Since its inception people have been building innovative mashup applications using the Google Maps API. The otaku niche has so far been unexploited, but thanks to a new mashup by Akihabara Channel this is no longer the case.

The aim of the mashup, aptly named ‘Akihabara Map‘, is to show the location of all the otaku related shops in Akiba (Doujin, Figures, etc). English-language reviews of each store are available by a simple click of the corresponding placeholder pin. Additionally, stores displayed can be filitered to reflect your personal preferences.

I will hopefully be going to Japan next summer, so this map, and my copy of ‘Cruising The Anime City: An Otaku Guide To Neo Tokyo‘, will no doubt come in handy.

Link: http://akiba-ch.com/map/

A pretty cool video was recently posted on YouTube showing the advances the Japanese are making in regards to robot balance.

Note: Skip to 2:10 to see the robot moving.

Just what would you do with a 40 Giga-bit Per Second Fibre connection, with all bandwidth fully available to you? 75 year old Sigbritt Löthberg of Karlstad, Sweden has been granted the worlds fastest residential internet connection of 40GBPS. She now has the capacity to watch Approximately, 1500 Full 1080p Streams or download full 1080p media in approximately than 2 seconds.

Sigbritt is the mother of Peter Löthberg who, along with Karlstad Stadsnät, the local council’s network arm, has arranged the connection to her home. “This is more than just a demonstration. As a network owner we’re trying to persuade internet operators to invest in faster connections. And Peter Löthberg wanted to show how you can build a low price, high capacity line over long distances,” said network boss Hafsteinn Jonsson. According to Karlstad, the possible distance is virtually limitless with no chance of data loss as long as the fibre optic connection is in place. “I want to show that there are other methods than the old fashioned ways such as copper wires and radio, which lack the possibilities that fibre has,” said Peter Löthberg.

So just what does a first time computer owner do with 40GBPS? Nothing but read news and check email.

[ Via The Local ]

Ladies and Gentlemen, Ben Heck has done it again. The “Mystery” is over and the secret is out. Meet the sickest (and I mean that in a good way) pair of Headphones around.

A custom Headset, these babies fit snugly around your ears to theoretically provide some of the deepest bass possible, all while simulating perfect 5.1 Channel Surround Sound. All it needs one USB port. As Ben Heck so adaquetly put it himself, these babies will allow you to “hear the cries of dying noobs with perfect digital clarity”. The headphones are available for pre-order at www.eDimensional.com and should be on sale at the retail level this July for about $80 USD. As a writer at The Super Soldiers, I’ll try to obtain a pair of these bad-boys to give you all a descriptive review of just what the “Cries of dying noobs” sounds like with “perfect digital clarity” .

Source: The Super Soldiers

Edit: As it turns out, eDimensional does not have enough to go around and as per such, in terms of immediate circumstances, I will not be able to provide you all with a review. My apologies if I got anyones hopes up.

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I mentioned a little while ago that you could now view a number of 3d panoramas of Tokyo. Google have somewhat outdone this today with their new addition to Google Maps, ‘Street View’.

Although you cannot view panoramas of Tokyo (hopefully you will be able to soon) you can view panoramas of just about every street in a number of large US cities such as San Francisco, and New York. You can also move forward, backwards, left and right!

To use the new feature you must first be in a city which displays the ‘Street View’ menu option. Once ‘Street View’ is selected you will be presented with an icon which you can drag to your desired viewing point, proceed to click this icon and the panorama will appear.

Source: Slashdot

Around two weeks ago I started an internship in Palo Alto, California. Unfortunately I haven’t really had much of a chance to update the site, what I have had a chance to do however is to take a load of photos. Since Silicon Valley is the number one IT hub in the world, I think we are still somewhat on topic here (tech is closely related to otakudom).

I will start off by posting some photos of Palo Alto; this is the town I am working in and is also home to Stanford University. In subsequent weeks I will post photos of neighboring towns.

Palo Alto Photos:

…View the complete set on my Flickr account.

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24 hours after rearranging its entire Board of Director’s and Take Two is already receiving flak from politicians in New York over its upcoming video game, Grand Theft Auto IV, which is set to be released stateside this October 16th and in Europe on October 19th.

While hopeful gamers fawned over the trailer - helping to knock the servers hosting Rockstar Games and IGN to the ground, New York City officials lamented over its featuring of New York as the setting for Liberty City.

According to New York Daily News:

The latest version of an ultraviolent video game will unleash its murderous mayhem on the streets of New York.

And outraged political leaders say the rampant brutality of the game, Grand Theft Auto IV, has little in common with reality.

Commenting on the subject, City Councilman Peter Vallone of the Council’s Public Safety Commitee had this to say:

“Setting Grand Theft Auto in the safest big city in America would be like setting Halo in Disneyland.”

Rayond Kelly, Police Commissioner stated, “It’s despicable to glamorize violence in games like these, regardless of how far-fetched the setting may be”.

Despite these comments, their story seemed slightly biased and in some cases, entirely distruthful. As most people (whom have actually played the game, rather than listen to the negative press) are aware, you can not sell drugs to children, let alone anyone at all. You also do not [directly] advance through the game by killing prostitutes, although it can be done. However, according to the NY Daily News once again:

In previous incarnations, players advanced through the game by killing cops, selling pornography to children and killing prostitutes.

Such can lead one to believe that the writers of the article hasn’t played Grand Theft Auto a day in their lives, however, it is not far from the rhetoric of a certain other critic: Jack Thompson.

This is not the first time the setting for Grand Theft Auto has been in New York. It has been in Grand Theft Auto, Grand Theft Auto 3, GTA: Liberty City Stories, and even made a brief appearance in San Andreas. Hence, this is obviously not the first time it has drawn negative remarks from New York City Officials. “The mayor does not support any video game where you earn points for injuring or killing police officers,” said Jason Post, speaking on behalf of New York City’s mayor.

Known as “Things Will Be Different”, the first trailer premiered for GTAIV yesterday. The latest character of the GTA series (featured right), bearing a rugged appearance and an accent hinting towards a Russian background, states the following as the trailer closes: “Life is complicated. I killed people, smuggled people, sold people. Perhaps here, things will be different.” Given the fact that this is Grand Theft Auto we’re talking about, that idea is extremely unlikely.

Take Two declined to comment on this story.

Below are various screenshots for the upcoming GTAIV.

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If you regularly check out anime blogs, by now you will probably have come across several pictures where faces have been obscured using the Laughing Man symbol (taken from Ghost In The Shell: SAC).

I have never tried it myself, but I can imagine doing this manually could get very tedious. There is now better solution: http://thelaughingman.net/, a new site which provides a free service that will automatically hack your images and apply the Laughing Man logo to any faces it finds!

I ran a few tests to try it out; the first was of some randoms I found using Google Image Search, and below is the result:

After the first success, it was time to try something a little more complex. The result was not so flattering:

Conclusion: A nice utility for anomyzing basic scenes, it needs quite a bit more work though if it is going to be of much real use (e.g. anonymizing a crowd of Otakus roaming Akihabara).

Via: ANN

ANS has just reported details on a new limited edition (30 available) Death Note themed laptop (or “notebook”, a aha).

The laptop comes with a trendy ringo (apple) USB dongle, other than that it looks much like a regular laptop with a big Death Note sticker stuck on its body.

The laptop is being sold on NTV’s website; by the looks of things it has already sold out though, as might be expected.

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Artist Eric Poulton has recently drawn a series of Starwars themed images set in a Steampunk context. By far my favourite of the collection is a picture of Darth Vader (below) with a steam powered cybernetic body and a steam powered light sabre.. sugoi!

Check out the full collection here.

Via: Digg

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