To promote their various laptops and showcase their digital sign technology that uses real-time data over the Internet, Toshiba tested an interactive digital billboard in Tokyo last weekend. YouTube users and passers-by with mobile phones were able to play video games against each other and take a short break from the rigors of city life.

The games were played on a digital billboard above the entrance to the Yodobashi Camera superstore in Akihabara. The games are basically mini-games and involve up to six players in a 90-second race to paint squares on a grid and hunt for Toshiba’s cute and cuddly Pala-Chan mascot. Mobile phone players used their number keys to control the game, while YouTube players on computers used the arrow keys on their keyboards. Videos below.

Toshiba just added four more 15.4-inch widescreen Satellite Pro S300 series notebooks to it’s line. Both the S300-EZ1511 and S300-EZ1512 feature an Intel Pentium T3400 processor, 1GB memory, and a 120GB hard drive. Selling for $529, the S300-EZ1511 features integrated GMA 4500M graphics and Vista Home Basic, while the S300-EZ1512 is selling for $579 with GMA 4500MHD graphics and Vista Business.

The S300-EZ1513 will run you $649 and sports an Intel Core 2 Duo T6400 processor, 160GB hard disk storage, 1GB memory and GMA 4500MHD graphics. The last model, the S300-EZ1514, has a Core 2 Duo T6570 processor, 2GB of memory, GMA 4500MHD graphics and a 160GB hard drive. This one will run you $699.

Toshiba intros two new Digital Video Recorders (DVRs) for the Japanese market. The Toshiba Vardia RD-G503 has a huge 500GB hard drive, while the RD-E303 has a 300GB hard drive.

Both DVRs support DVD burners, MPEG-2 TS and H.264/MPEG-4 AVC recording, Digital / Analog tuner, DVD upscaling and two remote controls (one fully functional and one with just basic controls). The Toshiba Vardia RD-G503 and RD-E303 will be released next month for $770 and $660.

The SSD is slowly becoming more and more of a match for the traditional HDD. One of the key complaints about SSDs compared to a traditional HDD is that of storage capacity. One of the other key complaints is price, the typical SSD costs much more than a comparable HDD.

Toshiba has announced its latest SSD line that includes the industry’s first 512GB SSD. That much storage capacity puts the SSD up there with some of the largest traditional HDDs aimed at notebook users. The 2.5-inch 512GB SSD is built using Toshiba’s 43nm NAND technology.

Notebooks are still one of the most hoped for items on many holiday wish lists despite the poor economy. Many who hope to get a notebook as a gift want a small and portable system like the one Toshiba has introduced to the US.

The Toshiba Portege A605 Laptop is a 12.1-inch ultraportable that weighs 3.3 pounds and measures 1.18-inches thick. Battery life is promised to be 6.9 hours and the system carries a retail price of $1399.99. A nice feature on the machine is the Sleep-and-Charge USB port that makes charging your USB devices easier to do.

Toshiba is laying the smack down on Alienware, revamping its flame emblazoned Qosmio X305 by introducing the Qosmio X305-Q708, which features a Core 2 Extreme QX9300 CPU, 4GB of DDR3 RAM, a 128GB SSD, 320GB 7,200 RPM SATA drive, dual-layer DVD writer, twin NVIDIA 512MB GeForce 9800M GTS graphics cards, 802.11b/g/n WiFi, Bluetooth 2.1+EDR and Windows Vista Ultimate. It’s also got a full-sized keyboard with a ten-key number pad, four Harman Kardon speakers, HDMI / DisplayPort connectors, 1.3-megapixel webcam, Wireless USB / USB Sleep-and-Charge technologies and a 17-inch TruBrite LCD (Unknown resolution).

It should be available by the time you read this for around $4,199.99. But if I were you I’d pay extra to get rid of the whole fire motif. With those specs, it’s a damn shame Toshiba is so set on making you look like a flaming dork.

When most people want a new notebook, they look around online and then go to a retail store to buy. Enthusiasts wanting system that you can’t buy in retail outlets may actually order online, but the average consumer wants to walk in a store and leave with their new computer.

To help the retail shoppers find a machine with good performance, Best Buy and Toshiba have teamed up for a Satellite E105 notebook that is a Best Buy exclusive. The notebook has a 14.1-inch LCD and offers up to 5.5 hours of battery life.

Toshiba is delivering a new mobile projector which offers closed caption capabilities for those in need of this type of function. It is called the TLP-X150U and you’ll find it available for around $960.

The TLP-X150U, with its closed caption feature, allows the audience to read text or dialogue from a DVD player or television signal. It also offers what is described as a “PC-free” presentation, hosting a USB port so one can show a presentation stored in JPG format on a USB flash drive.

I have talked about the drawbacks of SSDs before, including the high price of the typical SSD and the lower storage capacity among others. The price for your average SSD is starting to come down and new technology is bringing us higher capacities and better performance. Toshiba introduce a new SSD this week that helps performance and capacity concerns.

The Toshiba 256GB SSD uses multi-level cell technology for faster performance. The 256GB drive uses the industry standard 2.5-inch form factor. MLC technology allows the SSD to have read speeds of 120Mbps and write speeds of 70Mbps.

When many of us think of hard drives, we immediately think of notebook and desktop computers where storage capacities can reach into the terabyte level. Storage capacities are equally important for smaller devices like MP3 players and camcorders.

Toshiba has announced a new 1.8-inch hard drive today that is the world’s first dual disc 1.8-inch 240GB HDD and the world’s first 120GB single platter hard drive. The new 240GB HDD is Toshiba part number MK2431GAH. The drive spins at 4200 RPM and offers a 33% improvement in energy consumption compared to Toshiba’s 160GB 3600 rpm 1.8-inch drive.

Toshiba, sent packing earlier this year in its battle against Blu-ray, is back again with what one might consider a low-budget HD competitor. The technology is called XDE and the first product out with it is the Toshiba XD-E500, a DVD player priced around $150.

XDE, also known as “eXtended Detail Enhancement,” is reportedly DVD upconversion on steroids. Toshiba says of it that “in addition to providing upconversion from 480i/p up to 1080p, XDE offers user selectable picture enhancement modes that allow for greater detail, more vivid colors and stronger contrast that bring standard DVD quality closer to the HD experience.” Three selectable picture mode settings – sharp, color, contrast – lets one bring closer to “true HD quality” their DVD viewing experience.

The initial buzz of the new Intel Centrino 2 chip technology now seems to have died down as related laptops settle into regular purchasing habits. Two last laptops we thought we’d highlight from the flurry of announcements the other week are the Toshiba Tecra M10 and A10. The former has a starting price around $1,400, while the other model has yet to be priced.

These two updated flagship business laptops from Toshiba will include, besides the Centrino 2, other features such as hard drive protection, spill resistant keyboard, fingerprint reader and an eSATA/USB 2.0 combo port. You can even have Toshiba throw in a solid state drive if you have a little bit of extra cash to pony up for this option.

Toshiba earlier this week introduced a new laptop series that integrates Garmin GPS technology into the fold. It is called the Toshiba Qosmio F55 and pricing starts at around $1,400.

The Toshiba Qosmio F55 sports a 15.4-inch screen and is powered by the Intel Core 2 Duo CPU and NVIDIA GPUs. The integrated GPS technology by Garmin lets you do all the things you’d typically do with a free-standing GPS system and the system include face recognition technology as well.

Gaming notebooks are known for a few things—power, gaming performance and a high price. Your typical gaming notebook will often cost three times or more the amount that you can get a normal notebook for. Not all notebooks for gaming are hugely expensive though and Toshiba has introduced a new gaming machine that has a very reasonable price.

The new Toshiba Qosmio X305-Q701 is a Best Buy exclusive system that retails for $1,549.99. The machine has Toshiba’s slick looking fiery finish with Rouge design. Graphics for the notebook are via NVIDIA GeForce 9700M GTS discrete card and the CPU is an Intel Core 2 Duo P7350 processor.

Toshiba this week announced it had updated select models of its Satellite laptops with new processor technology and other features. These models include the Satellite P300, Satellite A300, Satellite M300 and Satellite U400.

These updated Toshiba Satellite laptops feature Intel’s latest Core 2 Duo processor technology in addition to other enhancements such as “sleep-and-charge” USB ports and face recognition. You can get the full details via a Toshiba press release after the jump.