Toshiba's Android Tablet

January 2012: In December 2011, Toshiba began to ship a new Android tablet, Regza Tablet AT700. I saw it in an Akihabara shop and the tablet fitted my hand. I gave up to buy it because the price was too expensive. But later, I found that I could buy it cheaper on an online shop and bought it without hesitation. It have been developed in Toshiba Ome Works, in which I had worked for decades until 1978.

AT700 was found thinner and lighter than iPad2, and had a bigger 10.1 inch display. Soon I began to use it as an e-book reader, with Kindle software for Amazon e-books and with Zinio magazine reader software for National Geographic and Arizona Highways. I feel comfortable with a bigger display and a lighter thinner body.

But I found something wrong with Zinio software, and asked Zinio about it. Zinio responded that Zinio for Android is only beta at present, and it would be fixed soon. But it is practical enough.

Engineers in Toshiba Ome, several decades my junior, have done a great job.

12月に出荷し始めた東芝Regza Tablet At700は中々良く出来ていることに気付き、先輩として幸せを感じました。

November, 2011: I am using an iPhone, an iPad and a Kindle for almost a year, and their uses have been more or less stabilized.

I opened the accounts of Twitter and Facebook, and are opening those pages, but, as I anticipated, I found myself not very fond of them. Conversation on Twitter or Facebook is more like everyday oral conversation, not necessarily for the purpose of conveying meaningful information. I don't like such conversation. Therefore, I have Twitter and Facebook on the iPhone and the iPad as well as on the PC, but I am less and less frequently opening them.

I am trying to replace the schedule notebook by an App on the iPhone. It seems OK. Otherwise, I often use the iPhone for finding train schedules and for reserving express seats. The map App is useful. It helps that the PC accounts of emails can be handled on the iPhone, and, therefore, I have ceased to carry a notebook for a trip. I also refer to weather, earthquake and radioactivity information on the iPhone. Unlike other people, I don't download musics or refer to YouTube very often on the iPhone or on the iPad.

I use iPad most often to read on-line photo magazines and watch various photo album Apps. I use the iPad even for reading on-line digital books through the Kindle App, when I read them at home, because the finger tip operation is more convenient than that of Kindle. On-line English newspapers are my favorite reading materials on the iPad.

Kindle is used for reading on-line digiral books while moving, because Kindle is much lighter and its battery lasts much longer than iPad with Kindle App. Unfortunately, conservatism in Japanese publishers prevent Amazon from doing Kindle business of books in the Japanese language. I hope that it will come before long.

This way, I am using all three gadgets for different purposes. I know that there are new iPads and new Kindles. I am interested in those new ones, but what I have now suffice for the time being.

iPhone, iPad, Kindleを使い始めてもうすぐ1年になります。使い方が決まってきて、3つとも有効に使っています。

My wife, Sue, is very sensitive about tastes of salt, while anything other than NaCl is negligible variance for me. Recently, when we visited Noto District, the northern peninsula of central Japan, she tasted various salt vended there and bought several packages of one kind.

I grew up on Setonaikai inland sea, where salt used to be extensively produced on salterns, but they had gone long time ago. I was surprised that there were still many salterns in Noto today, though they were all for sightseeing visitors, for demonstration and for sale of expensive "special" salt as Sue bought.

Of salt consumption in Japan, only 15% is domestically produced and all used for cooking, while 85% is imported mainly for industrial uses. Salt production has been sometimes monopolized by the Government or the Governmental public corporation, or in other times production by private corporations has been permitted. Since 2002, private corporations can produce salt after only reporting to the Government.

In Noto, salt production on the saltern was continued and demonstrated. It is the most traditional production method, used until the flow-down method and the ion-exchange method were introduced in 1950's.

少年時代以来初めて、能登で入浜式塩田を見ました。塩にうるさいSueはお気に入りの味の塩を見つけました。