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Mitsubishi Corporation,
Adobe Systems Incorporated, Index me media Corporation and ColorZip Japan Inc.
have agreed to jointly market ColorCode™, an advanced two-dimensional code
system, for advertising and sales promotions.
ColorCode™ encodes information by arranging
red, blue, green and black dots in a 5x5 grid. By scanning this with a digital
camera-equipped cell phone, users can get information about a product or event
on the handset screen. The four-color system has several advantages over black-and-white
codes. Not only can the data be attractively designed, the code itself can also
be passed on to other digital media as animage file. This enables the code to
be |
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ColorCode™ encodes useful
product data into four-color images |
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used in cross-media promotions, not
only in print media as was the case before.
Before use, the ColorCode™ needs to be “activated” with a license
and published. This is handled by MC Merchant Service, a subsidiary of Mitsubishi
Corporation, through its new Quick Collection Service online payment system.
A special tool for creating new ColorCodes™
from scratch is available as a download from Adobe Systems for use in Adobe®
Illustrator® CS3 (Creative Suite® 3). This is the result of an investment
by Adobe Systems in ColorZip Japan, which holds the business rights for ColorCode™
in Japan.
Index me media, which has extensive
experience in mobile phones, games and movies, is now aggressively promoting the
new code. Websites using the new codes have already drawn attention and are expected
to spread their use across the Internet. |
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One does not think of Japan as an
oil-producing nation, but while Japan will probably never become an exporter,
it does have oil and gas reserves in commercial quantities. Recently, Mitsubishi
Gas Chemical and two partners, Japan Petroleum Exploration Co., Ltd.
and Japex Offshore Ltd., drilled a successful exploratory well, the Iwafune Offshore
Southwest MS-1 Well, in the southwest sector of the Iwafune offshore oil and gas
field. The field is on the west coast of northern Japan, 4 km offshore from northern
Niigata Prefecture. The drilling took place at the Iwafune offshore platform,
and production tests show the well is capable of producing a daily volume of 124,000
m3 of natural gas and 48 kiloliters of crude oil.
Drilling started in January 2007 and proceeded
to a depth of 3,758 m. Production testing has confirmed the production of crude
oil and natural gas from a |
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| The Iwafune Well is capable of
extracting a huge amount of oil and gas daily |
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stratum that includes the oil and
gas layer that was recently discovered in the Shiiya Formation, the primary target
stratum for the exploration.
Based on the results of this test, the three companies are now estimating the
size of the reserve. In parallel with the evaluation work, exploration will continue
at nearby sites. |
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Oil tankers may seem like
invincible behemoths, but they have a significant weakness—in the bottom
of their cargo tanks, saline water*1 mixed with
oil can create a corrosive sediment that can eat through the metal and lead to
oil leaks and serious accidents.
Now, Nippon Steel Corporation and NYK
have jointly developed a highly corrosion-resistant steel plate, called NSGP®-1,*2
to prevent this hazard. From now on, NYK will employ NSGP®-1 on all new oil
tankers, making them the world’s first oil tankers to feature this safety
precaution. NSGP®-1 enables a great leap forward in the safety and reliability
of marine vessels.
In addition to removing the hazards of poorly
applied coating or coating of inferior performance, which can cause the spread
of corrosion to accelerate, the new plating also enables drastically lowered painting
costs during construction and renovations.
The International Maritime Organization (IMO),
a U.N. organization, has long deliberated on measures to prevent this type of
corrosion and improve tanker safety. Until recently, the IMO regarded coating
as the only effective measure among the ones proposed, and considered making it
mandatory. However, after |
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| Oil tankers can now cross the oceans
without risking corroded cargo tanks |
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Nippon Steel and NYK demonstrated
the excellent anti-corrosive properties of NSGP®-1 as a newly developed Japanese
technology, NSGP®-1 rapidly attracted international attention.
*1: Saline Water: Due to the presence
of crude oil, the saline water has several times the concentration of salt than
sea water. Over time, the saline water will separate from the oil and form sediment
in the tank.
*2: NSGP®–1: Nippon Steel’s
Green Protect–1 |
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Mitsubishi Fuso
Truck and Bus Corp. has made its first full model change in 15 years
for the Aero Series of large tourist buses by creating the New Aero Queen for
tourists. The equally new Aero Ace was unveiled at the same time, offering great
tourism and highway travel. Orders were being accepted starting June 15, and the
new buses will be sold throughout Japan from August 29 through the Mitsubishi
Fuso Local Sales Division and Mitsubishi Fuso Sales Corporation.
The changes transform the exterior and interior designs. The interiors use Fuso-style
colors that will not fade, and thorough attention to every detail provides comfort
for everyone from children to senior citizens.
In terms of functionality, the vehicles employ
a urea-SCR (Selective Catalytic Reduction) system for purifying gas emissions.
When combined with various engine improvements, the new designs achieve a 10%
reduction in NOX (nitrogen oxide) and PM (particulate
matter) emissions in line with the 2005 long-term emissions regulations. This
allows both buses to be certified as low-emission vehicles and meet the 2015 heavy
vehicle fuel consumption standards. They are also the first large buses to obtain
the “BKG” mark, which identifies them as low-emission diesel vehicles.
With all these improvements, the new buses are sure to grace the highways of Japan
for a long time to come. |
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| The large tourist bus, “New Aero Queen” (customized
model shown in photo) |
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The engineers at
Toyo Engineering Works saw a potential way to reduce global warming.
Food processing plants and chemical plants use more steam and hot water than you
might expect for processes like sterilization, cleaning and heating. The traditional
way makes steam by burning heavy oil in a boiler. They reasoned that if an alternative
way were found, it would bring a significant reduction in greenhouse gas CO2
emissions.
They not only found one, they made it practical to use. Their new system recovers
leftover heat from hot water at the end of a process and uses it to help make
fresh steam for the start of a new process. Instead of burning fossil fuels to
make heat, the system uses a powerful compressor driven by electricity in an industrial-size
version of a heat pump.
Toyo Engineering named their system “Mr.
Eco Steam.” The unit uses a new HFC heat transfer medium that can withstand
high temperature and high pressure, greatly raising efficiency. Its coefficient
of performance (COP) is 6.7, meaning that it can make the same amount of steam
as burning fossil fuel while producing only 20% of the CO2—even
if the electricity it uses came from a fossil fuel-fired generator. |
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| Mr. Eco Steam can make a great
contribution toward cutting CO2 |
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Asahi Glass Develops
Advanced Lubricant for Hard Disks
The hard disks vital to modern computing utilize magnetic heads to store and access
data. Remarkable improvements in access speed and capacity are achieved by increasing
drive density and head rotation speeds. Unfortunately, this can also increase
the risk of data loss due to friction between heads and disk surfaces, creating
a need for sophisticated lubricants.
Asahi Glass’s proprietary Perfect Method fluorination technology has allowed
the development of a new oil that maintains low viscosity and friction while preserving
adhesiveness, stability, chemical resistance, and solvent characteristics, allowing
a head to “float” on disk surfaces. This new modified perfluoropolyether
(PFPE) is expected to be widely adopted for a range of purposes. |
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Mitsubishi Chemical Opens
Automotive Polypropylene Plant in China
In response to robust demand, Mitsubishi Chemical is creating an active
supply framework for polypropylene (PP) compounds for the Chinese automobile market
through the establishment of a new plant in the country’s Huanan region.
The new production base for Beijing Ju-Ling-Yan Plastic Company Limited (JLY),
a joint venture with the Chinese petroleum conglomerate Beijing Yanshan Petrochemical
Company and Toyota Tsusho Corporation, will help meet the pressing need for greater
PP supply capacity for Japanese automakers’ plants in the region. The new
plant is scheduled to open in early 2008. |
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Mitsubishi Electric
Unveils Innovative Snow-melting Machine
Mitsubishi Electric, working in cooperation with Hokkaido Electric Power
Co., Inc, has developed the world’s first* snow-melting machine powered
by a heat pump-type water heater. The machine, which is intended to be set up
in front of the entrance or in the parking lot of small stores and private residences,
not only efficiently melts accumulated snow—it is also very energy-efficient.
By taking in thermal energy from the atmosphere and efficiently producing hot
water, the heat pump can reduce running costs by approximately 60%* over models
that use fossil fuels. The new snow-melting machines went on sale on August 1,
2007.
* As of June 25, 2007, based on a snow-melting system for residences and small
stores with a surface area of approximately 30 m2 |
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