As noted below, there was an Audio & Video exhibition in Yokohama this past week. I promised a report from it, and here it is.
First of all, it was not such a big exhibition. It was divided into one main hall where the big companies like Sony, Panasonic, Yamaha, and Pioneer were, and then three smaller halls and a few separate seminar and demo rooms. All in all, I covered the whole exhibition in about 1,5 hours. Although, it needs to be noted that I didn’t stay and listen to any demonstration for an extended period of time (and there were lots of them).
First “big” thing I noticed: Both Yamaha and Sony presenting a big front-speaker (about 30-40 inches wide I think) which gave complete 5-channel surround sound (or so they said, I never got to hear a demonstration). I got to see the inside of the Yamaha speaker though, and it was made up of a huge number of small elements. I think the basic idea was that they would produce sound which then bounced of your walls and ceiling to give that surround effect.
Second, I watched two absolutely FANTASTIC projector demonstrations:
Sanyo LP-Z4, an absolutely amazing XGA-resolution LCD projector. It was the best looking projected images I’ve ever seen (at least for home theater use). It’s being release in November, and it will cost around 300,000 Yen ($3000).
Epson EMP-TW600, also an impressive LCD projector. Specs are similar to the Sanyo, although a little bit lower (this one had 10-bit color, to the Sanyo’s 12, and a contrast rating of 5000:1 to Sanyo’s 7000:1).
When I find the products’ respective homepages I will post them. I recommend both of them highly. The Epson did not have a price yet, but I guess it is similar or a bit lower than the Sanyo.
[To be continued]
Well, it took me about a month (since I transferred my blog to Wordpress) to figure out that the default font that it’s setup to use (at least with the Kubrick template) does not exist by default in Windows! Nope, “Lucida Grande” is a standard OS X font, but is not shipped with Windows.
All Windows users who are browsing blogs made with Wordpress (which are using the Kubrick design, or something based on it, like mine) have seen it with the Verdana font! This was news to me, but maybe everyone else knew….?
Anyway, I managed to get a hold of the font today, installed and finally got to view my own blog in the type face that it was originally meant to be displayed in. I like it! There’s no doubt that Lucida Grande is one of the nicest sans serif fonts out there! A note to Microsoft: include it in Vista!!
[Edit]
By the way, I searched a bit on the Internet regarding this, and it turns out I was not alone (it seems that it is also the case on almost any Mac-designed site, which are great in number, I assume). Check this this link for some points, of which I agree fully! (Although, I will still keep Verdana as a backup font to Lucida Grande, as I don’t have anything against it.)
The A&V Festa 2005 will be held this week (Wednesday 21st until Saturday 24th) at the Yokohama Pacifico Exhibition Center. (A&V stands for, if you didn’t guess it, Audio & Video) Entrance is free! You can find more details on opening hours and how to get there at the AV Festa official homepage (link above).
One of the main events seems to be a presentation by a company called Fostex, who are showing a new speaker that doubles as center speaker and stereo speaker; i.e. theoretically you would only need one speaker as front channel and still get true stereo sound. There are not much more details on the homepage, so I guess we just have to go there and find out more, right. It seems very similar to a Swedish invention by the company Embracing Sound Experience.
Other companies participating in the A&V Festa 2005 are (among many others):
Alpine, NEC, Kenwood, Sanyo, Sony, Denon, Victor, Marantz, and Mitsubishi.
Please look forward to a review of the show after the weekend!
yeah, I know I’m one day late, but gimme a break…..
Super Mario is celebrating its 20th anniversary. (Thanks to Mari for reminding me through her blog.) Yes, the first version of Super Mario Brothers was released on September 13, 1985! Amazing how fast time goes by! I still remember playing the original game on my famicom (NES for you Americans) and how incredibly fun it was! I had never seen anything like it at the time (did PacLand come out before or after Super Mario, though? After I think….)
Anyway, to commemorate the 20th anniversary, Nintendo has released the Game Boy Micro which is a really really small version of the Game Boy Advanced. Actually, looking at the specs of the different models, the Micro seems a bit improved over previous version, in spite of its size!
They also released a special version of the Game Boy Micro which looks like the old Famicom-controllers! Neat! (Tons of other special editions listed here)
Toyota Motor Corporation introduced its top-of-the-line luxury Lexus brand cars on Tuesday across Japan after their successful launch in more than 60 countries.
Opening over 140 showrooms at once (another 40 are already planned), especially designed for the Lexus, it is anticipated to intensify the competition in the luxury car segment, previously dominated by imported brands like BMW and Mercedes Benz.
The product lineup will initially consist of the GS, SC and IS models, with the LS model to be available from next summer.
