Abstract: Purpose: To provide a laundry system with improved customer services by utilizing portable information terminals having a radiocommunication function such as mobile phones and PHS. Constitution: Upon completion of washing or drying in a laundry machine 102, data for notifying the user of the completion of the treatment are transmitted to the user's mobile phone 100. In addition, when a prescribed time, for example, 10 minutes, elapses after washing or drying finished, a request for permission to unload the laundry is transmitted to the user's mobile phone 100 so as to ask the user whether the clothes can be taken out from the laundry machine 102 or not. The system charges the user when a prohibition response is sent back or there is no response to the request for permission to unload the laundry.

Abstract: An f&thgr; lens containing a first lens group having an object-side convex positive lens, a second lens group having an object-side concave negative lens, a third lens group having a positive refractive power, the third lens group being a single positive lens, an assembly of a positive lens and a negative lens or another assembly of a positive lens and another positive lens. The lens components satisfy the conditions (a) to (c); (a) −2.2≦f2/f≦−0.3  (31) (b) 0.4≦f3/f≦0.9  (32) (c) 1.8≦d/f≦2.4.  (33) where f2 is the focal length of the second lens group, f3 is the focal length of the third lens group, f is the focal length of the whole lens system and d is the distance from the front focus to the image plane. The material of the lens is zinc selenide (ZnSe) or germanium (Ge). Adoption of an aspherical lens facilitates the design of the f&thgr; lens.

Abstract: A laser beam condensing device which can be manufactured at low cost by using reflecting mirrors which can be machined at low cost. The device is capable of condensing a laser beam to a high energy density while eliminating any optical path difference, even if the optical axis of the incident beam strays. This device includes a first and a second reflecting mirror. An incident laser beam is deflected by these mirrors in the same direction. One of the two mirrors is a toroidal mirror, while the other is a spherical, cylindrical or toroidal reflecting mirror. The mirror surfaces of the two reflecting mirrors are machined so that the second reflecting mirror can cancel out any wave front aberrations of the laser beam reflected by the first reflecting mirror.

Abstract: A unit for splitting a laser beam into a plurality of beams is provided separately from a converging unit so that both units can be manufactured easily, replaced at low cost and are less likely to be polluted or damaged during laser machining. A laser beam produced by a laser oscillator and guided into a machining head through a transmitter is split into a plurality of beams by a plane reflecting mirror. The laser beams thus split are reflected by another reflecting mirror having a single paraboloidal surface so as to be converged on focal points. The first plane reflecting mirror comprises two semicircular mirrors which can be inclined independently of each other.