Gizmodo: japan watch

Japanese Couple Sold Glowing Lanyards That Were 26 Times Allowable Radiation Level, Gets Arrested

Jason Chen — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 13:00:00 EDT

If you were going to sell radioactive cellphones loaded with tritium—from Hiroshima, Japan, no less—you should probably check to make sure that they're not twenty-six times the amount legally allowed. You know, just so you're not arrested by the cops for not having special permission from the Ministry of Science and Technology to even handle the substance. On the other hand, if you're making a living selling lanyards for between $47 and $61 each, we wouldn't blame you for being Johnny No-Law. [Yomiuri via CrunchGear]

Tomy's Piggy Bank Comes With Built-In RPG

Jason Chen — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 18:30:00 EDT

Japanese kids and otaku need slightly more motivation than the rest of us to save money, and to that end, Takara Tomy has made a piggy bank with an RPG game built right on there. It's called Bank Quest (was Final Bank Fantasy taken?) and you can buy weapons and armor for your dude from the savings you place inside. That reminds us of the RPG Toilet we saw in Japan one time that rewarded us for the size, weight and consistency of he deuce we dropped. Wait, that might not have happened. [Akihabara News via Boing Boing Gadgets]

Air Conditioned Seat Cushion Features The Latest In Eco-Friendly Ass-Cooling Technology

Sean Fallon — Wed, 28 May 2008 16:30:00 EDT

Kuchofuku, the same company that brought us air conditioned shirts, has re-applied their groundbreaking technology in an effort to deliver us from one of the biggest problems facing mankind today. Of course, I am speaking about ass sweat. In fact, their air conditioned seat cushion line can pump up to 170 liters of air per minute through the seat using an extraordinarily low amount of electricity in the process.

Apparently, the energy consumption of the device is so low that you could run it every day for eight hours and only pay the equivalent of around five cents extra on your electricity bill for the month. However, this isn't the first time we have come across an air conditioner of this type—Thanko came out with a version last year that is powered via USB. It also appears to be a little cheaper than the Kuchofuku model, but we are not sure how well it stacks up in terms of butt cooling performance and power consumption. [Product Page via Fareastgizmos]

Japanese Somela Fast Dehydrator Sucks Water From Clothes With Your Help

Jason Chen — Thu, 01 May 2008 15:30:00 EDT

Many people in Japan and other parts of Asia forego dryers in favor of just hanging out their clothes on a line. Whether it's for space conservation (quite likely) or out of habit, people there don't seem to be big on dryers. This Somela Fast Dehydrator, on the other hand, seems to be a quick and fairly easy way of drying your clothes in a trash can-sized appliance. It takes 3-5 minutes per article, but you need to hold onto the clothes while the dehydrator does its thing, so it's more suited for that one piece of clothing you need to wear "RIGHT NOW BECAUSE IT'S MY LUCKY SHIRT OMG WHY DID YOU WASH IT YOU KNEW I HAD TO WEAR IT TODAY" to work than doing your whole load. [Rakuten via DVICE]

Steam Powered Electronic Newspaper Makes Us Ask If This is Really Necessary

Jason Chen — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 13:00:00 EDT

Does the world really need another steam powered anything? And if it does, would an electronic newspaper be the most appropriate thing to be steam powered? We don't have any answers for these questions. All we know is that this Japanese setup can turn a page in all of 15 seconds, making it a whole two seconds faster than our "pull down our pants and turn it with our ass" approach. [Digital World Tokyo via Uber Gizmo]

Japanese Nose Mask Pit Saves You From Allergies, Talking Normally

Jason Chen — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 17:20:00 EDT

Are your allergies so severe that a Claritin has no effect? The Japanese have a solution, and it involves shoving round pieces of plastic up your nose to block out allergens. It may seem unorthodox, but as the lady at the clinic keeps telling me, prevention is much more effective than cures. We'll stick to pills, thanks. [Impress via DVICE]

Japanese Men Perfect the Cloak of Invisibility Much to Japanese Women's Dismay

Jason Chen — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 17:00:00 EDT

Japan's been tooling around with versions of invisibility cloaks for years now, but they seem to have finally perfected it. Theoretically. By using "left-handed metamaterials" to make electromagnetic control devices, researchers can generate lenses that either reflect no light or have a perfect focal point—the end result of which lets you create a perfect invisibility cloak to skulk around Tokyo with. If you're really interested in the physics of the situation, you can head over to Nikkeibp, but we're pretty sure the illustration above will explain the matter just fine. [Nikkeibp]

Galbi Pod Rare Is the Beefiest iPod Nano Case, Perfect For Shabu Shabu

Jason Chen — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 13:20:00 EDT

If you're aiming for more "delicious" than "protective" for your iPod cases, there's nothing that does it better than this Galbi (like Korean BBQ) Pod Rare case from Japan. It's as if the creators tapped into our collective consciousness of combining delicious meat with delicious tunes. Just staring at these finely chiseled pieces of marbled beef makes us want to get set to eat some shabu shabu or hot pot tonight. Careful to keep any beefed up iPods away from your pets. [Rakuten via DVICE]

Japan's Cyber Gadget Game Suppli Vitamin Supplements Are Taken Orally, Not Injected Buttockally

Jason Chen — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 17:45:00 EDT

These Japanese Game Suppli vitamins come in two varieties, "Blue Berry", which refreshes you after a gaming session, and DHA, which boosts your attention during a session. It's not quite as crazy as eyedrops, which incapacitated Matt for a good ten minutes. There's only one other nation, Korea, that could combine the dubious gaming benefit of vitamins with the seriousness of professional gaming. And since these are for Japanese gamers, who don't really play twitch shooters all that much, we can only guess that they use it for one reason only: to keep the convoluted storylines of Final Fantasy XII and Metal Gear Solid straight. [Cybergadget via Akihabara News via Uber Gizmo]

Robovie Robot Helps Lost Shoppers, Creates Trouser Mess in Aisle 4

Jason Chen — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 16:13:43 EST

A series of demo runs were held with the Robovie robot in the Universal Citywalk Osaka shopping center earlier this week in Japan trying to see how good the droid is at helping out lost shoppers. Here's how it works.

A series of cameras, laser range finders and RFID tag readers are scattered around the 1000sqft section of the shopping center. Each of these things help scan humans and determine what one of 10 categories they fall into, one of which is "lost". Once a person is ID'ed, Robovie goes up and provides directions to where they want to go.

You may think this robot is friendly, but just look into its soulless, human-hating mechanical eyes. [Pinktentacle via Robot Watch via Yomiuri via Nikkei]

World's Tallest Elevator Tower Opens in Japan to Much Polite Applause, Bowing

Jason Chen — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 15:40:22 EST

The world's tallest elevator testing tower has just opened in Inazawa City, Japan, and is named Solae. Why would you build a tower just to test elevators? Because the world's tallest buildings (including Taipei 101, which I rode in last year) have a need to install elevators that take you from floor 1 to floor "high" really fast. Solae will be used by Mitsubishi to test their latest drives, gears and cables in a controlled environment instead of say, a mall in downtown Tokyo. If Mitsubishi can lift me 100 stories in a minute, they can figure out a way to build a better looking Galant. [BBC]

Hello Kitty Waist Slenderer

Jason Chen — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 22:00:00 EST

Everybody loves a slender waist, and what better way to get one than with the world's most whored out cat? Just slip on the Slender Shaper, flip the switch to "Svelte," and you'll go from a size 6 to a size 2 in no time. Or not, since these things don't actually work. [Tokyo Times]

Symantec Advertises Norton 360 Antivirus in Japan With Ultraman-esque Character

Jason Chen — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 14:33:23 EDT

We're not passing any judgment on Symantec's Japanese advertising campaign where they take an Ultraman-like character and have it beat up several black "virus" characters on the street to hype their Norton 360 product. Why? Because it's actually pretty awesome. Way more awesome than the crappy anti-virus ads we get here in the US, which lack distinct a "men on the street screwing with people" vibe. Even if it's slightly and subtly touching on Japanese racism to have a yellow-colored man beating up a bunch of black-colored men. We still approve (minus the racism part). [Norton Fighter via Japan Probe]

Adjustable Trash Can Fits All Sizes

Jason Chen — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 18:00:07 EDT

The reason Japanese people are so short is because space comes at such a premium (it's true, we read it on Wikipedia). This adjustable trash can, however, is great for small rooms that need small cans, but can adjust upwards to accomodate large rooms as well. This way, instead of throwing out your garbage when the bin gets full, you can just make the bin bigger. Avoiding problems by deferring solutions until later, that's the American way. We're just glad the Japanese are finally catching up. [Cataloger via Tokyo Mango]

Taito Touchscreen Arcade Card Battle Game Looks Like MS Surface

Jason Chen — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 14:50:24 EDT

Japanese arcade fans should get ready to pull out their lightning bolt, lightning bolt, lightning bolt, because this Taito touchscreen arcade game looks pretty awesome. The Engrish Google translation leaves us wondering at how exactly the game works, but from what we can gather, you put real cards onto the virtual board, which makes stuff happen on the video screen up top, which then determines whether you win or lose the battle. We're going to guess lose, since that's the only way the game will force you to plunk down another 500 Yen for four new cards. [Impress]

VOCALOID 2: The Japanese Anime Song Generator

Jason Chen — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 15:15:58 EDT

Think Garageband for otakus. This Japanese software suite lets you plug in lyrics and melody and generates an "authentic-sounding" song via its music and vocal synthesizers. As you can see above, the software features a 16-year- old "Virtual Singer," which croons out whatever disgustingly sweet (or just disgusting) lyrics you enter in (Japanese only, we're assuming). It's so popular in Nippon that it's actually the #1 selling software on their Amazon. And for good reason—the songs they generate actually sound like it could have come from a generic teenaged anime. Hit the jump for two videos.

[Gamersweb]

Thanko's USB-Powered Laptop Fan Stand

Jason Chen — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 16:00:59 EDT

Not only does this aluminum/steel laptop stand from Thanko look both solid and functional, it's got something Thanko's known for—USB Power. Inside the stand are two fans that blow room-temperature air into your hot laptop, which means you're keeping the laptop away from your tender gonads and helping your computer stay cool at the same time. Imagine that, Thanko coming up with a product that has USB and makes sense. Did they change management or something? [Thanko]

Boob Mousepads Become Boob Pillows

Jason Chen — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 13:30:58 EDT

Some enterprising Japanese company has taken those Japanese mousepads with anime boobies on them and blown them up. Now pillow sized, the mousepad/pillows provide your hands with something to do while relaxing. It's probably a very nice neck and head rest as well. [AkibaOS via Kotaku]

Japanese Initial D Arcade Booth Features Actual Tofu Car

Jason Chen — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 13:10:23 EDT

Arcades are dying out here in the States, but they sure wouldn't if they were more like this Japanese Initial D cabinet. Instead of just a booth or a mockup cockpit to sit in, you get to actually drive in the tofu car from the Initial D series. Not only do you get to drive the '86, you can also ride in a Subaru Impreza WRX and Mazda RX-7 (also featured in the show). If only their Boong-Ga Boong-Ga game was so realistic. [Response via Q-Taro via Kotaku]

Japanese JR Train Line Clock

Jason Chen — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 19:30:06 EDT

People say the Japanese public transit system is fantastic, and it's stuff like this Japan Railways Atomic clock that makes it so. The problem is, it'll probably set itself to Japan time, automatically, once in awhile. (Confirmed — it does.) [Hobidas via Maochan - Thanks B!]