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Hardware

Why Japan Gets the Cool Stuff 535

Posted by michael from the scrutinizing-the-inscrutable dept.
haahr writes "Good article about why the coolest electronics products are available first in Japan and may never make it to the U.S., in Slate."
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Why Japan Gets the Cool Stuff More

Why Japan Gets the Cool Stuff

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  • I don't like it. (Score:3, Funny)

    by Procrasturbator ( 585082 ) on Wednesday July 03, 2002 @08:51PM (#3819116)
    I'm just angry that it takes so long to get my translated import copy of Urine Cop VI. The japanese make my kinda stuff, but oh, the waiting!

  • Isn't it obvious? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by WIAKywbfatw ( 307557 )
    1. The Japanese have a national obsession with gadgets. They just can't get enough of them.

    2. Japanese companies will give Japanese consumers what they want.

    What's next on Slate? Articles telling us that Italians like pasta, Russians like vodka and Brazilians like football?

    • Re:Isn't it obvious? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Deadstick ( 535032 ) on Wednesday July 03, 2002 @09:11PM (#3819223)
      Eons ago I read an article in a photo magazine, relating the author's tour of the Nikon factory. He remarked to the company honcho that of all features on a camera, the self-timer (the gadget that lets you photograph yourself) is the least likely ever to be used, and yet every Japanese camera has one...why was that?

      The company guy responded by driving him past the Yasukuni Shrine, a war memorial that corresponds roughly to the Tomb Of The Unknowns. In front of it stood an army of tourist families smiling cheerfully at an army of tripods manned by an army of phantom photographers. "In Japan," he said, "No self-timer, no sell camera."

      rj

    • Re:Isn't it obvious? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Squeeze Truck ( 2971 ) <xmsho@yahoo.com> on Wednesday July 03, 2002 @09:22PM (#3819289) Homepage
      1. The Japanese have a national obsession with gadgets. They just can't get enough of them.

      The gadgets Japanese have an obsession with are the ones that facilitate social life and personal correspondence.
      Cel phones that can handle email are a godsend in this arena. This way it is possible to juggle work, family, and a potentially unlimited ammount of mistresses at once in secrecy.

      Think I'm joking?

      • Re:Isn't it obvious? (Score:2, Insightful)

        by kurtz25 ( 590159 )
        Indeed. They really are gadget lovers, but I've never seen how that improved their computers, aside from making them more proprietary and complex. I use a Japanese laptop, but I bought the bottom-of-the-line so I could simplify my driver search. I have, not surprisingly, never found the drivers for the stupid wheel on my Sony, and I see now that Sony is incorportating their loathsome roller from their phones into their laptops. Aside from size, foreign consumers don't need to fear losing out much in the way of Japanese computers, says I. Phones, yes, hell yes, but not computers. Their love of gadgets is a burden in this field.

  • Japan doesn't have a monopoly on 'cool stuff' (Score:4, Insightful)

    by 2nd Post! ( 213333 ) <gundbear.pacbell@net> on Wednesday July 03, 2002 @08:57PM (#3819151) Homepage
    Look at...

    OS X
    iMac
    iMac2
    iBook
    iPod
    PowerBook
    Handspring
    Newton
    Palm Pilot
    CrossPad
    ViaVoice
    Metal Gear Solid: Sons of Liberty
    Spider-Man
    Lord of the Rings
    The Matrix
    The Matrix:Revolution
    VooDoo
    VooDoo2
    GeForce
    GeFor ce3
    GeForce4
    Quake3
    Doom3

    I'm sure there are more.
    • Metal Gear Solid: Sons of Liberty
      u SURE about that one?... Hideo Kojima made that one... IN JAPAN...

      who needs an iPod for $400 when you can get a much better on at half the price in japan...

      also they dont need palm pilots or handsprings or crosspads when they have CELL PHONES than can do the same thing...

      unfortunatly for us in the USA the cell phone system of Aisa is WAY better than here... its a ground up implimentation and there is none of this patchwork BS that we have to put up with... its cheaper and i know from people who have told me out of personal experiance that they work EVERYWHERE... none of this roaming, analog zone, digital zone, BS...

      face it in japan they get the same tech only sooner...

      • Re:Japan doesn't have a monopoly on 'cool stuff' (Score:4, Interesting)

        by SpatchMonkey ( 300000 ) on Wednesday July 03, 2002 @09:08PM (#3819211) Journal
        The mobile phone network in Europe is also a lot better. Roaming, btw, just means that when you go to a different country with your phone it allows you to use the foreign networks automatically (who then bill your home provider) - actually a good feature.
        It seems to me that cellphones in America are so patchy is that they have been so slow to move to GSM. But then, they have a much larger area to organise. Also, analogue is more popular and local calls are cheap/free.
        Hmm, this is a bit offtopic as the discussion is about Japan. Sorry.

        • Roaming (Score:3, Interesting)

          by SgtChaireBourne ( 457691 )
          Roaming may have been one of the keys to cell phone adoption in Europe -- the whole country is your zone. No point in buying a cell phone unless you can use it while travelling. Otherwise, you'll be near your regular phone, plus maybe a wireless handset. In the U.S. Chicago, IL and Madison, WI are probably in different roaming areas. Shoot, maybe even San Diego, CA and San Francisco, CA are in different zones. Odds are it's cheaper there with a pager and a payphone. Also, the screwed up choice of frequencies in the U.S. means that European and Japanese manufacturers have to make a special model just for the U.S.

          Perhaps Japanese cell phones work in all of Japan and perhaps even at the same price. Japanese companies are pretty good about responding to what sells, so this would make sense.

      • unfortunatly for us in the USA the cell phone system of Aisa is WAY better than here...

        I'm not sure about US, but I'm using a cell phone talking to my friends while looking at his face. This little cute thing cost me about...US$576.

        Is it too costly in term of US' standard? Are we buying stuffs by its features rather than its price? I don't know, but we all think US' electronics are more expensive with less features, but they are more reliable and with good brandname. :)
      • who needs an iPod for $400 when you can get a much better on at half the price in japan...

        Now now, you can't go making blanket statements like that without backing them up. I'm sure there are many many people who read that and said 'WHAT?? HOW DO IT GET ONE?? RIGHT NOW!!'. Unfortunately I'm pretty sure you're exaggerating, unless you want to take your nomad jogging with you, I think the iPod is still tops, given that Toshiba is the only company making teeny tiny hard drives, and their attempt at an mp3 player is kind of lame.


      • I guess it also helps that Japan only has about 377,000 square kilometers to cover, whereas the United States has about 9,600,000 square kilometers to cover, eh?
    • Look at... The Matrix:Revolution

      Gee, you think that a movie that you haven't seen and won't see for another film is the height of cool? Boy, have I got a bridge for you.

      OK, I'll acknowledge that the sequels to The Matrix will most likely be stunning but, unless you can see the future or are wearing blinkers, you've got to at least acknowledge that the sequels might turn out to be a pile of pants.

      And before you scream "Never!" consider this evidence: Robocop 2 and 3, The Godfather Part III, Star Wars Episode I, Highlander 2, Rocky 2+, Police Academy 2+...

      Just because the first film was fantastic it doesn't automatically follow that the next ones will be too.
      • Gee, you think that a movie that you haven't seen and won't see for another film is the height of cool? Boy, have I got a bridge for you.

        Apologies. That obviously should have read:

        Gee, you think that a movie that you haven't seen and won't see for another year is the height of cool? Boy, have I got a bridge for you.

        Yet another reminder that the Preview button is your friend.
    • OS X
      iMac
      iMac2
      iBook
      iPod
      PowerBook

      Those things are the first on the list for a reason!
      You forgot the Apple logo itself, though.
      Switch [apple.com]

  • Being owned by your stuff. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by AgTiger ( 458268 ) on Wednesday July 03, 2002 @08:57PM (#3819154) Homepage
    I can fully understand why you'd want something smaller that does more as it means less things to cart around when you move. Yes, it's true, acquire too many toys, and they own you rather than you owning them.

    There are two things I'd like to mention that may just be personal opinion, but I have to wonder just how much of this is cultural vs. practical:

    1. More features. Okay, when is enough, enough? I'm already suffering badly from information overload, and a ton of features I don't need on a plethora of items. When do I get to say, "Okay, you can turn off the fire hose now, I've had a big enough drink." What ever happened to working smarter by grouping more steps together in only one thing I have to think about?

    2. Smaller is better - up to a point. I can think of a couple of examples where miniaturization reaches a point of diminishing returns. The first is: Losing expensive equipment BECAUSE it's small. Whether it's stolen, or just bounces out of a pocket unexpectedly, the smaller it is, the easier it is for me to lose it, or harm it. Secondly, I'm a touch typist that types at over 100 words per minute. Smaller keyboards on laptop computers have always turned me off because I'm forever scrunching my hands and fingers together to try to use them effectively. In this case, bigger _is_ faster.

    Just some musings.

  • Advertisement? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by co_fisha ( 196881 )
    Doesn't this article look like a big advertisement for at Dynamism importing?
  • The Japanese are experts in small

    Sony. Because caucasians are too damn tall.


  • perhaps because they aahh make them. Same reason why mexico has the best mexican food, and aaah irland has the bast dark ale ...

  • eraserhead mouse (Score:5, Funny)

    by swankypimp ( 542486 ) on Wednesday July 03, 2002 @09:05PM (#3819194) Homepage
    if you hate the "eraserhead" mouse-substitute then you'll hate this one too.

    Since when did David Lynch [imdb.com]start making mice for laptops? I know I would pay extra for a dark and disturbing, surreal input device. I guess Japan really does get all the cool new stuff...

  • Left one out (Score:5, Insightful)

    by The Cat ( 19816 ) on Wednesday July 03, 2002 @09:05PM (#3819195)
    Japanese companies keep their staff employed for more than six months at a time.

    A minor point, but meetings don't make money, and middle managers don't build products.
    • The Japanese economy is quite sad. A (w)hole nation of Enrons. They only hope that the can let the hot air out slowly, and that it doesn't burst.

      The trend of the 80's for American companies to bring in Japanese consultants has been reversed. Japanese corporations are now bringing in American consultants to show them how to emulate American prosperity.
      • emulate American prosperity

        Yeah. Umpty thousand layoffs and MSCS Engineers bagging groceries.

        Lots of prosperity there.

      • Not, of course, your maths: 2002 - 1991 (ignoring a few non-recession years in the middle) = 11 years...

        But: I remember in 1990 discussing with an American friend of mine (I'm British) that an Economist article said that Japanese productivity growth was significantly lower than in the US.

        He laughed, and told me (basically) that the US was doomed and that we would all be speaking Japanese in 10 years.

        Oh how times change...
        • Oh how times change...

          Indeed they do. With all it's problems, I think the basics of the Japanese economy are still sound. Japan still has a better work ethic, better education and higher levels of personal scruples than the US. Plus it still has strong steel, electronics, and manufacturing capacity. And don't forget that it lends far more money than it borrows.

          So what if Japan can't survive forever as an exporter of electronic bric-brac to the US? I still think in the long term that it's in better shape than the US. Maybe a powerful China can be our new main trading partner.

    • Re:Left one out (Score:5, Informative)

      by sql*kitten ( 1359 ) on Thursday July 04, 2002 @04:50AM (#3820978)
      Japanese companies keep their staff employed for more than six months at a time.

      That, unfortunately, is why Japan has been in recession for the last 20 years. The Japanese have very tight relationships between banks, NGOs, government departments and corporations. Americans and Brits are outraged when corporations get to close to governments (and vice versa) but in Japan, the boundaries between the public and private sectors are much less clear. Government will frequently underwrite corporate financing, grant monopoly licences, engage in mercantilist protectionist policies, and government planners will work along side corporate strategists, it would be unthinkable for a Japanese corporation to undertake a large project without a nod from the government.

      The basic problem with Japanese industry is that they have a massive, systemic overcapacity. In Britain or the US, there would have been mass layoffs, corporations would go bankrupt, and stock markets would plunge in a similar situation. But in the West, a recession typically lasts 12-18 months and is followed by a period of economic expansion: our boom-bust cycle is like a regular spring cleaning of the economy, on approximately a 10-year cycle. During the expansion, the stock market goes up, and the unemployed from the last bust are re-employed. But in Japan, the government will not permit banks to call in loans or write off bad debt. Corporations cannot raise capital to finance expansion, and investors cannot get a return on their capital. So the Japanese economy is held in limbo, it cannot expand, it cannot collapse, and is stuck in a permanent slow decline.

      What Japan really needs is to bite the bullet: let the technically insolvent banks and corporations collapse, suck up the pain of a Western-style recession, then Japan can get back on the track of economic expansion that was once the envy of the world.

  • Don't pay sales tax when shopping in Akihabara (Score:5, Informative)

    by marhar ( 66825 ) on Wednesday July 03, 2002 @09:06PM (#3819202) Homepage
    If you take a trip to Japan and buy some electroncs, etc, be sure and carry your passport with you to the store and you will be exempted from paying the 5% sales tax.

    They will fill out a little card, put a stamp on it, and staple it into your passport. When you exit the country, they will take the little card out of your passport.

    Some of the the electronics stuff is labelled to run on 100V AC, but it works fine over here. And remember, don't buy a DVD player unless you really want the region 3 encoding!

  • Oh please... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Squeeze Truck ( 2971 ) <xmsho@yahoo.com> on Wednesday July 03, 2002 @09:09PM (#3819215) Homepage
    The only stuff that comes first to Japan is the stuff that is made in Japan. Everything else gets here way late, or never gets here at all.

    I'm still waiting for the concept of office LAN's, firewalls, and relational databases to really catch on here.

  • Not very in depth (Score:3, Informative)

    by aztektum ( 170569 ) on Wednesday July 03, 2002 @09:22PM (#3819285)
    In the end it all boils down to money.

    We have too many conglomerates that won't spend to produce "cool" gizmos unless they can make huge returns.

    They aren't interested in providing a service because it would be useful, rather only to make money.
    • What? Like the Japanese companies are doing it to lose money?
    • Ummm... I doubt we have ANY conglomerates that would spend money to produce "cool" gizmos without making good returns. That IS the point of business, afterall. You are seriously naive to expect a company to make something because it's the latest technology when there's no or little market.
      • You are seriously naive to expect a company to make something because it's the latest technology when there's no or little market.

        By that rationale there should be no Atari, Nintendo, Apple Computer, Microsoft, HP, Dell... ...all companies that initially got into niche markets w/o widespread appeal at the time.

        Albeit those markets were much larger than a mom and pop grocery stores target consumer, but today if your marketing department says you probably won't sell 10 billion units in a week (gross exageration to make a point) expensive propositions will be left on the drawing room floor.

        Open Source/Free Software is a risky business venture because it's ...well free... but we still have Mandrake, Red Hat, etc...
  • his being stationed in Japan.

    He had some interesting stories:

    You would get your check in USD and stand in front of the bank line waiting for a favorable exchange rate between USD and YEN. Then when the numbers were right, the tellers would be mobbed.

    There was this huge gomi pile of abandoned electronics that were almost brand new but no longer wanted; because there was a new model that just came out that had more gee wiz features.

    If money falls on the street in Japan, it will usually lie there till it rots or is cleaned up and thrown away; he said it was beneath Japanese to pick up money or objects that have fallen on the ground.

    People walk into a sushi/food bar and pick from freshly prepared items on a conveyor that moves past the patron. You pay on the way out.

    People regularly sleep in what seems like morgue cabinets. Complete with miniature amenities.

    What an interesting place!
    • Oh, please...

      You would get your check in USD and stand in front of the bank line waiting for a favorable exchange rate between USD and YEN. Then when the numbers were right, the tellers would be mobbed.

      When was your friend in Japan? Banks generally give an average rate for the day, unless you happen to be a corporate investor.

      There was this huge gomi pile of abandoned electronics that were almost brand new but no longer wanted; because there was a new model that just came out that had more gee wiz features.

      No, it's because in Japan the manufacturers have made it so expensive to have an item out of warranty repaired that you might as well buy a new one.

      If money falls on the street in Japan, it will usually lie there till it rots or is cleaned up and thrown away; he said it was beneath Japanese to pick up money or objects that have fallen on the ground.

      Yeah, right. And in the US, if a penny hits the ground, everyone within a hundred-metre radius comes running. Next unsubstantiated 'fact', please...

      People walk into a sushi/food bar and pick from freshly prepared items on a conveyor that moves past the patron. You pay on the way out.

      How is this any different to a McDonalds, except that in McDonalds the conveyer belt is hidden and you pay in advance? I go to kaiten-zushi regularly, and it's just basically the Japanese version of fast food.

      People regularly sleep in what seems like morgue cabinets. Complete with miniature amenities.

      They're called capsule hotels, and in twelve years in Japan I have yet to meet anyone who's actually stayed in one. They're generally for older male businessmen that didn't make the last train home (as the trains usually finish between midnight and 1am in Tokyo).

      • BJH wrote:
        >When was your friend in Japan? Banks generally give
        >an average rate for the day, unless you happen to
        >be a corporate investor.

        Did you say generally?

        >No, it's because in Japan the manufacturers have
        >made it so expensive to have an item out of
        >warranty repaired that you might as well buy a new
        >one.

        Either way, there is a gomi pile ain't there? I'm sure if the items had some percieved value someone would want it right? At any rate, even partly working items wouldn't last 10 minutes in a public place in the US.

        >Yeah, right. And in the US, if a penny hits the
        >ground, everyone within a hundred-metre radius
        >comes running. Next unsubstantiated 'fact',
        >please..

        I don't know about you but... I don't see many pennies laying on the ground in the US.

        >How is this any different to a McDonalds, except
        >that in McDonalds the conveyer belt is hidden and
        >you pay in advance? I go to kaiten-zushi
        >regularly, and it's just basically the Japanese
        >version of fast food.

        So, essentially, what is wrong with what I said?

        >They're called capsule hotels, and in twelve
        >years in Japan I have yet to meet anyone who's
        >actually stayed in one. They're generally for
        >older male businessmen that didn't make the last
        >train home (as the trains usually finish between
        >midnight and 1am in Tokyo).

        I guess the people who are in business to provide these accomodations have made a poor investment in both space and capitol.

        Oh well, my point was that Japan is facinating and different. At least we both like sushi.
  • Have you compared the cell phones in the US with the ones in Japan? The Japanese have incredible color LCD displays, vast coverage, and excellent rates (considering their economy). What do we (the US) have? I just saw an ad for a cell phone - a 2 bpp display, showing a dithered picture of someone's face on a phone, with coverage PROUDLY ADVERTISED being in 1/3 of my state. And you know what? People are happy with that.

    I don't use cell phones, since it's easier to cheat free calls from a payphone than clone a phone. (just kidding)
  • Accoding to the article, as an American who apparantly puts price over features, thinks smaller is only "cool", don't match the japan marketing profiles, doesn't follow trends ... Wait wait, I thought the article was about how disappointed Americans should be that we don't get this stuff. To support his conclusion he says that we don't like this stuff anyway, make up your mind.

  • Lessons from History. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by os2fan ( 254461 ) on Wednesday July 03, 2002 @09:34PM (#3819362) Homepage
    History shows that several things make it easier for novelty to grow and expand.

    Firstly, there must be political condusive environment somewhere. The stagnation of the Catholic world in the Renaissance, compared to the Protestant north, and the Isolationist of China and Japan, are due to a culture that inhibited diversity.

    There must be several tracks available to allow an idea to succeed. Colombus went shopping for a sponsor for his route west to the Indies. Such would not be possible in a monoculture. In the same vein, the spread of Open Source in places like Peru and Germany are also examples. This is a point lost on overmanaged companies with a single research path, and a thinned out middle management.

    Ideas tend to take root in the area where they are formed. Since a lot of Japanese market is still feircely competitive, innovation is rife.

    The computer market is nowhere near as competitive as it was in the days when QEMM, Lotus 123 and WP ruled the world.

  • Balderdash (Score:5, Informative)

    by sakusha ( 441986 ) on Wednesday July 03, 2002 @09:36PM (#3819378)
    The reasons for Japan's preeminence in consumer electronics is simple, and completely absent from this article. The major reason is plain: kaizen.
    Japan has a different system of product development. It dates back to ancient methods of production of artworks like lacquerware. Specialists in certain production methodologies allow the tasks to be separated. Many specialists were hereditary lineages, some families had practiced and continuously improved their techniques over hundreds of years.
    And THAT is kaizen. Each product builds on the strengths of the previous generation, and eliminates weaknesses (or at least tries another approach). The Western approach is to build a product (or the packaging, at least) from scratch each time. Kaizen products are frequently updated, with minor incremental improvements. In many ways, it is a predecessor to Open Source methods like "release early and often" or "many eyes make bugs transparent."
    The other factor is the short lifetime of fads in Japan. Fads like the Tamagotchi build to hysterical intensity in mere weeks. I still have an ad from the Asahi Shimbun with an apology from the President of Bandai. He apologizes at the inadequate supply of Tamagotchi, and promises Bandai is building new plants and within 2 months they will be able to produce 2million units a month. Unfortunately the fad was over long before the plants got up to speed, and Bandai ended up with millions of units they couldn't even give away. Bandai lost billions of yen and the President had to resign. So you've got to be nimble to keep up with quick-moving fads.
    So anyway, how come complete idiots with NO knowledge of Japan get paid to write crap like that article? Jeez, the stuff I just wrote is far more informative than Slate's rubbish. I wonder if the author has evern BEEN to Japan.
    • You're absolutely right.

      Funny, I never thought of OSS as similar to kaizen.

      +1, insightful.
    • Kaizen [cowkitty.net]

    • Re:Balderdash (Score:5, Insightful)

      by jidar ( 83795 ) on Thursday July 04, 2002 @12:50AM (#3820242)
      Hah! If you stopped patting yourself on the back long enough you might realize that your argument only works if Japan and the US are seperate entities that make their own items and don't export to each other. It's a global market and how things are manufactured in Japan as compared to the US has nothign at all to do with what is available on our market since anything they make they can sell here if there is a market for it.
      The reason Japan has those things and we don't is exactly like the man said, they don't export it to the US because we wouldn't buy it. :P
      • ..your argument only works if Japan and the US are seperate entities that make their own items and don't export to each other.
        There are hundreds of kaizen-ed products released in Japan (products intended for world consumer markets) for each ONE product released to world markets. Those incremental revisions are tested for consumer acceptance in the fast-paced Japanese market, products live and die in a matter of weeks or months, and go through another revision. Those that are accepted are released to the world. So it's just exactly like you said, there are separate markets. If you don't believe me, get someone to ship you a digikame magazine, keep it a year, and see how many models of cameras sold in Japan ever make it to the US. The reason they don't export it is because it flopped in Japan.
  • and based on the prices I saw on some of the units for sale, I strongly doubt they come with legally licensed software.

    hehe. only on msn will you find journalism like that.

  • Well.... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ImaLamer ( 260199 ) <john.lamar@gma[ ]com ['il.' in gap]> on Wednesday July 03, 2002 @09:46PM (#3819420) Homepage Journal
    First like they say in Crazy People [imdb.com] they are closer to the chips.

    Actually it's a big question. We are afraid to test the waters and move forward. While we pioneered these technologies Japan will put a semiconductor in anything - at least once.

    America is quite like the fall of the Victorian Empire. She has become a nation afraid of progress and if something doesn't change she won't stay towards the top of the heap.

    Off-topic, somewhat:
    Space could provide a new rain of resources, or it could bankrupt us. But its habitation does offer two other advantages.
    The first: internation cooperation. No single nation can afford the price of extraterrestial development. To turn the wastelands of asteroids and planets into lands of plenty would involve consortia including Russia, Europe, and Japan. Those partnerships are already under development, though too often we are not involved in them. ... ... ...
    -Howard Bloom, The Lucifer Principle (Chapter:Tennis Time And The Mental Clock)


    There is more, that is actually on topic, but I can't find the page now. I don't want to misquote either. Basically we pioneered that technology, invented the PC but the majority of parts aren't even made here - and I don't mean assembly - I mean the companies who own the RAM factories etc.

    This is just a preview of things to come.

  • Test Markets (Score:2, Informative)

    by YrWrstNtmr ( 564987 )
    The Japanese electronics companies, (and many american ones), use the US military AAFES and NAVEX stores overseas to test market a LOT of stuff.

    Certain lines, or models, or even entire formats get a testdrive at the larger military stores. They have a captive, technoid, consumer group. if it flies there, you may see it in BestBuy.

    Anyone remember the ElCassette? Mid '70's cross between a cassette deck, and a reel to reel. Fidelity of a reel, with the pop-in convienience of a cassette. I had a Technics model. Of course, they didn't sell that well, so it never showed up in the States.

  • $2000 killer app (Score:4, Insightful)

    by peterdaly ( 123554 ) <{petedaly} {at} {ix.netcom.com}> on Wednesday July 03, 2002 @09:57PM (#3819469)
    What makes the Libretto so great is that it takes up very little space. At 10.5 inches wide by 6.6 inches deep, it actually sits between the keyboard and monitor of my desktop, allowing me to check mail on one machine while running Photoshop full-screen on the other.

    Wow, that "feature" alone makes me wish I had $2k to dump into a product like that. At work I have a 15" monitor and PC next to my 15" Dell (L)Attitude screen, just so I can have my email up all the time. Email is becoming enough of a killer app for some people where it is worth paying for a device like this which really is a PC, not some crippled appliance to fufill solely that function.

    This may be an emerging market segment. I believe the whole Japanesse only thing has to do with the culture of the companies. Car companies are the same way, just look at the Nissan Skyline, Subaru WRX (now here), Mitsubishi Lancer (an not the crap they are selling in the US now), etc. Electronics companies are no differrent.

    -Pete

    • Re:$2000 killer app (Score:3, Insightful)

      by rodgerd ( 402 )
      It's the culture of the US, not Japan. Here in New Zealand (1/100th the size of the US market...), we've had the Legacy RS Turbo, the Impreza WRX and STi, the Skyline GT-R, full-spec Type-R 200ZX/SX, Evos, and all the rest since day one; the only top end Japanese sports car I'm aware of not having was the "Batmobile" RX-7, which flooded in as a second hand import until Mazda realised they screwed up by not bringing it in themselves.

      The US suffers from a huge NIH chip on its collective shoulder; look at what happens whenever a /. article appears suggesting the US trails some other part of the world in technology - cell phones, for example, bring out a horde of dickheads who argue (against all facts) that the reason the US has terrible cellular infrastructure is because the rest of the world has a third world phone system, and anyway, who cares about cell phones.

      The US leads in a number of areas, but like all big, important nations, its citizens tend to stick their heads up their arses in the areas it trails - not unline that class of Pom who keeps reminiscing about 1966 and the Battle of Britain whenever a German wanders into earshot.

    • Re:$2000 killer app (Score:4, Funny)

      by Wonko42 ( 29194 ) <ryan+slashdot@[ ]ko.com ['won' in gap]> on Thursday July 04, 2002 @05:29AM (#3821074) Homepage
      My Subaru WRX certainly is a killer app. Dear god, the number of times I've nearly killed myself in that thing is absolutely insane. I sure do love that car.
  • Great, so the Japanese have an even GREATER affinity for buying shit that probably doesn't work as well as its advertised to work, that they don't need in the first place, and that they probably can't even afford, than we do.

    Is that something to celebrate about?

    The most important decision for one should be cost-effectiveness, overall. That doesn't necessarily mean just the purchase price, but everything considered.

    I'm sitting in front of a 19" monitor. It is big; it takes up a lot of room in all dimensions. It costed me about 300 dollars. Now, I could have spent and extra 300 dollars or so and gotten a flat-screen monitor.

    That would definately be smaller and cooler.

    But would it be worth it to me?

    Well, NO.

    I have plenty of space, so size is not an issue. I also value resolution and monitor integrity, so the flat-screen would blow. Flat screens have poor resolution (ever tried reading fine text on a flat-screen?), and their colors change depending on the angle you view them from. Also, I find the edges of flat-screen monitors to be very annoying.

  • Oh the irony, it burns (Score:4, Insightful)

    by hayden ( 9724 ) on Wednesday July 03, 2002 @10:09PM (#3819525)
    It was frustrating and almost insulting--why don't we deserve the best too?

    To here an American say that. May I welcome you to a place known as the rest of the world.

  • America caters to the mainstream (Score:4, Insightful)

    by infiniti99 ( 219973 ) <justin@affinix.com> on Wednesday July 03, 2002 @10:12PM (#3819539) Homepage
    I think the reason Japan has so much cooler stuff is that they are willing to take risks. In the USA, if a particular device or software/game is not going to "make millions" by attracting mainstream buyers, then there is little chance it would ever make it to the market. Publishers and manufacturers here want to take only the safest bets. Ever wonder why the USA is full of so many crappy movies, games, and me-too products? Why take a risk when you can copy something proven?

    In Japan, they release just about anything that their minds and conjure up. Surely they have the same economic business sense as those in the USA, but perhaps their consumer market is much more willing to risk buying innovative stuff (this is basically what the article seems to conclude). Also, maybe because of Japan's small size, companies don't have to spend very much money on initial production runs?

  • The real answer (Score:5, Funny)

    by Torgo's Pizza ( 547926 ) on Wednesday July 03, 2002 @10:46PM (#3819658) Homepage Journal
    I would think that the obvious answer to why Japan gets things first is that they are closest to the International Date Line. It always gives Japan a huge jump on the rest of the world. ;-)

  • I can't help but think that a lot of what keeps stuff out of the US sooner are the regulations that go into a lot of electronic products.

    I can think of quite a few things. I think of Celphones (any Nokia phone takes forever to get approval here), pieces of Video Equipment with low pass filters that the FCC puts on to protect other things from being interfered.

    It's the way that things work in america. With the FCC, with the FDA, anything like that. America isn't bleeding edge like Japan, but we do it for a reason. It prevents us from putting out headache medicines that cause birth defects in children, and Cell-phones that disrupt pacemakers.

    That's life.

  • Who got paid? (Score:2, Informative)

    by orthogonal ( 588627 )
    That's what I want to know: did Dynamism.com pay Slate for this infomercial, or did they just pay the "journalist" directly?

    So the Japanese are a trendy people in a crowded country? That's news? Here's some more news: Americans are big cowboy-looking folks, constantly pioneering the next frontier. Brits keep a stiff upper lip, and they have to, too, because their food is so horrid! Germans are big on punctuality and order....

    Here's some more news: you read Slate, so clearly you're not up to buying a laptop in Japan or on eBay, and figuring out where to get the right drivers! Oh no! You read Slate, you use Microsoft OSes, and you need your hand held when it comes to those daunting techie questions!

    That's why it's so much MORE cost effective for you to PAY 30% ABOVE RETAIL for Dynamism.com to take care of it for you. After all, those trendy Japanese will pay almost anything to get it one inch smaller! Aren't YOU that trendy? You're not a LOSER are you? Prove it by giving Dynamism.com $500 bucks for installing an OS and shipping Airmail from Japan. Did we mention that all the cool kids get their toys at Dynamism.com?

    By the way, it's Dynamism.com. Did we mention Dynamism.com?

    Admittedly, the author concludes he won't pay the mark-up, so I'm probably going overboard. But I don't buy the pop-sociology, and it still reads like an infomercial.

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