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Mitsubishi Electric is bringing the information
revolution to the automobile. |
Mitsubishi
Electric showcases the breadth of its technology and offers
a glimpse of the world of tomorrow at an annual R&D
open house. This year's exhibition rewarded visitors with
20-some product ideas that might appear in the marketplace
sometime fairly soon.
Speak!
Among the sectors where Mitsubishi
Electric asserts world-leading technological strengths is
voice recognition. An exhibit at the R&D open house
demonstrated ways that advances in voice recognition could
enliven the automobile. Mitsubishi Electric engineers have
configured a vehicle multimedia center that understands
spoken commands and queries from the driver and that furnishes
pertinent information through synthesized voice messages.
Voice interaction is especially important in
automotive systems because it allows drivers to keep their
hands on the wheel and their eyes on the road. Mitsubishi
Electric's multimedia center includes a navigation system
that provides spoken directions to destinations in response
to spoken queries from the driver.
Meanwhile, passengers will enjoy an unprecedented
range of diversions. The system supports high-speed Internet
connectivity, as well as high-quality television reception.
Backseat drivers never had it so good.
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She might cast stones, but she'll never cast a shadow
on this display. |
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Up close and seamless
Also on display at Mitsubishi
Electric's R&D open house was, well, a display. The
company, a world leader in display technologies, has developed
a front-projection, multiprojector system unlike anything
presently on the market. Its new system lets a presenter
stand almost right in front of the screen without casting
a shadow on the projected image. The system also eliminates
the seams that tend to appear in conventional multiple-projector
formats.
What enables presenters to stand close to the
screen with Mitsubishi Electric's new front-projection system
is an ultrasharp projection angle. The projectors beam their
images from almost directly above or below the screen. That
is especially important in educational and marketing presentations,
for example, where the speakers need to approach the screen
to stress important points.
Advanced software algorithms, meanwhile, adjust
the adjacent images of the multiprojector displays to merge
them seamlessly. The smoothing technology is applicable
to any number of projectors arranged horizontally. So, it
could allow for huge displays. |
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Tokio Marine continues to expand its operations in
China. |
Tokio
Marine, Japan's biggest property and casualty insurer, is
another Mitsubishi company at the forefront of its industry.
And it recently reaffirmed its position there by becoming
the first foreign insurer to establish an office in Suzhou.
The office, which opened in March, strengthens the company's
growing presence in the economically vital Yangtze River
delta. It is Tokio Marine's second foothold in Jiangsu Province,
joining the insurer's office in the provincial capital,
Nanjing.
The Yangtze delta has been a focus of China's
spectacular economic development in recent years. The delta
region's economy centers on Shanghai, where Tokio Marine
has a longstanding presence, and encompasses the neighboring
provinces of Jiangsu and Zhejiang. Companies of numerous
nationalities are pouring investment into the delta region,
and Tokio Marine supports their bustling business with a
diverse range of insurance underwriting and related consulting.
Tokio Marine's operations in the Yangtze delta
employ nearly 90 people and are the most extensive insurance
network in the region. The company's network in China overall
(see map) comprises 10 branches and offices, including the
first operation established in Beijing by a non-Chinese
insurer.
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Mitsubishi
Corporation is transforming the submicron world of nanotechnology
into big business. Its latest
nanoventure is a collaboration with Osaka-based Honjo Chemical
Corporation. The partners have set up a joint venture, Proton
C60 Power Corporation, to develop a new kind of membrane
electrode assembly for fuel cells that uses
proton conductors of fullerene.
A proton-conducting membrane is the heart of
a polymer electrolyte fuel cell--the
kind of fuel cell used most widely by makers
of cars and electronic equipment. Conventional membranes
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This is how a buckyball would look to you if you
were the size of a molecule. |
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require precise control of moisture content
and temperature. In contrast, a fullerene membrane conducts
protons without any moisturizing, and it functions across
a broad temperature range.
Fullerene is the subject of a scientific field
born in 1985. In that year, scientists in the United Kingdom
and in the United States discovered the third form of carbon
crystals, after diamonds and graphite. Researchers have
identified applications for fullerene in electronics and
in pharmacology and other sectors. The discoverers of fullerene
named it after Buckminster Fuller because the substance
occurs in spherical shapes that are suggestive of Fuller's
geodesic domes. The etymology occasioned the popular nickname,
buckyballs. Mitsubishi Chemical, Mitsubishi Corporation
and an investment fund mainly sponsored by Mitsubishi Corporation
own a company, Frontier Carbon Corporation, that began mass-producing
fullerene this May.
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If a volcano erupts, you can call via satellite
to say you won't be home for dinner. |
The
Mitsubishi company Space Communications Corporation and
Hitachi, Ltd., are developing portable terminals for two-way
communications via satellite. Their terminals will be among
the world's smallest for ku-band communications. They will
support the SAT-PHONE service that Space Communications
Corporation will launch in September through one of its
Superbird satellites.
Public- and private-sector organizations are
moving to establish emergency communications links immune
to earthquakes and other disasters. Portable terminals are
essential to those links. The very small aperture terminals
usually have antennas larger than 75 cm wide. With antennas
less than half that width, the terminals being developed
by Space Communications Corporation and Hitachi will be
far more portable.
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