IF IT’S ON THE KIDS IN Japan now, it’ll be in the mall in Sheboygan soon enough. Japanese kids are the earliest of early adopters of tech gadgetry that goes beyond the merely playful. Wouldn’t it be nice to outfit the sales department in wearable PCs? Or, on your next business trip, remember your watch and leave the cell phone at home? Here’s a selection of what the Japanese kids are using?and what you’ll be hearing more about in 2003. Camera Phone. Single-handedly helping to stop Japan’s mobile phone popularity slide is the appearance of a phone that can take a picture too. Now it’s come to these shores. Sanyo has teamed up with Sprint to offer the first U.S. phone with a built-in camera that can take 640×480 photos, zoom up to 16x, and control brightness, balance and tone. Oh, yeah, it’s got voice dialing, an electronic organizer and a built-in answering machine too. The perfect thing for those who’ve run out of anything to say. Sanyo SCP-5300, www.sanyo.com About $400 WEARABLE PC. The hard drive, a mere 11 ounces, slips into a pocket. The mouse fits into the palm of the hand. And as long as you don’t mind being mistaken for a Star Trek villain, the headband-mounted display (a single bulging eye socket) makes you feel like the monitor is a comfortable 2 feet in front of you. The Xybernaut Poma isn’t exactly wireless, but it beats looking at a puny PDA screen or lugging around a laptop all day. It’s got 32MB of memory, a Windows CE operating system and a Compact Flash slot. Early user reviews suggest giving the Poma a year to mature, which should make it ripe in 2003. Xybernaut Poma www.xybernaut.com About $1,500 MD PLAYER. In Japan, the MD, or MiniDisc, rules when it comes to music. Why? The MD is a magneto-optical recording on a cartridge-enclosed 64-millimeter disc; that is, it’s sort of a cross between a cassette and a CD, offering the endless rerecording capabilities of the former and the quality sound of the latter. This portable player runs on a chargeable NiMH battery and one AA-size battery, which, together, provide 193 hours of playing. Panasonic SJ-MJ15 www.minidisc.org About $200 WATCH + PHONE. Dick Tracy, phone home. You can too with this under-50-gram “wireless terminal.” And just like the detective’s 1946 original, the unit is voice-activated. Its battery delivers 90 minutes of talk time, comes with headphones and an easy-to-read LCD display for the menu. Perfect for keeping in touch with your own Tess Trueheart or battling your version of archenemy Pruneface. Samsung Watch Phone SPH-S100 www.samsungelectronics.com About $98 Related content opinion Website spoofing: risks, threats, and mitigation strategies for CIOs In this article, we take a look at how CIOs can tackle website spoofing attacks and the best ways to prevent them. By Yash Mehta Dec 01, 2023 5 mins CIO Cyberattacks Security brandpost Sponsored by Catchpoint Systems Inc. Gain full visibility across the Internet Stack with IPM (Internet Performance Monitoring) Today’s IT systems have more points of failure than ever before. Internet Performance Monitoring provides visibility over external networks and services to mitigate outages. By Neal Weinberg Dec 01, 2023 3 mins IT Operations brandpost Sponsored by Zscaler How customers can save money during periods of economic uncertainty Now is the time to overcome the challenges of perimeter-based architectures and reduce costs with zero trust. By Zscaler Dec 01, 2023 4 mins Security feature LexisNexis rises to the generative AI challenge With generative AI, the legal information services giant faces its most formidable disruptor yet. That’s why CTO Jeff Reihl is embracing and enhancing the technology swiftly to keep in front of the competition. By Paula Rooney Dec 01, 2023 6 mins Generative AI Digital Transformation Cloud Computing Podcasts Videos Resources Events SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER From our editors straight to your inbox Get started by entering your email address below. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe