From Editorial Cartoonist Tom Toles

Tokyo Broadband

At home in Tokyo I have 100 Mbps Internet service, and it's just part of the normal rent for this particular building. Granted, rents are high, but truly high-speed Internet service isn't even if you have to pay for it separately. ASAHI Net, for example, charges anywhere from 3,035 to 3,570 per month for 100 Mbps service to an apartment, depending on where you live. Even DSL service (12 Mbps downstream/1 Mbps) is just 1,990 yen per month.

I was just watching Walter Mossberg complain about broadband service in the U.S. (Mossberg is the Wall Street Journal's technology writer.) He is correct. The Japanese are way ahead.

As another example, in Japan "One Seg" is getting quite popular. With One Seg you can watch digital television on a mobile telephone, free. The picture quality is quite reasonable. One Seg doesn't work while riding subways underground, but for a 90 minute typical commute into work about 60 minutes will probably be above ground. For the other 30 there's always 3G mobile e-mail and Web browsing which does work in the subway tunnels.

If that's not enough, Livedoor has blanketed about 80% of central Tokyo with WiFi service. That's only 525 yen per month. For comparison, it costs twice that rate for T-Mobile WiFi service in the U.S. Per day.

I Wasn't Alive to Hear the Gettysburg Address

But I heard this speech. Did you?



By the way, Senator Obama wrote all the words.

U.S. Dollar Collapsing

The U.S. dollar will now buy only about 97 yen as I write this post. It was around 120 not too long ago. The dollar has performed comparatively well against the Japanese yen, but apparently the normally activist Bank of Japan has no problem allowing the dollar to slide.

The good news is that my employer provides reasonable hedges against currency risk, so I do better than most. And my employer reports earnings in U.S. dollars, so a weak dollar is great news for the company on Wall Street. Most other U.S. expats and tourists will get hurt, however.

I will do a lot of shopping in the U.S. during my next trip there.

Although 97 yen is low, it's not the all-time record low. The record low of about 85 yen was set at the end of the first Bush recession, in the early 1990s.

What He Said

Hanamasa Suffering

Hanamasa is my favorite supermarket chain in Tokyo. The company mainly caters to the numerous small restaurants in the city, with most products packaged in quantities that Japanese consumers would consider "bulk," but anyone can shop there.

Hanamasa gets many of its products from China, and the Japanese are frightened about the quality of products from that country due to a recent incident involving tainted imported dumplings. Thus Hanamasa has closed a large number of stores, including the store nearest my home. That store was clearing stock during my last visit, and, to pick an example, I bought 3 Kg of frozen cooked boneless chicken for 1020 yen.

I can still get to a surviving Hanamasa store on bicycle, but it's much less convenient. So now I'm trying to figure out grocery shopping alternatives.

The MacBook Err

I was prepared to open my wallet to buy Apple's new notebook computer. However, the machine is underwhelming and would soon grow frustrating to me. Let me say right at the outset that I am interested in a sole machine, not an accessory for another machine. I think even Apple would admit that the MBA is not a good choice unless you've got another machine somewhere, such as an iMac or desktop PC.

The most frustrating and artificial limitation is the maximum hard disk size, a paltry 80 GB. Toshiba and Samsung both have 120 GB hard disks in the same physical form factor as the 80 GB part, so let's hope Apple introduces a build-to-order option for the larger size pronto. (One workaround, for those already carrying iPods, is an iPod Classic with much of its space used as a second drive.) I'm also concerned about the 2 GB RAM limitation and hope Apple can rapidly introduce a 4 GB model. (Or better yet an expandable model beyond 4 GB.) You can never have enough memory.

The other limitations become more annoying as a consequence. A single USB port? Not fun, especially without an ethernet jack. Most of the hotels in Asia have ethernet but no wireless. And what happened to the Kensington-style computer locking slot? Apple couldn't find room on the machine to drill a hole? What are we supposed to do, lug the machine into the bathroom to prevent its theft? There's no audio-in jack. And the battery is sealed inside the machine like an iPod, so you can forget swapping batteries on a long flight.

There are a couple things Apple did right. The external Superdrive is priced fairly, and so is the USB-to-ethernet dongle. The screen and keyboard are nice, although the bezel around the screen is still too wide.

But to net it out, I'm not buying one. Sorry, Apple, you missed.

UPDATE: I didn't realize how hard Apple missed, assuming Lenovo ships reasonably soon at a fair price. Their new ThinkPad X300 looks like an incredible piece of engineering.

Presidential Primary Voting from Abroad

If you are an eligible U.S. voter living overseas, the Democratic Party offers the option of voting in the Democrats Abroad Presidential Primary instead of voting in your home state primary or caucus. The Democratic Party will seat Democrats Abroad voting delegates at the party convention, so it is a real primary.

There are certain rules you must follow, including especially that you can only vote in the Democrats Abroad primary or in your home state primary, not both. Also, you must be a registered member of Democrats Abroad by January 31, 2008, in order to vote by fax, Internet, or mail. Details are here, and you can register here. It's quick and painless. Otherwise, you'll have to vote in person in certain cities abroad, and you can also register in person if necessary. The primary will be held from February 5-12, 2008.

There is a Republicans Abroad organization, but as far as I know the Republican Party does not hold a global presidential primary for U.S. voters living overseas. If you wish to vote in a Republican primary or caucus, you'll have to do that through your home state. If it's a caucus or convention, you'll have to travel back to your home state to participate in person. Note also that you cannot be both a Republican and a Democrat in the same election cycle for purposes of voting for presidential nominees. For example, if you vote in your home state Republican primary you cannot vote in the Democrats Abroad global primary.

Shake! 350 GPS Mini-Review

I'm quite pleased with the Shake! 350 GPS. It is indeed possible to update the database using a Mac or Linux PC: just download the update file, place it on a Secure Digital (SD) memory card, put the memory card in the GPS, and finally instruct the GPS to load the update.

I was concerned about the Centrality Atlas II GPS receiver and its reception quality. The JROAD models use the more famous SiRF III receiver, known for its ability to get a position fix fast and hold onto GPS signals. But the Atlas II seems quite adequate, at least with limited testing.

It's a little too easy to turn the unit on accidentally. The touch screen is also a little too sensitive on occasion. And the English translations are sometimes odd. However, given the very limited market, this unit is still quite useful and a good value.

English GPS Navigation

The Japanese domestic car market has the world's highest penetration of factory-installed navigation systems. It's not hard to figure out why: the road system is complicated, and making a wrong turn could add significant delay due to traffic congestion. Many of these navigation systems are extremely sophisticated and feature Bluetooth wireless connections to mobile phone accessories, television reception, live traffic reports, and even photo albums, to remember the children you rarely see. Auto manufacturers make a lot of money selling these systems.

Japan's early and enthusiastic embrace of these systems means that portable navigation devices (PNDs) haven't really caught on yet. However, the market is changing. Flash memory now competes favorably with DVD storage, and many Japanese are willing to accept 80% of the function at 10% of the price. Also, up until this year expatriates only had two choices for English-language navigation systems. Both are full sized DVD-based (and/or hard disk-based) systems priced at about $2,500 installed. Nissan offers one of these systems, both for its own vehicles and for other vehicles. They do work fairly well in English, with English voice prompts, but street names are still in Japanese. Most owners learn to save locations into the navigation system's database, perhaps struggling to reach the destination the first time. Another option is to enter a landline telephone number, and the navigation system will guide you to the general area corresponding to that number. These capabilities are extremely valuable to bewildered expats, and there's no question these big screen systems have advantages.

This year two companies started shipping English language PNDs for the Japanese domestic market. One device is called the Shake!350, sometimes also written as SHAKE 350, from GrandMap Navi. This device weighs just over 150 grams and has a small 3.5 inch touch sensitive color screen, rechargeable battery with home and car chargers, car mounting bracket, 1 GB of flash memory with a slot to add more, USB cable, English voice prompts, and, best of all, English (i.e. Romanji) street and location names displayed on the map and in the location search screens. With a little on-line comparison shopping I was able to find a brand new one on sale for a mere 29,000 yen. The company seems to provide free downloadable database updates on its Web site, although all the Web pages are in Japanese. Even so, I could figure it out with a little help from Google's translator, and they do have a PDF copy of the product manual, in English.

Unlike some of the factory-installed systems, PNDs don't have gyroscopes or other motion sensing features that augment GPS. Thus the GPS signal will occasionally drop out in tunnels and in urban "canyons," with tall buildings blocking GPS satellite coverage. Also, the screen is typically much smaller, and car installation isn't as neat or integrated. However, one major advantage (which some higher priced Japanese mobile phones share) is that you can take a PND on a bicycle or on a walk. There's also the price advantage of course.

These trade-offs seemed acceptable to me, so I ordered a Shake!350 today, and I should receive it later this week. I'll try to post a product review in a couple weeks. For the record, JROAD also offers two PNDs in this narrow category (i.e. domestic Japanese PNDs with English language support): the JRN400 and JRN410. These two models are pretty much identical, except the JRN410 has flashing LEDs that signal left or right to the driver. The LEDs seem like overkill on top of voice prompts, but Japanese gadget makers have never been shy about adding gimmicks. On paper the Shake!350 looks slightly better overall, although JROAD may have the superior GPS receiver. Both share one major disadvantage, especially for Mac OS X and Linux users: they run Microsoft Windows CE (a.k.a. Windows Mobile). How do I update the Shake!350's database using Mac OS X, for example? PocketMac or Missing Sync may do the trick. I might get lucky and be able to mount the device just like any other USB drive to copy files, and hopefully a simple file copy is enough.