A few years ago Japan's lead in anything digital was easy to see. Products from Sony, Toshiba and Panasonic were well ahead of other countries but things are different now. It's not so much the product but what you can do with it.

Take One-Seg, Japan's mobile digital TV. The entire electronics industry and TV stations got together around a single standard so there's no battle over the format as there is in the US and Europe.

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In just over a year 14 million OneSeg cell phones have been sold and its becoming common to see people watch TV on the train or bus.

With the latest phones you can even record TV shows and if you forget your headphones it's not a problem: subtitles accompany most shows. There's also a data panel with additional information on programs and a link to the TV station's Web site.
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Something that's also popular in cell phones these days is "O-saifu Keitai" or mobile wallter service. I can have my electronic money, credit card, mileage card, train pass, everything. Let's go do some shopping now.

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NTT DoCoMo's phones come with monthly credit spending of 10,000 yen, that's about 100 US dollars. And you can apply for a higher credit limit and use the phone in place of a regular credit card in any of the 240,000 shops that accepts the service, which is called DCMX.
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And it's very easy to do. All I have to do is place it on the sensor.

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You can also check up on previous purchases through your cell phone. DCMX was launched in April 2006 and has just under 5 million users.
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Based on the same technology, e-money is also very popular. Bit Wallet's Edy is number one and you can use it in many places, for example, this bookshop. It's prepaid so you have to charge it first but then you are free of cash.

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After a slow start Edy cards have become popular thanks to wide acceptance and users are in the millions, as Kazumasa Miyazawa, senior operating officer of Bit Wallet told me.

KAZUMASA MIYAZAWA, SENIOR OPERATING OFFICER, BIT WALLET
"More than 37 million Edy cards and Edy cellular phone is on the market. And 7 million Edy users are using the cellular phones"

How many transactions

"About 22.5 million transactions per month"

How many places

"We can use this Edy in more than 71,000 shops and merchants including supermarkets, convenience stores, coffee chains and so-on."

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There are competing systems battling to get into the most stores. More and more these days shops are accepting several of the cards -- that's something made easy because all of the systems used a common smart card -- Sony's Felica -- so like the digital TV, the market is moving ahead thanks to a single standard.

Something that's taken very seriously in Japan is earthquakes and disaster prevention. But much of the work is on disaster recovery because you never know when a quake is coming, right?

Well, not necessarily.

Technology can now provide a warning before a strong quake. It detects the weak but fast moving primary waves from a quake and uses that to estimate when the slower moving but destructive secondary waves will hit.

At the quake's epicenter the two waves arrive together so no warning can be given but as you move away a warning of a few seconds up to a minute is possible. That may not sound like much but it's enough time to bring trains or machines to an emergency stop and switch off the gas at home -- most deaths in the Kobe quake of 1995 were from fires afterwards and not the quake itself.
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Thank you very much Asimo. One of the areas where Japan is most advanced is robots. For example, Honda's Asimo is really impressive but there are other robots as well.

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Toyota has a clutch of robots including this one that plays the violin, and Robina, which was unleashed on the public last year when it served as a guide at a public hall. Toyota hopes to have a viable human-assistance robot available early in the next decade.

This isn't all just for fun.

Twendy One is a home-help robot developed by Tokyo's Waseda University. Already 22 percent of Japan's population are over 65 and that number is growing. The slowing birth rate means a future shortage of workers to help around the home thus the focus on robotic technology.

Twendy One can lift people out of bed, serve toast without crushing it and even play with a straw between its mechanical fingers.

Back at Honda Akihiko Ohtsu, an engineer that works on Asimo, told me more about the work.
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INTERVIEW

Car navigation systems have been a must-have accessory especially in Tokyo, where most streets do not have names. But the latest ones have even more.

Hooking it up to your cell phone brings you all kinds of information.

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Using Nissan's Carwings service you can access the Yahoo restaurant guide and pretty quickly find restaurants in the neighborhood. Once you find one you like it only takes a few button pushes and you're en-route to lunch.

Car navigation systems come preprogrammed with the location of places like gas stations -- especially useful when you're low on gas and need to fill up quick -- but what about filling up cheaply? Carwings can download current gas prices so you can always get the best price in the neighborhood.
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When you're driving too the phones can connect you to the operator so you don't have to take your hands off the wheel.

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I'd like to go to Disneyland please..

And there's one more thing. This car has cameras around the edge so when I'm backing-up I get a virtual view of my car from above and can see out to all sides. It even shows me the path I'm about to take.
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Sometimes it's difficult to park in Tokyo but with the Round View Monitor it's very easy to park.

So there you go. That was some of the latest and coolest technology in Japan. But who knows, maybe you'll see them soon.

In Tokyo this is Reina Ueki, IDG News Service.