RSS Feeds
Gadgets
How to Buy Gadgets in China And Not Get Screwed
Posted by Gizmodo US Edition at 2:00 AM on October 7, 2008
Wallet full of cash and bags at ready, I stood, mouth agape, in front of the five-story electronics bazaar in front of me. It was one of several dozen in Shanghai, magical places where floor after floor are filled to bursting with gadget vendors begging you to stop by and see their wares. Like Circuit Cities on crack, everyone inside is desperate to make a sale and every price is negotiable. Welcome to the way the Chinese--or at least the majority who live in megacities like this one--buy their electronics.
This cruise ship is called the Whampoa and it is stranded in a gigantic pool in the middle of Hong Kong's largest private housing state: Whampoa Garden. However, this Love Boat is sailing to nowhere: it's just a huge shopping mall full of restaurants, shops, and a hotel, built to look like a cruise ship. Looking at it up close, it really looks like one, down to the metal finish. In Google Maps, you realise how huge this thing is:
Japan, the land of using technology to solve problems we didn't know we had, has come out with a new robot that will let people shop at malls without ever leaving their home. Robot developer tmsuk revealed a telerobotic shopper that can be controlled using NTT DoCoMo's mobile phone technology.
Until a week ago, I did not own a pair of shorts, but I did have two plaid flannel shirts and a drawer full of thick woolen socks. I say "to-more-owe," not "to-mah-row," and I went to "university," not "college." I have a full beard in the heat of summer. My passport reads United States of America, but I haven't lived here in four years. Yes, I was living in Canada, who today celebrates the peaceful unification of the Eastern provinces in 1867. Our northerly neighbo(u)rs were always kind to me, providing cheap higher education, affordable healthcare and a government that didn't totally suck balls. I loved living there, and haven't ruled out moving back. Yet beneath its placid exterior, there is a deep, dark secret threatening the life and liberty of its people: It absolutely blows to be a gadget nerd in Canada.
The one thing I never buy on the Internet anymore is clothing, after realising for the umpteenth time that the dress that looked great on the 6 foot, 45kg model doesn't quite hang the same on me. But Japan-based Aveilan Company's virtual fitting room technology might make me give Internet clothes shopping another chance.
A recent patent filing by Apple Inc. entitled Enhancing Online Shopping Atmosphere indicates that Steve Jobs' next 
David Eggers can now add time travel entrepreneur to his long list of literary and social accomplishments thanks to the Eco Park Time Travel Mart he recently opened in LA. Some of the humourous products available for purchase include: mammoth chunks, barbarian repellent, packets of shade and anti-robot fluid. More info after the break.
A series of demo runs were held with the Robovie robot in the Universal Citywalk Osaka shopping centre earlier this week in Japan trying to see how good the droid is at helping out lost shoppers. Here's how it works.
