ryochiji's blog

ryochiji's blog
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Sat, June 21, 2003

House-hold Gadgets in Japan

I took pictures of some nifty gadgets in my mom's apartment in Japan. For example, this one:

This fridge door opens in both directions. You can open the door to the right, or to the left. As soon as you start opening from one side, the hinge on the other side locks automatically. Don't ask me what happens when you pull on both sides at the same time... I didn't have the guts to try.

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The apartment hub, which was located right underneath the breaker box. Kinda nails in the idea of internet access becoming more like a utility. Notice the 5 ethernet cables coming out of the hub; each one for the 5 "media outlets" in the apartment (one for each of the two bedrooms, three for the living/dining room/kitchen).

Motion detector in the entrance area. It's nice to not have to fumble in the darkness when you come home at night. Not so good when you're really late and you're trying to sneak in...

Washer and drier. Yes, I said washer and drier. All in one.

The all-in-one nuker/grill/toaster/oven. There's virtually nothing this box can't cook, boil, bake, grill, broil, roast, and/or toast.

Security system with a nifty camera thinggy. That's my mom waiting for me to let her in through the second set of doors downstairs in the lobby. All visitors have to pass through two remotely activated automatic doors to reach the elevator.

The super-duper-high-tech-time-machine-and-universe-creation-device. Okay, not really. It's just a talking dish washer. Of course, being the dishwasher illiterate idiot that I am (I had to ask someone to teach me how to use our standard 3 step dish washer), I had to RTFM before I could get this sucker going.

The all too famous, full-automatic toilet. It does all the work for you (except for step 5b, "waste material ejection sequence"). To be honest, I've never used the "extra features"... I'm one of those old fashioned people who like to wipe their own ass.

Control panel for the water heater. In Japan, unlike most other developed(?) nations, you can't just turn the tap and expect to get warm water. You have to turn on the water heater first (unless you're really rich, and you can afford to keep it on all the time). This is a fairly modern and user friendly interface; older models required you to manually ignite the heater (much like operating a gas burner).

Ryo Chijiiwa

I'm a biologically Japanese, culturally American, Germany-raised, socially liberal, politically independent, gun-totin', code writin' dude. My life is currently sponsored by Google.

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