Hitotoki – one second

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Gibson Dark Fire Guitar

First caught these news at Akihabaranews website.

Gibson will release the Dark Fire Guitar, A Robot Guitar combined with a Digital guitar towards Christmas. Personally, I am more interested in a conventional Les Paul Analogue Guitar.

Why am I writing about this? Because of the Gibson Dark Fire contest :
The rules are simple, write a song about the new guitar, post it in youtube, and the song with most views wins the contest. I LOVE the idea (though it disqualifies me from entering and winning).

Google 乗換案内 – Travel assistant

I am sure this is old news, but I just bumped into this Google service in Japan, and I love it!

From the Google.co.jp webpage, filed under iroiro (second tab). This screen capture may be handy:

Following that you can enter Address or station location and get recommendations on routes for either trains or a car. Now, Yahoo provide a similar (and very good) service for a long time, but what I found helpful is the integration to street view, when car route is selected.

See another screenshot:

Rakuten proxy shopping services

Going through my wife’s emails, we have found a new service from Rakuten.

The Rakuten Proxy shopping Service  looks like a great new service:
Rakuten will act as a proxy, purchasing the desired goods from one of the shops, handling international shipments! The service relies on PayPal, which is a proven platform for such services.

Fees seem a bit expensive, but I believe we will definitely use this service as we often want merchandise from Japan, and do not want to burden our family and friends.

Fees:
1) JPY980 per item ordered as handling charge.
2) 5% (!!!) of total product amount
3) Shipping
4) 5% of international shipping Charge

Sprint, Clearwire close Deal

Not news, but I have encountered an article in Ars Technica – Future of WiMAX is Clear as Sprint, Clearwire close deal.

There is a word game in the title, as the new merged network will be named “Clear”, which sounds a bit strange too me:
“I have called “Clear” and bought their “Clear” CPE” – doesn’t sound right. Xohm was better!

The article also discusses spectrum allocation and competitors LTE plans.