Panasonic Makes a Tokyo River Glow With 100,000 LED Lights, PSFK

Panasonic Makes a Tokyo River Glow With 100,000 LED Lights
15/05/2012 by Dylan Schenker for PSFK on Mashable

Imagine a glowing river lit up with the natural illumination of fireflies. The small insects flitting across the water reflecting upon it like a naturally created light show. This past weekend the Sumida River that runs through Tokyo was lit up by 100,000 LED lights for the Tokyo Hotaru Festival to commemorate the now scarce insects that used to bring the river to life. The balls of light which have been dubbed “Prayer Stars”.  were provided byPanasonic. They are 100% solar powered and were designed to activate when they come in contact with the water.

The photos from the installation, which was part of a larger display called Hikari no Symphony or Symphony of Light, the river peppered with the luminous blue dots making it come alive with a kinetic blue energy that surges from the water. Against the backdrop of the city it begins to look more like an optical wire conducting energy as part of some supercomputer more than it does a body of water.

Check out the video below to see the installation in action:

Source: Mashable

iPhone 5 Coming In June, Says Foxconn Employee [REPORT]

iPhone 5 Coming In June, Says Foxconn Employee [REPORT]

By Emily Price on Mashable

According to a Foxconn recruiter, we’ll see a new iPhone in June of this year.

The recruiter suggested the iPhone would be headed our way this summer in an interview with TV Tokyo’s “World Business Satellite” broadcast Monday.

In the interview, a reporter asked the recruiter how many people the company was looking to hire, and he answered “We’re looking for 18,000 employees … for the fifth-generation phone.”

The reporter went on to clarify that the recruiter was talking about the iPhone 5, and the recruiter added that the next generation of the handset will come out in June.

The iPhone 5 — or, if Apple maintains the naming scheme it started with the iPad, the “new iPhone” — will actually be the 6th iPhone released by the company.

After the the initial iPhone release, the company launched an iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, and iPhone 4S.

The June rumor, of course, should be taken with a grain of salt. Rumors of the iPhone 5 started almost immediately after the announcement of the iPhone 4S last year.

Current rumors have the device’s launch pinned between June and October, with many speculating that the next generation will be LTE-capable to run on carrier’s new speedy data networks.

Are any of you looking forward to the release of the iPhone 5 or “new iPhone”? Tell us what you’d like to see in the next-generation handset in the comments.