The new roller capable of ample spring stroke by employing a cantilever shaped spring as well as being optimized for the thickness, width and height of the spring plate resulting in reduction in spring force which creates load resistance during reeling. The reels that come with the new roller clutch ensure reeling with less force with reliable lock against slight tugs on the line from fish bites, ensuring a successful catch. The company is planning for an annual sale of 100 million yen by 2012.

Tatami as being part of traditional Japanese culture is going through a though time partly due to shift to more western style of flooring such as rugs, carpets or even wood flooring ,and party due to ongoing difficulties with supply of rice straw, the main ingredient in making tatami. The supply issue has been created due to insufficient straw materials, reduced request because of aging of tatami artisans and need for price reduction with consistent quality. As a result of this, there has been a shift toward tatami mat construction materials that do not use any rice straw. One such company that makes alternative material for tatami construction is Dow Kakoh, where the company uses “STYROFOAM” extruded polystyrene foam boards to match the feel of a straw tatami mats resulting in a lighter tatami mat.
The company in constructing the new tatami mat examined methods to increase the strength of extruded polystyrene foam board as well as combining suitable cushiony and reinforcing materials to help in producing the feel of straw tatami. The new tatami incorporates KURARAY’s steam-jet type non-woven fabrics by using new-and-improved DK Boards designed for tatami mats. The new DK Boards combines the two layer construction, a layer capable of absorbing shock and another in providing rigidity. Now a days Tatami with artificially made materials come in different colors and shapes and I even seen one with embedded LED lights targeted for Japanese type restaurants and drinking places. Being a naturalist, I have a difficulty in replacing that natural and soothing smell of rice straw tatami mat with an artificial one no matter how light it is and how well it has been made. Well, once again you can’t stop progress. The retail price for this new tatami mat is at 18,000 yen per mat. The sale target is set at 1 million tatami mats within 5 years.

I guess use of scrap woods or so called surplus woods is becoming a technology trend coinciding with thinning tree activities in maintaining healthy forest. This is my second post on this subject. It all started with Mitsubishi’s announcement on development of new plastic resin from the surplus cedar wood. This follows with today’s DOCOMO announcement on development of mobile phone prototype made of surplus wood of trees culled. Well only the exterior body of the phone is made of wood. The new prototype was developed in corporation with Sharp and Olympus Corporation as well as with the collaboration of “more trees”, a reforestation project which is founded by musician Ryuichi Sakamoto and others.

The new prototype which is named TOUCH WOOD in addition of featuring an excellent durability is water, insect and mildew resistance with an attractive shine all to three dimensional compression molding technology which is developed by Olympus Corporation. By the wood content comes from authentic Cypress tree. No artificial coloring and paint has been used in developing the TOUCH WOOD bearing a natural coloring and aroma. The TOUCH WOOD’s GUI is based on the photographic art of Mikiya Takimoto a more trees advocate. The TOUCH WOOD will be show cased both at ITU Telecom World 2009 in Geneva, Switzerland from October 5th to 9th and CEATEC JAPAN 2009 at Makuhari Messe, Chiba prefecture, Japan from October 6th to 10th.
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“Ganbanyoku” is one of the health trends emerging in Japan. The word “Ganbanyoku” means “stone bath” or “stone sauna” in Japanese. “Ganbanyoku”warms your body deep from the inside helping to activate the body metabolism as well as improving blood circulation. Furthermore, Ganbanyoku can have detoxification effect since the stone contains a lot of minerals and emits far-infrared ray. TAGUCHI SEKIZAI INC in Gifu, Japan created a stone bed that heats up a body by just laying on it providing an enjoyable “Ganbanyoku” experience at home. The company uses granites produced in Hirukawa area in Gifu prefecture where is famous for its granites containing high degree of radium. The surface of the granite is coated with nano silver coating and the heating of granite stone bed which is done by using P.T.C heater takes approximately 20 minutes. But your home “Ganbanyoku” does not come cheap. The price tag on this stone sauna is 882,000 Yen including tax with a dimension of 2.1mx0.8mx0.4m and its weighs 80kg. This is not the only product by this company, TAGUCHI SEKIZAI produced many kinds of products which are made of granites such as a stone cube which can create natural mineral water by just putting stones into the regular water.
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