The scene on the Jingu-bashi bridge as I was leaving to walk over to Shibuya. In addition to the crowds of Harajuku Girls and tourists, you can also see some more evidence of autumn in Tokyo. Everywhere I went there were trees showing their autumn colours. It really was a beautiful day too – mostly clear skies and sunny, but still relatively cold.
Sitting on the side of the Jingu-bashi bridge, just outside Harajuku JR station, methodically applying makeup as the first step of her transformation from a teenage girl into a Harajuku Girl.
Update: I found another photo of her taken the same day, but once her makeup was complete and she was posing for the cameras. And I wasn’t even looking for that – I simply followed some links and found the photo by chance.
On the wall of a building right next to the entrance to the Omote-Sando metro station was a mosaic. The photo is but a small part of it, but it does give a flavour of the whole thing. Capturing it all would have been difficult.
So, this time in Japan I needed to have text message capabilities in order to keep in touch with my girlfriend who was also travelling in Asia (and not able to get to landline phones or a computer with internet access to check email very easily). With a little help from my friends in our Japan office, we discovered that NTT DoCoMo rents 3G GSM handsets that will work with the SIM card from my Cingular GSM phone, and they are pretty reasonable price-wise too, especially if you can book in advance using their online form.
The phone that they have is a Motorola A835. On the positive side, it worked in Japan, the screen is really good (and large) and the predictive text learns the words you use and auto-completes them in future. On the negative side, it is huge, has a really poor quality camera (well, two of them actually) and perhaps the world’s second worst user interface (e.g. the key to confirm an action will change from one confirmation to the next, even within the same application). It also kept dropping off of the NTT DoCoMo and either telling me it was on Vodafone or that it was in emergency call only mode (I don’t know how that came about since I assume it needs a network for that still). In many cases it would splash the list of networks on the screen and wait until I picked the one I wanted. Not useful when it was sitting in my pocket so I didn’t know it was needing my help. I am still not clear whether it was offline while this screen was displayed, or whether it auto-connected in the background and just didn’t have the smarts to take the question screen away.
That said, both calls and text messages worked to and from the phone using my US number while I was in Tokyo. Hopefully the next phone I get will be 3G capable (assuming the US networks get their act together sometime soon), then I won’t need to rent a brick to do this.
Walking around outside my hotel in Tokyo on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving looking for a Starbucks that was open (the one right next door to the hotel was closed), I walked past this building. I think it is probably the most unusual building I’ve seen in Tokyo, and I cannot fathom why anybody would build anything like it. Still, it makes for a fine photo opportunity so I can’t complain 🙂
I ordered one of these a while back from the UK in fact (I have since found a US distributor). It arrived in the office yesterday, so I thought I would provide some first impressions:
Opening the box, the first thing you see is that they don’t bother to finish the manufacturing process. The LCD still has a protective sheet across it and the plastic screen protector that is meant to be fitted (and can be seen in the photos) is in the box with its protective sheets over it still. So, task number one is to get the film off the display, and then, without letting dust get into it, affix the screen protector to the front of the device. Why this could not be done at the factory is beyond me.
Once that is in place, and the two AA batteries supplied are inserted, the device powers up. The screen looks bright and the unit feels reasonably good. The little joystick is perhaps a little cheap, but the remainder looks and feels good. The batteries are at the base of the unit too, so the weight feels right when you’re holding it.
On the software front things are very different though… It boots up OK and presents the shell shown in the photo. It had trouble recognising my SD card (a Kingston card). While I can get it to read music, photos and software from the card, I cannot get it to update the kernel from the card (at least I don’t think it does). The irony here is that the fix for the SD card problems is to update to the new kernel, which is only possible using an SD card. It won’t recognise my older MMC card at all either.
The USB connection is also non-operational. I can get my Windows and MacOS X boxes to see the device, but nothing more. Again, this is supposed to be fixed in the new kernel.
The music player works well (and even has an option to turn off the screen to save batteries which is nice). The sound is not too bad even over the built in speakers either. I have not yet found a movie that the movie player will play (including the one that was on the included CD-ROM, although my Windows box refused to play that AVI as well so I am not surprised).
As for the games, I have not managed to get any to work yet. I did discover that some need an additional library (downloadable from here), but even with that most do not run at all, or die very soon after they start.
If you are looking for a platform you can develop on I would say this one is interesting, but it is a long way from being ready for general consumer use. Sony and Nintendo have very little to fear from this one.
Was walking around a Target store last week when we came across the demo setup for the new Xbox 360. I’d heard that there were people reporting all kinds of problems from overheating power supplies, overheating units to regular crashing. The Target system seems to be in the latter group; hardly a great ad for the system (and because they had it in a sealed perspex box it couldn’t be reset by anybody without the key).
I also notice that Microsoft has chosen to move away from their famous blue screen of death, which was seen on the original Xbox (most famously, on stage at a trade show when Bill himself was trying to demo something new on it). Black is the new blue it seems, and as luck would have it the abbreviation that most people used for the blue screen, BSOD, still works fine with black as the background 🙂
Apologies for the quality of the photo – I only had my cell phone with me and it doesn’t do so well on indoor shots.
Update: Stopped by the same store last night and once again the unit had this message displayed on it. I did see somebody playing a game on it a little later, but midway through his game it crashed again. This looks like another MS quality product – let’s hope Sony’s offering next year is more stable.
Another shot from the Shibuya district of Tokyo, this one a simple reflection shot showing some of the modern stores in the district reflected in the windows of one of their neighbours.
Another of the cast of characters outside Bic Camera for the November 23 release of the episode 3 DVD in Japan.
Thomas Hawk’s blog has a tale of his attempt to buy a new Canon 5D digital SLR camera from an outfit in New York called PriceRitePhoto. Seems that this particular online store is a classic bait-and-switch outfit and will get you to order, then call or email to tell you there’s a problem with your order and try to sell you more things you didn’t want.
I had a similar experience with Adorama when I tried to buy my 20D, though I did not get any of the abusive comments – just the call about the problem with the order, which was really just an attempt to sell me more things.
Interestingly, many people in the comments for Thomas’ story suggest Adorama is an OK place, and my dealings with them previously had also been good. I suspect that the trigger is certain high price, hot items that they are selling at lower than normal margins to attract people in. When I refused the extras, the order was suddenly delayed because they only had “bundles” in stock. I called their customer service the next morning and cancelled. I should add that their customer support line was excellent, and opened an hour before the sales dept. Within an hour I had the salesperson on the phone offering immediate overnight shipping if I reinstated the order; I declined and bought the camera elsewhere.
I also sent them a detailed email explaining why I cancelled the order (and it was for more than just the 20D) and that when I shop online I do so to avoid having to deal with salespeople. I hope the message got to somebody who cares, and it does seem from the other comments on Thomas’ site that they are still considered one of the better online photography stores by many others.