Japan Retail News - Inside consuming Japan - Trends, Products, People, Tech - Market Entry Japan
  • Japan Retail News - Home
  • Japan's Retail Market
    • Japan Business Links
    • JapanTV ads (CM) >
      • JapanTVads-Food
      • JapanTVads-Refresh
      • JapanTVads-Beauty
      • JapanTVads-Fashion
      • JapanTVads-HighTech
      • JapanTVads-Cars
      • JapanTVads-Service
  • Japan Market Reports
    • List Japan Market Reports
    • Doing Business with Japanese
    • EyeWear Japan
    • Kitchen Market Japan
    • Solar Market Japan
    • Furniture & Interior Market Japan
    • Retail & Consumer Goods Japan
    • Cosmetics Market Japan
    • Machinery & Tools Japan
    • Semiconductor Market Japan
    • Automotive & Suppliers Japan
    • Automotive Aftermarket & Autoparts Japan
    • Luggage Market Europe
  • Japan Market Entry Services
  • About JRN
    • Contact

A Google Glass rival emerges from an upstart in Japan

5/15/2013

 
Picture
A Japanese entrepreneur’s answer to Google Glass, but with a Japanese manga-style twist. Japanese entrepreneur Takahito Iguchi wants people to see the world through other people’s eyes. But as a less ambitious jumping off point, he’ll kick it off with a world that looks like a Japanese manga cartoon. His device, called the Telepathy One, is the closest thing I’ve seen under development yet to Google’s Glass gadget.  

Picture
Iguchi and his team showed off prototypes (two working and several others just mockups) of the wearable image-streaming glasses to the media at an event in New York City on Tuesday night. Like with Google Glass, users wear the Telepathy One on their heads, in front of the eye and wrapped around the ears. Telepathy actually has ear buds that fit into the ears, so you can presumably hear audio functionality when they add it in.

Unlike with Google Glass, the Telepathy One has an optically projected small screen in front of the eye of the wearer, and a cell phone app controlled by the partner captures the images that the wearer sees in a tiny screen.  The Telepathy team said the device will also be able to take photos or videos from the headset and stream those images to the partner’s cell phone app, but the prototype didn’t yet have that functionality.

Iguchi emphasized that he wants the Telepathy One to enable users to share what they’re seeing with their loved ones. “You feel the love when your loved one is standing beside you,” said Iguchi, who flew in from Tokyo days before and half the time spoke to the group in English and half the time spoke in Japanese using an interpreter. The core functionality of the Telepathy One is the social sharing of experiences in real time between people over distance, explained Iguchi. He pointed out that this is in contrast to some of the more open-ended apps that will come out of Google Glass.

Picture
The first app that the Telepathy One will use is the Manga Camera app, which is a popular app in Japan that’s gotten 6 million downloads. For the demo, I put the headset on and the Telepathy team took photos of people around me, and the Manga-versions of those people streamed to the little projected screen in front of my eye. 

Sound a little weird? Well, that’s because it was a little weird. Seeing a bunch of strangers look like tiny black and white cartoons might not have the same type of pull as, say, seeing your best friend or partner as a goofy manga character. 

The prototype also wasn’t fitted comfortably enough to be able to see the image very well, so most people that tried the device on ended up holding it with their hand at a certain angle, looking up in an awkward manner, and practically squinting to see the image.

Picture
The experience is also telling of the stage of development of the product. It’s in a really early stage. While the Telepathy team is shooting for a Christmas 2013 launch for the device, it’s far — far — from prime time. They’re still sourcing suppliers for the components, and haven’t advanced enough to be able to give an estimated price on it (other than it’ll be cheaper than what Google is charging developers for Google Glass) or battery life time yet. 

There’s also a lot of planned functionality in the device that the team talked about but wasn’t even remotely there yet, like planned interfaces using audio, gesture, and touch (difficult things that are hard to get right).

At the same time, I do like some of the choices that the Telepathy team have made. In choosing one functionality (social image sharing only) and trying to make it really simple, I think they made smart decisions. Iguchi likened the Telepathy One and Google Glass to the iPods of the world trying to create an entirely new type of industry that people don’t know yet that they want. The device that can break through this type of difficult market will need to have one killer app to define the need and win people over.

The Telepathy One isn’t really a threat to Google. The team has 8 people working on the device, and formed the venture in January 2013. And as Iguchi said at the beginning of his talk while they’ve introduced their baby, it’s not really even born yet. The group introduced the Telepathy One at SXSW last month, and will be in Silicon Valley next month looking to connect with developers.
(Gigacom)


Comments are closed.
    JRN logo
    JRN

    Archives

    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011
    May 2011
    April 2011
    March 2011
    February 2011
    January 2011
    December 2010
    November 2010
    October 2010
    September 2010
    August 2010
    July 2010
    June 2010
    May 2010
    April 2010
    March 2010
    February 2010
    January 2010
    December 2009
    November 2009
    October 2009
    September 2009
    August 2009
    July 2009
    June 2009
    May 2009
    April 2009
    February 2009
    January 2009
    December 2008
    November 2008
    October 2008
    September 2008
    July 2008
    June 2008
    May 2008
    March 2008
    November 2007
    February 2007
    July 2006
    April 2006
    March 2006

    Categories

    All
    3d
    Abenomics
    Advertising
    Airlines
    Ana
    Apple
    Apps
    Architecture
    Asahi
    Beer Japan
    Bicycle
    Books
    Cafes
    Cars Japan
    Coffee
    Cosmetics
    Culture
    Department Stores
    Design
    Disney
    Docomo
    Dogs
    Drinks
    Economy Japan
    Ecotech
    Education
    Energy
    Farming
    Fashion Japan
    Flu
    Food
    Food Labels
    Food Market
    Forever 21
    Fujitsu
    Furniture Japan
    Gadgets
    Games
    Globalization
    Haagen Dazs
    Health
    Health Care
    Hello Kitty
    Heritage
    Hightech
    Hm Japan
    Hobby
    Honda
    Hotels
    Household Spending
    Hybrid
    Ikea Japan
    Industry
    Interior Japan
    Kids
    Kitson
    Living Cost
    Merger&Acquisition
    Merger&Acquisition
    Mitsubishi
    Mobiles
    Music
    Nhk
    Nintendo
    Olympia
    Online Shopping
    Online Supermarket
    Panasonic
    Pets
    Private Label
    Product Labelling
    Public Transportation
    Qr Codes
    Railway
    Real Estate
    Retail Japan
    Robots
    Sanrio
    Sanyo
    Science
    Security
    Sega
    Service
    Shiseido
    Social Media
    Solar Energy
    Sony
    Space
    Sports
    Statistics
    Supermarkets
    Tobacco
    Toilet
    Toshiba
    Tourists
    Toyota
    Toys
    Trade Shows
    Tradition
    Travel
    Twitter
    Uniqlo
    Vitamins
    Vuitton
    Wealth
    Wearable Tech
    Women

     


Our motto ...

“I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious.” Albert Einstein

Stay in touch with JRN

 
Market Entry Japan request
> Get in touch with us/JRN
>> Speak to a Japan Expert
         Japan - a fascinating market with unique consumers buying extraordinary products. Be part of it.   Copyright © 2013 All rights reserved.   Japan Retail News© is powered by EJBC since 2005