Big in Japan: Sega plans to open mega-arcade in Dubai

by Matthew Firestone on

Here’s a quick question for you:

Name the first thing that comes to mind when someone mentions the city of Dubai.

a) Billions and billions of dollars worth of untapped oil reserves
b) Something akin to the Las Vegas of the Arabian Gulf
c) A desert oasis of shopping malls and astronomically expensive hotels
d) More ridiculous bling than the front row of a Ludicrous concert
e) An environmentally unsustainable nightmare built by slave labor

If you answered any or all of the above, by all means you are indeed correct!

However, it is only going to be a few more months before Dubai also boasts what will most likely be the world’s largest video arcade.

Seriously.

From Japan to the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Sega is about to launch its brand name on the Arab world.

Last week, a representative from the Japanese game company announced that it intends to build a mega-arcade in the Dubai Mall, which will be completed later this year.

Needless to say, Sega also announced that their first mega-arcade in the Middle East will be unlike anything the world has ever seen before.

So, what is the Dubai Mall you ask? Good question!

The Dubai Mall is scheduled to open in late 2008, and when completed, will be the largest mall in the world.

(In a city of gross excess, this shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise!)

According to Wikipedia, the Dubai Mall is rumored to cover an area of 12.1 million square feet, and will actually be comprised of a dozen smaller malls.

Again, as this is Dubai, keep in mind that ‘small’ is a relative concept.

In total, the Dubai mall will offer 9 million square feet of shopping retail space, and approximately 1200 stores.

In addition to housing the world’s most exclusive brand names, the Dubai Mall will also feature the following absurdities:

– The world’s largest gold souk
– The world’s largest aquarium
– The world’s tallest building, the Burj Dubai

We’re not done…

The Dubai Mall will also feature an Olympic-sized ice skating rink and a towering waterfall – keep in mind people that all of this is in the middle of the desert!

And of course, what shopping mall would be complete without a video arcade!

In America, a generation of children grew up playing Sonic the Hedgehog and other titles, though Sega stopped releasing consoles following the relative failure of the Dreamcast in 2001.

However, in 2004 Sega merged with the Sammy Corporation, the world’s largest pachinko machine manufacturer, and has since then focused on arcade theme parks throughout Japan.

Of course, nothing in Japan will stand a chance of comparing with the mega-arcade in the works.

When completed, the new Sega spot will occupy 75,350 square feet spread out over two floors of the shopping mall.

All I can say is that if you’re planning a trip to Dubai in the near future, you had better start saving your quarters!

** Today’s post is dedicated to my wanderlust-ridden sister, who made her brother incredibly jealous of her exploits by partying it up with royalty in Dubai. **

Big in Japan: Monkey brains in North Carolina make a robot walk in Japan

by Matthew Firestone on

Here at Big in Japan, we’re used to reporting all sorts of weird, wacky and wonderful stories from the Land of the Rising Sun.

With that said, today’s posting probably has one of the strangest titles ever to grace the pages at Gadling.

Just in case you’re still scratching your head as to what the title of today’s post means, let me clarify that I couldn’t be any clearer.

Last week, monkey brains in North Carolina actually made a robot walk in Japan.

Seriously.

Since you’re probably confused, doubting, shocked or a combination of all three, allow me to explain what is probably one of the coolest scientific experiments I’ve ever heard about.

According to a press release by the Duke University Medical Center, researchers used a monkey’s brain activity to control the walking patterns of a robot in Japan.

In what is being touted as a major scientific breakthrough, the research team is hoping that their latest work will be used to develop prototypes of robotic leg braces for human use.

Are you awestruck yet? If so, keep reading as this story gets a whole lot cooler!

So, how exactly were the thoughts of a monkey able to make a robot walk? Good question!

(If you’re squeamish or sensitive to animal research, I would recommend that you stop reading at this point.)

In true mad scientist form, a so-called ‘brain-machine interface’ was grafted into the brain cells of two rhesus monkeys.

For the record, a brain machine interface is any system that allows people or animals to use their brain activity to control an external device.

Next, in what must have been an amusing spectacle to watch, the monkeys were places on treadmills and hooked up to sensors in order to determine the relationship between leg movement and brain activity.

Here is where things start to get really cool:

At the same time, these brain signals were collected, fed into the computer and transmitted over a high-speed Internet link to Japan.

The recipient of this information was a robot known as CB (Computational Brain), which has the same range of motion as a human.

As the monkey’s brain signals were streamed into the robot’s actuators, CB walked at exactly the same pace as the monkey.

In fact, computers demonstrated that the monkey’s neurons fired each time it took a step and each time the robot took a step.

According to Dr. Miguel Nicolelis, the Anne W. Deane Professor of Neuroscience at Duke, “They can walk in complete synchronization. The most stunning finding is that when we stopped the treadmill and the monkey ceased to move its legs, it was able to sustain the locomotion of the robot for a few minutes — just by thinking — using only the visual feedback of the robot in Japan.”

Amazing.

Although the initial aim of the research is to create a fully-functional robotic leg brace, the applications for thought-driven motion are infinite.

In other words, for all of you Star Wars fans out there, it looks like we may be just a few short years away from being able to use to Force!

** The monkey in the photo to the right is a female howler, who was spotted by my mother while traveling in Costa Rica. Mom, if you’re reading this, hope you enjoyed the trip! **

Big in Japan: Super-crazy fast electrical cables are awesome

by Matthew Firestone on

Warning: today’s posting might sound a bit technical for those of you out there without degrees in electrical engineering and/or particle physics.

However, bear with me for a few lines as I can assure you that today’s topic is really freaking cool, and will most likely transform your life in the years ahead.

Last week, an official from the Japanese Economy, Trade and Industry Ministry announced that they will develop a next-generation power transmission cable with practically zero electrical resistance.

In a word, we are talking about superconductivity.

According to Wikipedia, ‘Superconductivity is a phenomenon occurring in certain materials at extremely low temperatures, characterized by exactly zero electrical resistance and the exclusion of the interior magnetic field.’

If successful, the energy saved by the new cable would be equivalent to a reduction of about 10 million tons of carbon dioxide a year.

Here is the coolest part:

The ministry will be working alongside Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, the same people who brought you the Manhattan Project (aka the atomic bomb).

Confused yet? Keep reading and allow me to explain why the future is starting to look a lot brighter for all of us.

For starters, what exactly is superconductivity?

Good question – put on your thinking caps for a moment and let’s see if I can break this supremely complicated topic into more manageable chunks.

For starters, it helps to know that the resistance of a wire decreases gradually as the temperature is lowered.

In traditional wires made of copper, silver and even gold, there is still resistance even as the thermometer approaches absolute zero (the coldest possible temperature).

However, in materials such as tin and aluminum that have the capacity to act as superconductors, the resistance drops to near-zero once it is cooled beyond the critical temperature.

So, what does this mean?

Theoretically, an electrical current flowing in a loop of superconducting wire can persist indefinitely with no power source.

Practically, this means that your electrical bills will be a whole lot cheaper, and we can all start to feel a little bit better about our planet’s rapidly depleting resources.

So, when is this going to happen?

According to officials from the Japanese Economy, Trade and Industry Ministry, the goal is to have functioning superconductive cables by the year 2020.

At that time, it is estimated that Japan’s entire power transmission network will need to be replaced, though the hope is that antiquated copper wires can be swapped out for energy-efficient superconductive cables.

Presently in Japan, power cables are mostly made out of copper, and lose about 5 percent of electricity transmitted before it reaches its end power user.

However, if conventional cables are replaced with superconducting cables, the minisitry believes that transmission losses could be reduced to about 2 percent.

Although this may sound like a small reduction, we are talking about 20 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity, or about 2 percent of all power generated in Japan every year.

That is a lot of neon-light to say the least!

Note: The crazy-cool picture at the top of the post is a magnet levitating about a high-temperature superconductor, cooled with liquid nitrogen.

** All images sourced from the Wikimedia Commons Project. **

Big in Japan: The $15,000 diamond martini and other choice bling

by Matthew Firestone on

Think you’ve got the hottest rims on the block? Can’t stop sporting your brand new Coach bag? Enamored by the diamond carrot ring on your pinky finger?

Trust me. Your hottest luxury items are already blasé in Japan…

Don’t believe me? Wait until you hear about the choicest bling from the Land of the Rising Sun.

For starters, anybody who is anybody knows that the best ride on the block is a custom-made Rolls-Royce.

Although your typical Rolls has a retail price of about US$390,000, in Japan you can choose a custom color combination for another US$20,000.

(Particularly popular in Japan is exotic light grey and tomato red combination!)

Or, how about fitting your ride with a refrigerator, wet bar, entertainment system and DJ booth for another US$140,000?

One client in Japan even went as far as putting his initials in the headrests using Gothic script – or, as he put it, ‘Harry Potter writing’ – for US$5,000!

Think Japanese bling is a bit extravagant? Wait until you hear about the US$15,000 diamond martini!

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In the West, Gucci or Louis Vuitton handbags ranging from US$600 to US$900 are highly coveted luxury items, though in Japan the super-rich have moved on.

On Omotesando Boulevard in Tokyo, somewhat akin to Beverly Hill’s Rodeo Drive or New York City’s 5th Avenue, Bottega Veneta handbags start at US$1,500, and can run as high as a small house in the suburbs.

And of course, if you’re sporting a luxury handbag, you should have an easy time forking over cash for the hottest and latest bling.

Last year, the rich and beautiful embraced a number of mind-blowing trends including:

– the $600 volcanic body scrub at a trendy spa in the Armani Tower in Tokyo

– the $130,000-a-night Christmas suite with jewel-studded tree in the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Tokyo

– the $100 Swarovski crystal-studded box tissue box

And…

– the $15,000 martini with a diamond at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Tokyo

Absurd. Truly freakin’ absurd.

So why do the Japanese love spending ungodly sums of money on disposable goods?

According to one ultra-rich Tokyo elite, Japanese people love to hang around Ginza, Tokyo’s most status-conscious neighbourhood, and show off what they got.

“Those people hanging around Ginza, they are just showing off. If someone has it, other people want it. That’s Japanese. The group mentality.”

He continues:

“The process of getting it, or just before getting it, is interesting. Keeping it is not so interesting,” he concludes.

So you see, there is no shortage of bling in America, be it diamond-encrusted grills or chrome spinners, but clearly the Japanese are masters in their own right.

Although I can assure you that hyper-consumption in Japan is anything but the norm, Tokyo does remain one of the world’s greatest shopping cities.

(Assuming of course that you’ve got the cash to burn!)

On the that note, I’m going to see if I can convince my local watering hole to make a somewhat more affordable cubic zirconia martini…

(Special thanks to my roommate Tac for reminding me once again why we both like to steer clear of Ginza)

**Note that the content in this article was originally reported by the Asia division of Reuters **

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Big in Japan: The world’s most expensive tuna fish

by Matthew Firestone on

Are you ready for this one?

Last week in Tokyo, a Hong Kong sushi restaurant owner paid a record $55,700 for a single bluefin tuna.

(In case you’re wondering, that’s somewhere around 6.1 million yen!!)

The record breaking fish, which was caught off the coast of Japan’s northern city of Aomori, tipped the scales at 607 pounds (about $92 per pound of flesh).

The sale took place at the first auction of the year at Tsukiji, the world’s largest fish market, which is located in Central Tokyo.

According to market officials, the record price was caused by a sharp decline in world tuna supply due to tighter international controls on the catch for bluefin tuna.

At present, the Japanese eat one quarter of the world’s total supply of tuna fish each year.

As any Japanese person can tell you, tuna are also the centerpiece of the Japanese diet. Whether you’re partial to maguro (?????; tuna) or toro (????; fatty tuna belly), one thing is for certain:

Tuna are delicious.

Of course, this why bluefin tuna will most likely be extinct sometime in the next fifty years.

It’s hard to imagine a fish like tuna becoming extinct, especially since they’ve been so abundant in the world for most of recorded history. However, numbers are falling dramatically, and it’s very unlikely that the population can sustain itself for much longer.

So, are we perhaps the last generation ever to enjoy fresh sushi?

Perhaps.

Approximately one year ago, British scientists issued a report warning that within the next fifty years, there will most likely be nothing left to fish from the sea. According to the report, nearly one-third of historical sea fisheries have already collapsed, and the rate of decline is accelerating.

The scientists, who published their findings in the journal Science, partly attributed the fishery decline to the global increase in the popularity of sushi.

Despite the demand for more tuna, bigger vessels, better nets, and new technology for spotting fish are not resulting in bigger returns. On the contrary, the global catch of blue fin tuna fell by 13% between 1994 and 2003.

Dr. Steve Palumbi, a scientist at Stanford who worked on the project, told the press: “Unless we fundamentally change the way we manage all the ocean species together, as working ecosystems, then this century is the last century of wild seafood.”

Eeek.

Sadly, it may be to late to save the noble bluefin tuna.

However, existing bluefin tuna stocks are being plundered, with high rates of overfishing being reported by virtually every single country in the European Union.

The International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) sets annual fishing quotas to be followed by all member countries. With that said, conservation groups are cynical of ICCAT, and are partial to calling them the International Commission to Catch All Tuna.

Whether you loved canned tuna and mayo or fresh sashimi with a splash of soy sauce, it’s probably best to just enjoy fish while they’re still around.

** All images sourced from the Wikipedia Commons project **