(Credit:
Fujitsu)
With radio frequency identification tags already showing up in school uniforms, it makes sense they'd make their way into other types of uniforms as well.
But what to do when said uniforms are worn in manufacturing plants where garments have to be sterilized with heat so microorganisms and other outside pollutants don't contaminate the goods? Wouldn't the RFID tags turn into goop?
Funny you should ask. Fujitsu has come up with a flexible, ultra high frequency (UHF)-band RFID tag that can withstand temperatures up to 250 degrees Fahrenheit (much, much hotter than CNET's New York office, even on a really humid day) and high-pressure conditions of 2 atm.
Fujitsu's 1-gram tag is meant for use in uniforms worn by employees of plants that make products like medical supplies or semiconductors and have to sterilize with extra heat. While most microorganisms can be eliminated at 212 degrees F (the boiling point for water at standard pressure), some organisms have a greater resistance to heat and need to be zapped at higher temperatures.
Manufacturing plants already use flexible UHF-band RFID tags to manage uniform supplies, but Fujitsu says its flexible UHF-band RFID tags can take the heat in a way others can't. And that could translate to more operational efficiency. By utilizing the heat-resistant Fujitsu tags, companies will be able to simultaneously scan up to 100 uniforms after they're sterilized, taking a lot of the hassle out of tracking batches of uniforms by hand.
A new touch-screen tablet PC with Windows 7 from Archos, a newcomer to the category.
(Credit: Donald Bell/CNET)A lot of people are betting that 2010 will be the year of the tablet computer.
Of course, we've heard such predictions about tablets before. This time, the reasoning goes, is different, because the devices will have more sophisticated touch screens and consumers are more used to virtual keyboards. Most importantly, Apple just might be jumping into the fray.
Tablets, you may recall, are either laptops with a screen that twists and folds flat and uses a stylus or fingertip for input, or something more like an oversize iPod Touch that's used for tasks like checking e-mail, getting on the Web, and watching videos.
True, market researchers at DisplaySearch predict sales for all touch-screen devices will be growing from $3.5 billion this year to more than $6 billion by 2012. But if 2010 is going be the year of the tablet--meaning regular folks start buying these en masse--someone has to get it right.
So far, we're still waiting.
Toshiba, Archos, Fujitsu, and Lenovo have touch-screen tablets coming our way in the next few months, none of which should revolutionize our already established expectations of tablet PCs.... Read more
Sex is wasted on the young. Or was that youth? I can't quite remember.
In any case, the youth of the United Kingdom seem to be so keen on unprotected sex that local health authorities are offering various tech gadgets as incentives for STD testing.
According to the Daily Mail, medical professionals believe that 10 percent of those between the ages of 16 and 24 in the U.K. have chlamydia, a nasty bacterial infection that appears to be spreading faster than foreclosures.
The big problem with chlamydia is that it doesn't generally come with sores, cankers, or pain. This means that sufferers can carry it for many years entirely undetected.
Local health authorities are therefore attempting to bribe callow youths into their clinics in order to be tested.
And what better way to bribe them than with gadgets?
If you commit to an inspection in Camden, North London, you could win an iPod.
In Northamptonshire, your prize could be a Nintendo Wii.
Whereas in Nottinghamshire, they really feel the need to offer something more meaningful to counteract the after-effects of a night of meaningless sex. Yes, you could be the proud owner of a Fujitsu laptop.
If caught early, chlamydia can be treated with a relatively straightforward course of antibiotics. However, if it is allowed to take up long-term residence, it can lead to infertility and other problems.
Of course, any number of tech incentives cannot substitute for something rather more simple--a little education.
"Unless you change primary behavior and you teach the young that the only safe sex you can have is with someone you know well enough to trust, then treatment is just a sticking plaster solution," Dr. Trevor Stammers, a spokesman for the Family Education Trust told the Mail.
Still, it's heartening to know that iPods and Wiis are doing their little bit to help young Brits not pay too high a price for their undisciplined ways. I blame the colonial heritage.
(Credit:
Fujitsu)
The potential of the Netbook market is turning even the skeptics into believers these days.
On Tuesday, Fujitsu is expected to announce its first Netbook-class laptop for the North American market. It's called the Fujitsu M2010, though the company prefers to describe it as a "mini-notebook" instead of a Netbook. Regardless, it's the first Fujitsu notebook with an Intel Atom processor inside for buyers on this continent.
The M2010 is your standard Netbook/mini-note, with Windows XP, a 160GB hard drive, 1GB of RAM, and three-cell battery for $449. It's nothing all that different from the rest of the crowd, unless you count that it's only available in Ruby Red.
Fujitsu has sold another Netbook, a 9-inch model sold only in Europe, which Fujitsu's senior product director Paul Moore said wasn't suitable for the U.S.
"We didn't bring it to North America because it was an 8.9-inch screen. At that time the feedback we were getting was 8.9 was too small," he said.
The M2010 has a 10-inch screen, which is quickly becoming the standard size for Netbooks--on Monday Dell canned its 9-inch Netbook in favor of two models of its 10-inch Netbooks. And Asus and Acer have also been increasing their focus on the 10-inch category.
... Read moreOn Sale Now: $384.99 - $387.00
View the latest prices for Fujitsu M2010
Fujitsu's self-destructing USB drive.
(Credit: Fujitsu)Now this is something any spy could use.
Fujitsu Labs unveiled a self-destructing USB drive Friday. It's still just a prototype, but it appears ready to solve real-world problems.
It's larger than the average 1GB USB drive, but there's also a lot more going on inside. The device has a processor and a battery. The owner of the drive has two options: the information can be automatically erased after a set time period, or if the USB drive is plugged into a non-authorized computer, the data will erase itself or the entire device will become unusable.
Fujitsu also plans to ensure that the data on the secure device can only be uploaded to a specific server. By installing Fujitsu's file redirect software on a PC, it can prevent data from the USB drive from being uploaded to file-sharing networks, sent as e-mail attachments, or printed, according to Fujitsu.
Beyond international espionage, there are very practical applications for the average corporate cubicle dweller with Fujitsu's new technology. The software/hardware combination can be used to prevent data theft, but also to keep companies in line with compliance rules.
Fujitsu says the prototype is still undergoing internal testing, and that consideration for the device becoming an actual product will come later.
Fujitsu is fairly new to the external hard drive game, but they recently hit one out of the park with the Fujitsu HandyDrive. Each hard drive that makes its way through our labs seems to get cheaper and cheaper (from a cost per gigabyte standpoint), and the HandyDrive is no different. Since Fujitsu shipped us the 400GB version for our testing, we used the current retail price of $110 to calculate a $0.27 per gigabyte cost for the end user. Compare that to the last external drive we tested, the Transcend StoreJet 25 Mobile, which came out to $0.30 per gigabyte. Needless to say, budget storage fiends won't be disappointed by this device.
The drive comes in four capacities 250GB, 320GB, 400GB, and 500GB, and while there aren't any fancy extras like a super rugged exterior or an automatic backup feature, Fujitsu still impresses us with the HandyDrive's data transfer. Per usual, we transferred our 10GB folder of data back and forth and timed the results, and once again, it bested the competition with a lightning-fast 27.94 megabyte per second (MB/s) read and 22.5MB/s write.
Want to read more about how you can increase your storage for cheap? Check out our full review of the Fujitsu HandyDrive External Hard Drive.
It begins with iPhone 3 software details, progresses into face stealing, and somehow ends up at a claw machine containing a mountain of mammaries. Obviously words do nothing to express the joy of this week's Gadgettes.
Listen now: Download today's podcast
 |
EPISODE 129 |
iPhone OS 3.0: What you need to know
iPhone 3.0-ready with $24 stereo Bluetooth headset
iPhone OS 3.0 will turn your phone into a revolutionary sex toy
The 3D FaceStatue might be the creepiest product of all-time
Japan’s latest supermodel–a robot
... Read more
(Credit:
Fujitsu)
We've had a lot of CNET readers tell us they're waiting for a little color before they jump onto the e-book reader bandwagon. Well, as one might expect, a little color is going to cost you a lot of dough, as Fujitsu gets set to release its Flepia color e-book reader in Japan with a $1,000 price tag.
In the works for several years, the Flepia has a bigger display than does Amazon's Kindle 2--it has an 8-inch 1,024x768-pixel XGA touch screen that can display 260,000 colors (Fujitsu refers to its e-ink technology as "color e-paper").
The unit also has built-in wireless Bluetooth and Wi-Fi options, an SD card slot capable of holding up to 4GB of storage, and a battery that, according to Fujitsu, is rated at 40 hours of continuous use (we assume that using Wi-Fi would drain it quicker, however). The Flepia runs on Windows CE 5.0.
A lot of e-book reader manufacturers are looking to Bluetooth connectivity as a way to counter the Kindle's built-in cell service (and Amazon is perhaps looking at a Bluetooth-equipped version of the Kindle for Europe to avoid country-to-country roaming-charge issues). You link your cell phone to the e-book via Bluetooth to access an online e-book store and a Web browser.
While the Google translation of the original post on Engadget Japanese is pretty garbled, the Flepia appears to have these features.
No word on when Fujitsu's color e-book reader might hit North America or Europe, but it's available for preorder now in Japan and is scheduled to ship on April 20. From the pictures, it appears that you'll get the choice of a black or white finish.
Anybody excited about this?
Link: English news release
(Source: Engadget Japanese via Gizmodo)
E-readers are all the rage (this week at least), so it should come as no surprise that another e-reader story is appearing on Crave.
Tech-On reports that Fujitsu is currently conducting a test of the Kindle-like Flepia mobile information terminal in Tokyo at the Termina Kinshicho Fujiya Restaurant.
The test is being conducted as a joint venture between SoftBank Telecom and Mainichi Newspapers.
I get the feeling that in the U.S. they'd have to chain these to the wall.
(Credit: Tech-On)Customers of the restaurant will be able to use the Flepia's (maybe Flepia is the plural?) to browse newspapers and advertisements wirelessly sent to the terminals.
Accoring to Tech-ON, the companies will verify whether the electronic paper module can be accepted as a terminal for reading newspapers, train schedules and weather reports, and whether the service can promote sales and boost customer satisfaction.
This system uses the "BB Mobile Point" wireless LAN service to deliver the content and to regularly update the content being displayed on the Flepia.
The Flepia uses electricity only when the displayed information is switched. As they don't need to be charged during business hours, there is no need to provide electricity to the table. LCD panel-based terminals, which have been used on tables (in japan), require an electrical supply at the table.
Hopefully someone had the foresight to serve the menu through the service as well. That seems like a given to me, but what do I know about quirky Japanese gizmos?
For your next spy mission, consider the F-01A phone from Fujitsu.
It's a sleek-looking phone with some serious, sophisticated technological and rugged credentials. It's submersible--it will still work if dunked in 3 feet of water for up to 30 minutes--and also functions as a fingerprint-scanning device.
Fujitsu phone is waterproof and uses fingerprint-scanning technology.
(Credit: Tech-On)The phone uses AuthenTec's TouchStone technology, which is a fingerprint scanner that is utilized to navigate the device's controls, and TrueFinger, which is security software from AuthenTec, which matches fingerprint patterns. It's the first phone to use the software/hardware combination, according to AuthenTec.
The F-01A also functions as a normal (for Japan, anyway) phone: It's a Symbian-based phone with a 3.5-inch VGA touch-screen. There's a 5.2-megapixel camera, built-in GPS, mobile payment capabilities, and a built-in TV tuner.
It's going to be available from NTT DoCoMo in Japan, though no prices are available yet.
(Via Electronista)
