Xmas Temptation

Casio's PC Printer

Casio unveils its new 'postcard printer' this month. Billed as the latest in 'living room techno-logy,' the new PCP-50 printer allows users to set up and design their postcards from start to finish.

It is a standalone box that, despite its name, doesn't require a personal computer. The device comes with its own keyboard and can function on a wide variety of memory cards. The handy device can print a high-quality picture (JPEG images below 3MB) on one side of the card, and your personalized messages on the other.

The layout can be previewed on the 3.5-inch liquid crystal display before finalizing. Over 200 design templates are included, and memory stores over 450 addresses. This comes as a welcome feature for those bound to the tradition of sending out hundreds of not-quite-personalized Japanese New Year cards every December.

The timing of the product's release coincides with the approaching holiday season's rising anxiety. Although seniors and the PC-averse will find it especially appealing, Casio is betting the convenience and flexibility of the self-contained box will give it a broad market. Consider the PCP-50 this Christmas’s ‘gift that keeps on giving.’

In stores: from 1st November
Price: ¥45,000 (approximate)
First month release: 15,000 printers (nationwide)

The Philip Stein Teslar

For those of us who worry about the cumula-tive physical effects of the side-effects of our increasingly (high) technology-dependent way of life — from genetically altered food, to over-exposure to ultraviolet rays due to a depleted ozone layer, one of the most talked about dangers has been that of the use of our now ubiquitous cell phones, or ‘keitais.’

Armchair biophysics tells us that the low frequency waves discharged by these handy little devices cannot possibly be good for us. Furthermore, anecdotal accounts link these waves to anything from migraine headaches and muscle aches to brain cancer. To the rescue comes the Philip Stein Company with its Teslar model watch.

The Teslar is a sophisticated (and hyper-chic, by the way) timepiece which ostensibly ‘negates’ the harmful low-frequency waves caused by “cell phones, computers and all other electrical sources.

How does it work? (Are you sure you want to know?) According to the company, the watch “is engineered to produce a non-Hertzian/ scalar wave shown to shield the body from extremely low frequencies (ELF). It emits a specialized signal that surrounds the body within a bubble or cushion, so the harmful frequencies cannot enter.”

If you’d like graphs and formulae, you’re reading the wrong article.
To say there are those who doubt the veracity (or science) of these claims would be an understatement. Web searches on the product inevitably yield the phrase “snake-oil salesman” as well as less restrained criticisms.

“Electro-magnetic fields have been studied for many years, and there is no evidence of any harm,” says John Farley, physics professor at UNLV. Others, like John Moulder, radiation oncology professor at he Medical college of Wisconsin, concur, “There is not a chance in the world that (these types of devices) will do anything but lighten your wallet.”

Haters notwithstanding, the Teslar has no shortage of devotees. Randy Huntington, sports science coordinator for USA Track and Field, whose athletes have begun wearing the watch, says it has energized their workouts and calmed their anxiety.

After wearing the Teslar several weeks, Ty Sevin, a top U.S. Javelin thrower, said “I have no doubt about it being able to increase my performance.”

Others, like celebrities Madonna, Barbara Walters and Sharon Osborne wear it possibly out of fashion-consciousness as much as health-consciousness. That, along with the fact that they are among the elite who can afford the watch’s prohibitive price tag.

The Teslar sells at high end stores like Bloomingdales for prices ranging from $600 to upwards of $2000 (U.S.)

Whatever your reasons and means, The Phillip Stein Teslar is a hot new stylish accessory that may or may not protect you from nasty little oppressive rays, will quite possibly make you look cooler, richer and more stylish than you already are, and will most assuredly tell you what time it is.

Text: H.W.J.