Akihabara lives on

OVER THE PAST decade, I have visited Akihabara some two dozen times. After all, Tokyo's electronics quarter was the world-famous mecca for all things digital for oh so many years. As Greater Tokyo itself has a GDP matching the whole of Great Britain, the buying power was never to be underestimated either.

So, you knew that the first new processors, boards, consoles and pretty much all other upcoming stuff would somehow magically surface in Akihabara first.

However, with appearance of other major centres in Asia - Seoul, Taipei, Singapore, Hong Kong and Shanghai all boast magnificent digital malls - and the spread of online shopping among the Japanese geeks themselves, Akihabara's former enormous crowds were to become history, transforming this unique part of Tokyo into another railway station with a handful of tall office tower boxes.

Or, is that really happening? Is Akihabara still alive with new trends and stuff, and what's on sales there? I took a stroll a few days ago to check things out.

Equality
In Japan, equality is the buzzword - there are far less salary variations than in the West or even Singapore. Same applies to the computer brands here: the shelf space in several major stores is pretty much equally divided between Intel and AMD when it comes to the mobos, and Nvidia and ATI (yeah it's AMD too) on the graphics front. As you can see here... it's really the case:

In fact, Japan has seemingly always had some extra sympathies for the underdog, not just on the desktop: AMD has been in the nation's largest supercomputing clusters too, like the 7,000 CPU TiTech Tsubame.

Even though many do speak basic English, the storekeepers will generally keep quiet on the vendor sales or the percentages. However, a few of them do say that, overall, ATI sales improved a bit in graphics compared to 2007, while AMD CPU sales are still somewhat bad as AMD fans in Japan are awaiting the 45nm Deneb run. Still, if asked for a definite opinion, Intel and (to a lesser extent) NV has a mindshare lead in the land of the rising sun - despite the pretty high prices for those GTX280 cards up there.

You'll also find some new PC brands here - how about "Mouse Computer"? Sounds odd yeah - probably less odd than, say, Miss Piano Lin or Casing Chen in the neighbouring Taiwan. And no, I didn't make up even the "Casing" one - that girl probably just takes her company's products too seriously...

Talking about Mouse Computer, notice there is a BIG advert there promoting that the box still ships with Windoze XP rather than Vista. Tells you something about the Vista adoption...

If you need a display and happen to be somewhat hungry, how about the Dinner monitor?

Then, high end laptops with Sinclair ZX Spectrum keyboards? Take a look at this otherwise high-priced Sony Vaio stuff. On this truly fancy feature-laden notebook, the keyboard is utterly yucky looks-wise, however the typing is doable if you're used to the Blackberry QWERTY phone keypads.

And no, Sony desktops there aren't any better either...

And on the small gadgets front, the Japanese have finally started adopting QWERTY keyboards in PDAs like this Willcom offering.

Robots galore
Even if the PC componentry show is kinda wearing off, Akihabara has seemingly found a new lease of life in the Mr Roboto stuff. Of course, this is Japan, where the more synthetic stuff is, the better it is. You want a Hello Kitty robot that talks and responds to you for $500? I surely don't.

How about an artificial puppy or kitten that follows you with its sensors meowing along the way, and purrs when patted? I'd prefer Paul Hales' new 'natural' house kitten far more (despite it piddling on his carpets).

Well, but there are no 'natural' dinosaurs to play with around the house? Enter Pleo, the "cute" little green & yellow dinosaur robot. Yeah, it looks for and finds "food" to "eat", it "loves" your touch and "giggles" when tickled.

How? The Vgobe LifeOS powered robot toy is equipped with a whole array of artificial 'senses'. Start with the head, where a touch sensor on top leads to a colour camera with white light sensor, infrared transmitter and interruptor, chin touch sensor and microphone & speaker set.

The "body" is no less interesting: its rear, shoulders, legs and feet all have touch sensors. Other sensors are for tilt and shake detection, as well as force feedback sensors in each of the fourteen motors inside. The NiMH rechargeable battery and the rear speaker (for farting?) round up the contract.

I played a bit with the demo Pleo in one of the stores - yeah its reactions are shurely funny, but I'm not sure I'd pay $500, the amount it costs. And, I'd definitely not call it a "Life Form" as the brochure proudly proclaims... " Life needs touch"? Yeah, if it's a couple enjoying life... not a little pile of plastic and metal.

There are far more "classical" robots on offer there. Take a look at this KHR Factory bunch here from Kondo, one of the leading vendors... with prices ranging from a hundred to well over a thousand bucks, you got a wide variety of sizes, features, power and, yeah, mostly scary looks here.

Kyosho has some 'softer looking' but no less scarily priced, kiddy robotos...

You can see the models, and the prices - as a rule, subtract two zeros from each price tag to get the rough US$ cost.

In summary, an interesting round - Akihabara is still alive despite the lesser crowds. PC components may have given a bit of the way to rainbow-coloured cellphones and utterly goofy robots, but some allure is still there, enough of it at least to justify jostling through the crowded Tokyo trains to get to the place.

And now, one finally has got some actual space to move around, and more upmarket outlets at those new office towers give the spoiled souls some extra relaxation and comfort... µ