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Panasonic lights up Tokyo with Firefly festival
On the final day of Golden Week, the cluster of national holidays in Japan each spring that sends families all over the country into a spring break like frenzy, a new type of festival was launched.
The Tokyo Hotaru (firefly) Festival, sponsored by Tokyo Municipal Govt. and other businesses and government entities literally lit up the Sumidagawa river near Asakusa by floating 100,000 small LED lanterns downstream. The festival, with a heavy Eco-friendly theme highlighted the lanterns, provided by Panasonic, each containing a small solar cell and a rechargeable battery. The result was a summer festival for a new generation, replacing large fireworks display with a high tech version of an ancient tradition.
This was an excellent opportunity for Panasonic, having recently purchased state of the art eco-tech through their Sanyo acquisition, to highlight their line of LED lightbulbs. Each of the 100,000 glowing balls dumped into the river contained a high power LED bulb and an Evolta rechargeable battery. I was very impressed with the overall design of the lanterns, each waterproof ball containing it’s own solar panel recharging system. Two metal leads on the bottom of each ball creates a circuit, that when floating in water is connected turning on the light. Simple, elegant and a stunning effect when floating en mass in the water.
(a shot of my recently obtained Sphero robot pondering joining its friends)
Another winner for this festival is Tokyo Skytree, the new digital broadcast tower that at 634 meters is the second tallest structure in the world. Officially opening in just a few weeks, the tower is illuminated with thousands of high intensity LED light bulbs (also by, you guessed it, Panasonic), but as part of the festival, the tower was fully illuminated. The cherry on the cake was the Supermoon rising right behind the tower just as the festival hit full swing.
Last year many festival were cancelled after the 3/11 quake and the full shutdown of all nuclear reactors in Japan has put huge pressure this summer on power conservation efforts, so this festival couldn’t have come at a better time. A combination of large scale festive, public event, a strong eco-friendly message, and a celebration of the technical ability of the country that was well received at challenging time. I look forward to more events like this in the future and hope this marks a new tradition.
NicoNico Chokaigi 2012 Event report
Spent the day yesterday in Makuhari at the NicoNico Chokagi, a special event going on this weekend.
NicoNico Douga is a Japanese video sharing and online streaming service. It fills a niche of Pirate Otaku Video so you can imagine what this place was like. Cosplayers, Itasha, Idols, Ikemen Otagei dance performances… ^^;
Saw my friends from Neurowear there doing the Japan launch of the brain wave controlled robot necomimi. Judging by the huge number of girls (and way too many guys for my comfort) wandering around the site I think you could call this a very successful launch.
The event is running today if you are looking for something to do. That is if you have a high tolerance for crowds, blaring loudspeakers, crazy otaku stuff and EM radiation.
Star Wars Hinamatsuri
March 3rd in Japan is a holiday called Hinamatsuri or Dolls Festival. It’s a holiday where families erect displays in their home for with traditional Japanese dolls reflecting the Imperial court. The dolls an be very pricey and are passed along within the family from mother to daughter often augmenting the collection along the way with more or nicer dolls.
I remember having one of these displays in the house that belonged to my sister. But what do you do if your little girl is more into lightsabers and spaceships than fancy dresses and princesses? (other than receive constant high gives for having the coolest daughter ever)
Well I found a shop in Nihonbashi that has you covered. Cool dolls here from an entirely different Imperial court there are Vaders and troopers with full Samurai armor and what I am sure are laser sword Katana.
But get it fast cause at $4,000 for a 1 meter high Sith Lord Doll I’m sure they will sell out fast!
Coming soon, the New Tokyo Station
Still scheduled to be completed this year, the renovation work on the Marunouchi side of Tokyo Station is still under way. The new domes over the North and South entrances can now be seen popping up from the scaffolding surrounding the building.
For as long as I have known it, Tokyo Station has been an underground building. The Marunouchi side was a quick post war knock off of the original building and has for all intents and purpose been a condemned building for years. This new renovation is supposed to return the building to its pre war original state. I’m dreaming of a new, but classic design that will add visibility and access to the tracks and bring ye station out of its underground cocoon. Tokyo needs a signature station like Grand Central in New York or Moscow subway station. Hopefully we’ll get a chance to see this landmark rise again in a few months.
Read more on Tokyo station here. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tōkyō_Station
Livestreaming Report: Belgian Beer Weekend
Three days and 26 hours in the can. I’m writing this on the train to my last day live streaming the Belgian Beer Weekend Tokyo event at Roppongi Hills Arena. Just 8 hours left!
Had a very fun trial run this week with my gypsy Internet TV studio. I think I’m liking the name “Studio@stevenagata” for this monster of mismatched parts from my closet, computers and electrical tape. So far no major hiccups, but a few minor technical glitches I’ll have to work on.
The biggest problem so far has been errors on the Roland VR-5 mixer causing some of the saved streams to corrupt on closing. I lost a few bits I had meant to save including a music act that I thought went pretty well. Since we are not archiving online the video, I’m afraid, is lost forever. Will have to run some endurance tests to try and nail down the problem. Otherwise I might look into on off board video recorder like an Atmos Ninja.
It’s been fun to see so many friends stop by the event. Hoping a few more might make it by today. Keeping the stream up can be pretty draining so I wasn’t able to chat much, but hope that today will be a bit lighter as I starting together the hang of things.
The event itself has been super cool. Great bands, good food, 62 types of beer and a crowd expected to top 20,000 for the four days. Early metrics showing we’ll beat that number decisively with online viewers. Super thanks to Akoni KK, Rob Van Nylen and Dean Fujii for bringing me on board for this event. Hope to do more like it in the future (I hear talk of a possible fashion show! (^_^) ). Also big props to ace Cameraman and super geek Joseph Tame for putting in 4x hours over the agreed work and covering all the concerts like a pro.
Definitely stop by if you have time today. It’s really a great atmosphere. Or tune in on the livestream at http://bit.ly/bbw2011. More detailed reports on my studio later *I hope*
