Toshiba’s Virtual Fitting room doesn’t have men’s wear

Toshiba was demoing its Virtual Fitting Room at CES this year. The premise is simple, stand in front of a large display while your image is projected on it. Using a Kinect for motion tracking, Toshiba’s software is able to superimpose various outfits onto your reflected self. Hold your right hand up to change outfits and your left to snap a selfie, that the software then throws up as a QR code so you can grab your pic. Typical of this type of virtual thing the clothes tended to wiggle about and were a bit ill fitting, but they were women’s outfits so we’ll give them a break there. We can see practical applications for trying clothing combinations without having to use a dressing room if you’re in a hurry, for example. Though, we don’t think using it for sizing would be useful at all, which is a large part of a fitting room’s job.

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Toshiba’s TransferJet SD cards get NFC previews

Toshiba’s been hawking its Eye-Fi-troubling TransferJet technology for years now, letting you push data from your SD card to your PC without removing it from your camera. Now, however, the company has cooked up a way for users to see what’s on the card without even picking it up off the table. Simply pick up an Android smartphone, activate the company’s companion app, and the built-in NFC will show you up to 16 random thumbnails of the images included therein.

Of course, you’d only really need that sort of feature if you had thousands of SD cards that, for some reason, you hadn’t archived to your computer. That clearly hasn’t deterred the company in gearing this up for retail, and it’s expected to hit stores in the US at some point in February, with other territories given the option of joining in as they see fit. There’s no word on pricing yet, but the company expects it to cost a little more than your average SD card for obvious reasons.

Filed under: Cameras, Storage

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Toshiba joins other tech giants in growing super-clean vegetables

The name “Toshiba” conjures images of stacks of laptops piled high and maybe the occasional television, but the Japanese electronics giant is turning its attention to something just a little more humble: lettuce. Well, spinach too. And swiss chard. Quartz’s Dan Frommer tells the tale of a Toshiba-owned clean room nestled in the industrial corners of Yokosuka where people clad in special suits dutifully plant seeds and plop them on tall racks under an array of fluorescent lights. The end result? Tasty veggies that you won’t need to wash (though if you’re a mild hypochondriac like your author, you’d probably give ‘em a quick rinse anyway).

Toshiba isn’t diving into the world of clean cuisine just because it wants to appease Japan’s gourmands. No no — it aims to produce some 3 million bags of greens a year to help firm up its position as an end-to-end healthcare company. It’s actually pretty brilliant, if a bit paradoxical: Toshiba wants to sell those healthy, pristine greens and the technology (mostly centered around internal imaging for now) that’ll help when something ails you. It’s not the only Japanese megaconglomerate to dabble in a spot of indoor agriculture, either. Sony converted a closed semiconductor factory in Miyagi prefecture into an elaborate growing operation that churns out specially tweaked lettuce that’s chock full of extra beta carotene, and Fujitsu — a massive company that dabbles in some really obtuse stuff — has a room in Wakamatsu churning out low-potassium lettuce for folks with chronic kidney disorders. Forget about hacking gadgets together, maybe the future is in hacking the very stuff that keeps us going.

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Source: Quartz

Toshiba’s new prototype is a simpler, lighter Google Glass rival… with a catch

Nearly every tech company wants in on the wearables game, but they can’t all be Google Glass or Apple Watches — not that they have to be. But hey, here’s Toshiba — and it’s got a Toshiba Glass prototype to show off. We’ll say this right at the start: this remains a reference product that the company’s showing off at CEATEC in Japan this week. And yes, technical specifics (let alone a price) aren’t being discussed yet, but the vision for Toshiba’s eye-based wearable prototype is a gentle, predictable one. The hardware is the combination of a tiny projector, attached to admittedly normal-looking frames. However, there’s actually a special kind of one-sided reflective glass to catch the projection. The projection module itself is kind of bulky, but actually lightweight… which is great, until you realize that this prototype requires a constant wired connection to work.

According to Toshiba, there’s no computational component in the arm, which primarily consists of a tiny projector and not much else. There’s no camera, rather Toshiba’s concept would act primarily as a notification system. The concept teaser (and accompanying projected images) offered glimpses of fitness tracker notifications, call reminders and a handful of business-based applications point towards security and warehouse use. Toshiba’s New Business Development Division’s Yuki Kaneko told us that’s a device headed for B2B first: it’s for other companies that also want Toshiba’s system support and other business-type stuff… that we leave to other dustier tech publications.

When we brought up the inevitable Google Glass comparison, Kaneko-san was (surprisingly!) positive about the ever-present wire, citing that it kept the weight down by offloading not only computing (and other frills like cameras), but also the battery. Battery life is thus dependent on whatever device it’s connected to, leaving the wearable lighter and more, well, wearable. The real device will appear next year, but consumer models for us mere muggles will likely be a while after that — for now, this is a business-centered wearable — which probably explains the “goggle edition.” (Our words, not theirs.)

Filed under: Wearables

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Toshiba gets aggressive with a $120, 7-inch Windows tablet

Over the years, Windows tablets have been getting smaller and smaller — and cheaper and cheaper. Well, surprise! They’re getting tinier, and we’ve just about hit bargain-basement pricing. Toshiba just announced the Encore Mini, a 7-inch slate that will sell for just $120 — an aggressive move, considering 8-inch models hover around the $200 mark. Technically speaking, the Encore Mini is not the cheapest Windows tablet out there, but it’s definitely the lowest price we’ve seen from a tier-one brand. For the money, you get full Windows 8.1, though the specs are, as you’d expect, pretty low-end. These include a 1,024 x 600 display, a quad-core Intel Atom Z3735G processor with 1GB of RAM, 16GB of built-in storage and dual 2MP/0.3MP cameras. At 0.78 pound, it’s heavier than, say, the 7-inch Galaxy Tab 4 Nook, which we just reviewed, but either way, you shouldn’t have a problem toting it around.

On a bright note, Toshiba is throwing in 1TB of One Drive storage, free for one year, and there’s also a microSDXC slot that takes cards up to 128GB. One year of Office 365 service is included too. Additionally, Toshiba worked with Microsoft to optimize the scaling, so that even when you’re in desktop mode, on-screen objects should still be big enough to hit with your fingers. This worked well in my hands-on, but then again, I have slender fingers, so maybe take that with a grain of salt. In any case, if you’re tempted, it’s available now.

Filed under: Tablets

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