTunes, and found a pull down menu on the right bottom corner. The default item is “Computer.” I clicked on it, and the configured AirPort Express is in the list. Selected that, and I got the music streaming to my living room speakers. That was easy. If you have more than one AirPort Express, you can configure to stream to the ones you like, or all of them at the same time. My place in Tokyo is not that big, so I won’t be needing to stream to multiple speakers, but that is a really cool option if you living in a big house or your house is more than one story high. Neat.

iPhone / iPod touch with the Remote app
I loaded up my iPhone and iPod touch with the Remote app. After setting everything up,  I can browse by playlists, artists, and albums. I can even search. The cover art also gets displayed. It’s too bad we can’t use cover flow to browse, but that’s understandable as it’ll probably take some time to get all the album art to the iPhone.

Overall, I’m having a blast with this setup. In the past I rarely listen to music in the living room (because I don’t have any CDs, and I’m just too lazy to insert CDs), but now I’m putting my stereo system to good use.


Links:
Remote App 
AirPort Express 

iRobot Roomba 530 – Your shiny white vacuum cleaning robot

I always wanted one of these. When will these things become affordable and widespread?

The Roomba 530 is a white vacuum cleaning robot. It is smart enough to actually return to its charging station itself and will detect stairs so it doesn’t fall over. It even comes with a sensor to assess the cleanness of a certain area. The Roomba will continue to clean the specific area until it’s clean. It also claims that it costs 1 yen (about 1 cent) in electricity costs per hour of cleaning.

You can get it for $329.99 at the iRobot website.

It’d be nice if you could rent this and give it a try before a purchase to see how well this works. It's certain a cool gadget though!

Source:
Roomba 500 series pamphlet (Japanese)
Roomba website

NEC’s N-03A Vanilla White– The cell phone for vanilla lovers

NEC has gotten together with Pierre Hermé, who is often referred to as the Picasso of pastry, to produce their new model N-03A, which is to be released in on the 20th of this month in Japan.

Lots of different colors!
The photo above is the Vanilla White version of the phone. It is also available in Macaron Pink, Apricot Orange, Chocolate Brown, and Cassis Blue.

What’s special?
In addition to the regular slate of cell phone features in Japan such as 1seg TV and e-wallet, the N-03A comes with pastry themes and wallpapers to satisfy sweets lovers.  See below for a sample of the themes.


The N-03A will be available on November 20th in Japan.  Please visit its website for more photos.  Thanks for reading!


Source:
NEC Mobile

Transforming the iPhone to an Ocarina with Smule

I don’t really buy iPhone apps, but this one is $0.99 for a limited time, and as a Zelda fan, I just couldn’t pass it up.

Smule is basically an Ocarina application created for the iPhone. There are a lot of music instrument applications on iPhone, but its developer claims that it is “the first true musical instrument created for the iPhone.” And unlike “other musical applications, there are no pre-compiled riffs so musicians will find unlimited opportunities for self-expression.” Smule does sound dynamic as it seems to produce dynamic sounds according to how the user is playing the Ocarin. See the following demo video for a better idea.




Source:
BabyGotMac
Smule

PURCHASE: Smartwrap

Since the iPhone functions as a phone unlike my previous iPod touch, I can't wrap my earphones around the iPhone itself.   So I bought this so I can wrap my earphones.  This way, I can stop trying to untangle the cords every time I pull it out of my pocket.  

Of course, I got the white one.  Let's hope it stays white for some time =)

Upgrading iPod touch 1g with iBlock Speakers

I plunged down around 20 dollars to get these iBlock speakers for my iPod touch 1g the other day at an electronics store here in Tokyo.

Now my iPod touch 1g has speakers too!

What’s good about these speakers:

• They plug right into the dock connector port and the speakers stay centered with the touch. 
  
  
• This actually may be good or bad – it draws power from you iPod touch and doesn’t require batteries.
  
  
• I can’t say too much about the quality (it claims to have an active bass system), but at max volume, it’s loud enough though I should try it in a crowded place.
  
  
• The volume controls are disguised as you can see in the following picture.
  
  
  

With the speakers, I realized for the first time that there are sounds when you get a new mail and when you send a mail with the touch.  And it’s cool to know that the sounds are the same as the Mac OS X Mail application.  These speakers also have enough volume to share video and music  when I'm at a friend's house.  Lastly, now I don’t have to wear earphones to hear the music in the games like Super Monkey Ball.

I got a white one, but it seems like the black one might look better with the touch. Urgh!!!  Well, at least it's a shiny white gadget.  

Anyway, below is a picture of the packaging, and thanks for reading!

Another new iPhone commerical in Japan from SoftBank and Apple

See for yourself below:

Unboxing SwitchEasy Colors iPhone 3G Case

For now, I'm going with the SwitchEasy Colors iPhone 3G Case (my previous blog post about it is here).  I was originally going to get the white one, but many people complained that it got dirty easily and yellows rather quickly.  Instead, I settled for orange, which is the theme color of the online songwriting tool project I'm working on.  

I bought it for around 15 dollars here in Japan.  It came with 2 protective films for the screen and even covers for earphones.  So far it's doing what it's suppose to do, and does a nice job of protecting the entire phone.  The protruding home button may get in the way when pressing the space button, which is right above the button.  It isn't really a big issue and I haven't accidentally press the home button yet (plus, it'll take more then a tap to actually press the button).  You might want to be careful if you have big thumbs though =)

And here are some pics:

iPhone 3G Unbox Pics

The bag and the iPhone.

The iPhone 3G... let's get you out of there!

Wooo...

The cables and stuff.  A new USB adapter will be sent to me because the one in the box was recalled.  

And yes! The SIM card eject tool...

Another look at the iPhone 3G

And a look at its shiny white back side!

Good bye Nokia ;-) , and HELLO iPhone :-)

OMG!!! My iPhone data transfer fees are 192,123 yen ($1,900)!!!

Ok. That’s how much I’d have to pay if I didn’t have an unlimited data plan. I sure got worried and surprised when I first saw it.

Apparently, this is the number before the unlimited data plan is applied. I guess that’s SoftBank’s way of saying – look! That’s how much you saved!

Free 24 CTU ringtone for your iPhone

While looking for a ringtone for my iPhone, I came across a free 24 CTU ringtone for the iPhone here via TUAW.  

UPDATE: A reader pointed out another one at CTU24-Ringtone.com.  Thanks!