Ever looked at that old workhorse in your office carefully? Yes, I'm talking about the uncomplaining and reliable fax machine.

The facsimilie has been around so many years, but is still working strongly. Its basic technology was rather old. It belonged, actually, to Tesla/Edison kind of inventions. Document on a revolving drum was scanned helically in a thin continual strip by a phototube, and relayed through wire/wireless to the receiver. The receiving side burns the paper on its revolving drum according to the imput signal. Sure, it's almost like Edison's wax-drum gramophone!

The older generation of fax machines had been active, especially, in the press editing rooms. Generations of correspondents all over the world used to send photos and articles to their head office.

Of course, it needed Japanese gadget makers to produce handy-sized and cheap fax machines for regular office and even for individual homes. Without bankrupting its proud owners. Anyway, fax machines have been propagated so ubiquitously that even an American kindergarten kid could send his naughty drawing to the White House, and thereby bring a bunch of Secret Service gorillas onto his horrified parents.

Allright, please think again. How about the frequency of fax usage these days? I bet your office fax works less busier than, say, a few years ago. Slowly and slowly, the shadow of the fax machine has been getting thinner. It's definitely on the way to extinction, I'm afraid to say. Fax era is over, dinosaurs have to abdicate.
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The peculiar and strange behavior of notorious Japanes "salaryman" has been the source of utmost bewilderment for the students of socio-economic theoretical model. Many a notable academic have tried to regularize their mass dynamism somehow, but admitted the failure.

Despite of these futile efforts, charcoal-gray suit-cladded and sporting a tired face, the hordes of salarymen still crowd the morning commuter train and show no signs of vanishing into the episode of history. Really an amazing creature, this Japanese salaryman.

One of the most important relics of this tribe is, undoubtedly, business card called meishi.

Our super-heroic "ultra-salaryman" is offering his meishi to a monstrous business opponent. The ensuing fight-to-death battle will be fought at a Ginza bar, killing tons of entertainment allowance.

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Recently, Sony has been having tons of troubles piled on its back. The largest one was that Lithium-ion battery fiasco, followed by PS3's Blu-ray supply problem. Europe market was near write-off. Present money-spinner PSP was also in deep quagmire. Its archenemy, Nintendo DS and DS Lite, gave PSP a big dust cloud.

Battle between PSP and Nintendo DS showed rather a reasonable consequence. As a non-game media player, PSP has a hopeless character input system. Ever tried to type browser URLs on the PSP? Writing a lengthy Kanji essay with your K-tai 10 keys would be far less stressful to your overworked ticker.

Compared to this PSP madness, DS' softkey and stylus input are quite streamlined and efficient, even though these are not full-keyboard level. Far healthier for the new horde of customers, no more-young folks and senior citizens.

What is the best strategy for Sony to prop up the sagging sales of PSP? Of course, more peripherals and more gadgets to attach.

PSPJ-15003 camera unit and its case.

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Everybody wants to connect his digital camera to a GPS system. And everybody wonders why no gadget manufacturer has tried this simple combination yet. Sure, there have been some industrial equipment around. Presently, legendary meter maids all over the world use the combination to record the vivid evidence of parking violation.

But, consumer model? So far, very few. GPS antenna/receiver chips have shrunk so quickly these days that installing them would be no problem at all. Maybe we consumers have to raise our voice loudly.

The digital camera side is ready to accept GPS already. Data-recording format of camera (JPEG) is uniformly standerdized as "Exif". Exif 2.1 has even the space for GPS positional data along with data of the shooting such as shutter speed, aperture and ISO speed. Any Exif-compatible application can utilize these information quite easily.

Ricoh Caplio Pro G3 with IO Data CFGPS2 GPS receiver unit inserted. This model has been discontinued.

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In a minor Indian kingdom, a prince was troubled with the distress of people. And, finally he gave up everything and entered into the life of austerities. No, he was not Gautama Siddhartha, the Buddha, but prince Bodhidharma who was born some 10 centuries later than the Buddha.

Bodhidharma who started everything including Shao Lin Kung Fu.

The monk Bodhidharma subsequently trekked over Himalya and moved to China. And the legend said he founded the Zen Buddhism in China. He was so much loved by the people in China and Japan that everything was attributed to him. Shao-Lin temple, Karate, all kinds of martial arts, general theory of mental relativity, supply-side economic and structural anthropology.and so on.

In Japan, he was widely known as Daruma-taishi, great teacher Dharma. It was said that Bodhidharma had been meditating facing a wall day after day, year after year. Finally, he lost the use of his limbs and his sight, but still he kept on sitting facing the wall in the position of meditation.

People built his image in commemoration of this superhuman achievement. This folk artifact is called Daruma-san, a red-painnted papier-mache doll with no limbs and Indian facial feature. Its eyes are empty white. Nowadays, Daruma-san image is loved by everybody as a sort of good-luck charm.

For example, Japanese candidates of any kind of election, usually purchase a big Daruma-san with blank empty eyes for their campaign, and paint a single eye. When the candidate won the election, he ritually fills the remaining eye black. Congratulations!

This Dharma-san has a black tail? Yes, it's a USB cable. This is the notorious Darumouse!

The centre of Daruma-san doll production is Takasaki-city at the northern tip of Kanto plain, central Japan. A smallish peripheral manufacturer, Actbrise Co. of this locality, had a funky idea to utilize their local prize product as a pointing device, and christened it "Darumouse". The most stale pun. Everybody hates this naming, I guess.

It would be rather cumbersome to move around this huge Daruma-san on table-top. Therefore, this Darumouse is a 3-D pointing device with acceleration sensors embedded in it. You hold the Darumouse on your laps, and control the pointer by tilting it.

Sure, you would protest: "C'mon, it's so impractical and almost impossible to handle it. What is the merit of this monstrosity, anyaway?"

You misunderstood Darumouse, I'm afraid. Daruma-san inherited a few divine favours from its progenitor, Bodhidharma. This scarlet figurine assures you that:
1) Safety and health of your family
2) Prosperity of your family trade
3) Some more unidentified good-lucks.

Therefore, if you fondle this Darmouse, your prosperity will be guaranteed. The function as a pointer device has just secondary value, not that important. Got it?

The correct position to handle Darumouse. You need both hands and an ample space.

Darmouth is made to order, delivery within two weeks of order. Two sizes are available, maxi (25,000 yen) and mini (10,800 yen). Good luck!

 

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