Five ways the Japanese are technically better than us

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Five ways the Japanese are technically better than us                                 [size=70%]Related entries: Gadgets
                                Tags: wall, vision, train, tetris
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                                We're British, so we know when we're being beaten at something. Ifwe're honest, we're beaten at most things. Especially sports, and evenmore embarrassingly, the sports we invented.When it comes to technology, we do have a proud history of inventingsuch monumental gadgets as the modern flushing toilet, the television and the ZX Spectrum.
But even with our glorious history, we'd never pretend to rivalJapan for sheer technological nous. If you speak to people who havebeen to Japan, they're full of barely believable tales of shops sellingthings so futuristic they couldn't even comprehend what they were for.Or why they had a picture of a cat on them.
So we felt it was time to honour the Japanese by taking a good lookat some of the many things they do better than us. Here are five of themost compelling reasons to sell all your stuff on eBay and move to theLand of the Rising Sun. -Ian Morris

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                                  Inmost of the world, when you go to the toilet you plonk yourself on theseat, get on with your business, use the provided paper-based productsand depart. If you're in mainland Europe, this will be preceded by along wait for the single cubicle to become free and followed bywondering why you just did your business in a hole in the floor.Depressingly low-tech.
  The Japanese, who like tech so muchthey even stuff the smallest room in the house with it, took one lookat boring paper-based cleaning solutions and said, "Not on our watch."Thus was born the techno-toilet, a device so well-designed that itanticipates your every need.
The experience starts by the toiletopening its lid for you, and for the gentleman, lifts up the seat too,without any need for human-seat interaction. A brilliant start, but itgets better: if you don't like sitting on a cold throne, the seat canbe warmed to a more pleasant temperature.
  Once business is taken care of, you can instruct the toilet to clean you with a variety of spraysdelivered at a number of different pressures, which eliminates the needfor toilet paper and, apparently, cuts down on the chances ofhaemorrhoids and other bottom-related medical problems. See howtechnology makes our lives better?
  Happily, you can buy one of these magnificent toilet seats here in the UK for just £600.  

Photo credit: Drinkstuff.com

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                                Japanese TV programmes have more than their fair share of weirdness.But let's be honest, when you've seen one British or American gameshow, you've pretty much seen them all.
So when we discovered Hole in the Wall, or Human Tetris as it's sometimes called (despite being very little like Tetrisat all) we could hardly believe it. Instantly our faces wereilluminated with joy: a game show that doesn't try to be high-brow orgimmicky; quite the opposite, it aims for slapstick humour, and itworks a treat.
Even this simple show requires something the restof the word would never dare to do: mix technology with water. But theJapanese just don't care for such ludicrous concerns -- either theirgadgets are all waterproof, or the health and safety inspector was toobusy on the techno-toilet to take a look at the studio.
Hole in the Wall is now a global hit, of course, but when youwatch the BBC version you know they must have filled in literallyhundreds of health and safety forms to make our own British version.It's a certainty that during recording there's an army ofgreen-jacketed men with clipboards in the studio, ensuring each andevery step is carried out according to HSE guidelines.
Photo credit: BBC

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                                  Whenyou go to a train station in the UK it's generally ancient with peelingpaint, spiders as big as your head liberally strewn around andunderpasses with a stench of urine so strong it would distress a tramp.The staff will be rude and unhelpful, and will either try to fine youfor not having a valid ticket or deafen you with their incessantwhistle blowing.
  Once you get on the train (which willarrive late), there will be some reprobate listening to his music overhis phone speakers and you'll be squashed together in conditions thatwould horrify cattle. The train will travel at 30mph and frequentlystop because there is a leaf on the line, while the guard mumbles someincoherent nonsense over the tinny PA system.
  In Japan onthe other hand, major cities are linked via the Shinkansen, or as it'sknown abroad, the bullet train network. In its nearly half century ofoperation, the Shinkansen has carried as many as 7 billion passengers-- an estimated 200,000 people a day. The bullet train is alsoincrediby fast, with regular speeds of up to 190mph. It's possible forit to travel faster than that, with the Japanese rail company havingconducted speed tests that prove its trains can travel at up to 275mph,and have broken a record on maglev tracks going at 361mph.
  Theyare also safe; accidents involving the Shinkansen are incredibly rare.Pretty much only earquakes can knock them off their rails, which is whyeach train is fitted with a system that slams on the brakes if itdetects a quake. That's not the only safety feature either: becausereading a speed-limit sign at 190mph is quite tricky, each trainsignals the driver with a currently posted speed limit. If the driverignores it, the train can slow itself. Even with all this technology,there's plenty for the driver to worry about -- check out this YouTube video for a look behind the scenes.
  Photo credit: MK Products via Wikipedia

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                                There's almost nothing you can't buy from a Japanese vendingmachine. You might think that's an exaggeration, but here's some of thethings it's possible to obtain from a mechanical shop in Japan:umbrellas, eggs, noodles, Hello Kitty popcorn (hot), drinks (includingbeer), cigarettes, toys, flowers, fried food, pornography, used pants, potted plants and of course iPods and other gadgets.
If that doesn't impress you, consider this: there's one vendingmachine for every 20 people in Japan and the industry was worth $56bnin the year 2000.
Selling cigarettes from a machine means there's no one to squint atthe fake IDs of kids trying to score a pack of Marlboro Lights, socunning vending machine designers created a system that would examine the faceof the person purchasing and decide if they looked old enough. An ideaof some genius, thwarted only by the ease with which a photo of anolder person could be shoved in front of the camera.
Photo credit: LHOON (cc-by-sa-2.0)

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                                HD is established in America and in Europe we're starting to get ourfirst taste of the glory of watching TV in glorious high definition.Not so in Japan: they've had HD for so long they sneer at 1080p andlaugh in derision at 720p.
Japan's earliest HD was analogue in nature and had a resolution of1035i, a refresh rate of 60Hz, a 16:9 picture and even 48kHz 16-bitstereo sound. Launched in the late 1980s with the name Hi Vision, thesignals took up more space than could be provided via terrestrialbroadcast, so signals were sent via satellite.
To give you an idea of how backwards we are in comparison, Skylaunched its analogue TV service on 5 February 1989 in the UK -- wedidn't get HD until May 2006. Even now, we're only transmitting 1080i,which must have Japanese HD fans crying with a mixture of laughter andpity. We don't even broadcast Hole in the Wall in HD.
These days Japan is all about ultra high-definition TV.With a 33-megapixel image and frame sizes of 7,680x4,320, this systemis 16 times more detailed than 1080p and glories in the name SuperHi-Vision. The sound system needs to be pretty good to back it up, sothe audio is presented in 22.2, which features ten speakers at earlevel, three below ear level and nine somewhere near the ceiling. Itshould start broadcasting in 2015, by which time 1080p may even beavailable in Britain

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局长来鉴定一下！

someonehappy

6. TV game console

127

actually there are a lot more examples, including av...

someonehappy

You really think Japnese are TECHENICALLY better than US in AV?

Come on, give us some examples.

127

原帖由 someonehappy 于 23-10-2008 01:44 发表

                               
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You really think Japnese are TECHENICALLY better than US in AV?

Come on, give us some examples.

Us? or the US?