Tokyo green fair highlights Sony wind-up camera

Hooked up to a PC, the Odo looks like a postmodern potted plant.

(Credit: Impress Japan)

Sony's prototype, wind-up Odo digital camera is among the gadgets attracting attention at Tokyo's largest green products fair this week. We're spying from afar at Eco-Products 2007, which includes more than 500 exhibitors.

The Odo looks like a giant, plastic toy sprout when plugged into a planter-shaped base to transfer images to a computer. The camera takes 15 seconds to recharge, either by rolling the charger wheel with fingers or running it over surface. Sony's Spin N Snap takes still photos while the Crank N Capture shoots video.

Other future-forward products attracting attention at the fair include solar LED lights from Sharp and environmentally friendly X-ray equipment from Toshiba. Rice, used for materials coatings in Japan for centuries, is the key ingredient in nontoxic paint from Kinuka that's supposedly safe enough to lick.

Japan East Railways is demonstrating a ticketing system that harnesses electrical power from the vibration of human feet as they pass through the gate.

Penguins animate this household energy monitor.

(Credit: Impress Japan)

And there are audio speakers that use bamboo-based fabrics, many energy-efficient appliances, home power-monitoring software featuring cartoon penguins, as well as a slew of biodegradable toys and bioplastic cell phone cases.

People at the fair can count their carbons and learn how to go on a CO2 diet with help from a government-sponsored campaign that began in 2004.

(Via Japan for Sustainability, Impress Japan)

[DarkHawke]

The Odo? THE ODO!?!?

I KNEW all this "green" crapola was a conspiracy! Now I know who's behind it! The Founders! The Changelings! Don't you see? They're being so transparent now that they expect you to miss the clue they just put in plain sight! The Odo? How 'bout just plain Odo, as in the Changeling that'll be the head of Terak Nor/Deep Space Nine security in the late 24th century! They're invading us NOW so they don't have to wait till we find the wormhole! Sure, you buy this cutesy-pie little camera, thinking you're doing right by the environment. Then before you know it, the camera mysteriously disappears, YOU don't exist anymore but no one notices 'cause they still see "you" every day! Don't believe me? Look at the Leader of all this, Al Gore. You expect me to believe THAT'S a human being? WAKE UP, PEOPLE!!!

[la_resistance28]

the odo camera and al gore

ya know, you might be on to something there, DarkHawke. Al Gore's face is sometimes as expressive as a Odo's featureless face. odd, since you'd think that a changeling would be good at, you know, actually changing its aesthetic features. all Trek-geek kidding aside, if Sony keeps prices down (around $200), I could see this being a fun, family-friendly Wii-esque gadget that everyone wants to get their hands on.

[la_resistance28]

$200 is too much

$200? I take that back. With no LCD screen and no photo-viewing opportunity, this thing better be a sub-$100 toy. i'm all for green technology, but i'm not paying big bucks if i still gotta wait a couple hours before I can get home and check out how my pics turned out on my computer...