(Credit:
Panasonic)
Panasonic has created a robotic bed that can transform into a wheelchair, allowing the elderly or people with disabilities to get up without assistance.
Users can remain in the bed while it turns into a wheelchair. Half of the mattress rises and half lowers while a motorized unit beneath it automatically slides out from the bed.
While in chair mode, the robot can detect people and obstacles and help users avoid collisions, according to Panasonic.
A controller allows for driving and returning to the bed.
The mattress can also help people turn over in bed to prevent bedsores.
The bed's robotic canopy automatically rises when the unit transforms. It has a screen that acts as TV, controller for home appliances, and home security camera viewer.
The bed is one of many new mobility solutions to help the aging Japanese population stay mobile.
They include Rodem, an ergonomic electric wheelchair, Toyota's thought-controlled wheelchair, and the Hybrid Assistive Limb, a robotic power suit.
And let's not forget Riba, the giant teddy bear robotic nurse that can lift a person from a bed and deposit him or her into a wheelchair.
I think the next logical step in this Japanese arc of invention is the creation of a giant teddy bear bed that transforms into a thought-controlled wheelchair.
Panasonic will show off its prototype Robotic Bed later this month at the International Home Care & Rehabilitation Exhibition 2009 in Tokyo.
(Via Digital World Tokyo)
Those who need their Internet fix while in flight should appreciate a report released on Wednesday by market researcher In-Stat.
The number of commercial airplanes providing broadband access is expected to jump from 25 in 2008 to 800 by end the of 2009, according to the report.
Broadband connectivity is brought to airplanes either through satellite or an air-to-ground network. Both technologies are battling for market share, with Aircell's service based on its own air-to-ground network, and Row44 and Panasonic's service satellite-based.
In-flight broadband has struggled to gain a foothold due to the weak economy and the availability of in-flight entertainment. Other obstacles have included the cost of the service and equipment, difficulty getting regulatory approval for external antennas, and the weight of the equipment adding to fuel costs, In-Stat analyst Daryl Schoolar said in a statement.
But with service and equipment costs down, in-flight broadband providers plan to work with airlines to ramp up service, according to In-Stat. Several U.S. carriers, including American, Delta, and Southwest, are on board to deploy high-speed Internet service on their planes.
(Credit:
In-Stat)
In-flight broadband access is expected to generate $47 million in 2009, according to the report, with a projected annual revenue of $1 billion by 2012. The increased revenue will be split among all the players in the value chain, Schoolar said in the statement. "Airlines, service providers, and even hot-spot aggregators will get some of that revenue."
A CES attendee checks out LG Electronics' 3D LCD TV.
(Credit: Marguerite Reardon/CNET News)Three-dimensional TV is coming to a living room near you. But will the technology spur a consumer spending spree like digital and high-definition TV did before it? Or will 3D end up being the next big flop?
One thing is clear, TV manufacturers need something new to get people buying TVs. Over the last ...
Read the full post at CNET's CES 2009 blog.
If there's a place that's more of a sensory overload than Las Vegas, it's Tokyo, which makes it a perfect place to host what many say is the best consumer electronics show in the world: the Combined Exhibition of Advanced Technologies, or Ceatec, for short.
It's that time of year again, after IFA in Berlin and before the madness of the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, when Ceatec gets its turn on the world's technology stage.
It's a huge show: just less than 206,000 people showed up to see the 895 companies show off their wares last year. The 2008 confab, which runs from Tuesday to Friday in Chiba, Japan, just outside Tokyo, promises to be even bigger.
While Ceatec offers a glimpse into the future of gadgetry, it's also a parade of practical products. Some tech exhibits can be merely a glance at what a company's R&D department is toying around with in a basement laboratory, with no practical application in sight. However, it's very likely that Asian and European consumers will see them in stores sooner than those in the United States.
From the standpoint of a manufacturer or marketer, this show can be kind of dramatic. It's often the last tryout before products get cut from a company's portfolio. Although many products shown are made especially for the Asian or European markets, it's also a final test in another way.
"The reception these products get at Ceatec will help decide if they will enter the U.S. market," according to Richard Doherty, a consumer electronics market researcher at The Envisioneering Group. Doherty hunts the halls every year at Ceatec looking for the best upcoming technology.
But just like at CES, not everything is designed to become an actual product. Both big and small names in electronics come to Ceatec to display a large portfolio of products so that investors, journalists, potential partners, and retailers can take a look.
While some of the products will already be in development, others are just strategic deterrents, designed to throw competitors offtrack from where a company's real product road map is going.
But Ceatec is probably a better show for consumers and gadget hounds, since much of what will be in a company's booth isn't so far from sitting on a store shelf. For example, according to Doherty, 60 percent of the products shown by electronics giant Samsung at CES this past January will become actual products by year's end.
"At the Japan show, more like 9 out of 10 products will make it to market within the year," he said.
And for the stuff that does make the cut, it will sometimes take two to five years before it appears on this side of the Pacific.
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