Andy Rubin’s talk was quite a thing. Although short, he talked about his past which included a project in 2004 to develop smartcameras (“ala smartphone”), that is a bit out of question right now ;D He also introduced some of the upcoming features for Android like face tracking for ease of use of voice calls, and the new cloud-to-device thingy. He made a demo of this by pushing some directions he got on Google maps, to show up directly on the phone. There was where he showed an “easter egg” they have up on Google maps. Just look for “directions” by foot on Google maps from San Francisco, CA, USA to Tokyo, Japan and you’ll see that around the 17th Google recommends you to “Kayak through the Pacific” for around 6000 Km.

Later we were able to see some developments by Google Maps, mainly on integration of maps with other services like real-estate, and how they’re helping game developers in Japan to boost Android gaming penetration too. They show a third party project using Google Maps technology half fun, half “totally useful” consisting on a toilet finder for Japan (you can visit it in sugusoco.jp), but probably Tokyo is the only place well covered at the moment. They might show my vending machines project next year as well

What I found was a genuine fake LAWSON convenience store, only that it was named PORT STORE (at least that matched the location). People who knows about LAWSON will notice the logo and store’s shape is quite well copied (you can check LAWSON’s wikipedia page to check it out too). The store was right in front of the immigration office (link to Google’s StreetView). Until now the most original convenience store I had seen in Japan was the LAWSON close to Sakurajima port (link to Google’s StreetView), near the volcano with the same name in Kagoshima Prefecture. That LAWSON is said to be colored in brown to match the volcanic environment… weird… And do you want to knows something else weird too? Lawson was originated in Ohio (US), but it exists only as a Japanese company, that’s probably how Yahoo will end as well.

Here are the pics (click to enlarge):

Here’s the youtube video. I (as well as Yoshizaki!!) appear for just a second on 0’44″. I’m moving in a very weird way, so don’t judge for that ;D

Whatever, the big thing wasn’t the concert at all, it was the I got to be in the video footage they displayed to report the event on Japanese TV!! Fuji TV to be more specific. Well, me and Yoshizaki (standing to my right). As you can see in the picture we were surrounded basically by females, but you could find also weird guys (just like ourselves).

Thanks to Yoshizaki who was lucky enough to catch the image (click to enlarge).

Here are also some videos somebody was lucky enough to record, because, since I was seating in the first row (I could’ve I literally shacked hands, or else, with any of the girls), I had a guy right in front of me to check that nobody was holding a camera during the concert…

I didn’t notice before, but check out at the end of this video, you can clearly hear a guy screaming “SUBARASHIII!!!!” really excited. Just FYI.

Overall it was pretty short.

Truth to be told, songs are not bad, and besides their voices, they appear to have other talents too. Here are 2 of the songs I expect to see.

There’s probably more stuff though…

Found at Tokyo subways.

The picture is a “family picture” we took before coming back to Tokyo, but I guess this is not the last time I’ll meet Professor Takeuchi.

More fun pictures of the trip in the album Takuechi Reloaded (May 4, 2010).

This morning I expected to feel better but I still had some fever so I decided to go to the university’s health center to have myself checked. The result: no virus, but I have 4 days to eat this…