There're more videos of the scultptures in action at Impress if you're as fascinated as I was. [Robot Watch]

Toughbooks have been pulled from car fires, blown up and stopped bullets. Their outer strength is derived from magnesium shells; Panasonic says they are 20x stronger than the typical plastic laptop case.

After the design comes the testing, where only the fittest prototypes and models survive. Fittingly, the slogan of the Kobe plant is "Productive Destruction." Toughbooks are put through a battery of tests under MIL-STD-810F. Here are some of the highlights of the super rugged laptop testing:

Drop Test
Also known as the "Transit Drop Test," this procedure involves dropping the powered-down machine from three feet onto each face, edge and corner a total of 26 times. The computers are dropped onto two-inch plywood placed over a steel plate on top of concrete—the triumvirate of hard everyday surfaces. Visual checks and a Windows boot-up are done after each test.

Water Resistance
The Toughbook is placed in a water spray chamber for 12 straight hours, powered on but with its ports closed tight. Afterwards comes an inspection for water "intrusion."

Thermal Shock and Temperature
When shut down, the computer is subjected to three cycles of massive temperature swings, from a balmy 205º F to a chilly -60º F. Separately, Toughbooks are turned on, and tested actually operating at temperatures ranging from -4ºF to 140º F. For these tests, Panasonic uses special environmental chambers made by a company called Espec. (Hopefully they don't also build saunas.)

Altitude
With the help of an outside firm, Toughbooks are tested to see if they withstand the most challenging air pressure conditions that could be encountered in military aircraft.

Humidity
This test takes 10 whole days to complete. Toughbooks are placed in a chamber with extreme jungle-like humidity at temperatures fluctuating between hot (86ºF) and impossibly hot (140ºF).

Dust Resistance
Superfine silica flour is applied to the machines in a 140º F environment at a facility in Yokohama; this punishment goes on for 8 hours while the laptops are turned on. They pass the test if moving parts don't bind or become blocked, and relays and contacts continue to operate properly.

Vibration
Toughbooks are clamped to aluminum plates that simulate the mounting in vehicles, and then are subjected to various intensities of vibration while turned off and on. When on, the HDD also spins.

Hinge Durability
In a test you can easily envision, Toughbooks are put through 30,000 cycles of open-and-close-and-open-and-close, testing hinge sturdiness.

Keyboard
Nasty-looking typing machines pound Toughbook keyboards through their paces, testing them to withstand 25 million keystrokes. (Wonder how long they have to type before complete works of Shakespeare appear...)

Spills
Toughbooks are tested for their ability to fend off spills, one of the more common assaults to a laptop. Mil-spec requires them to withstand more than 6 ounces (200 cc) of... whatever.

Compression
At the development stage, Toughbook covers and bases are squeezed super hard, tested to withstand over 980N (100kgf) of pressure.

Electromagnetic Interference
During development, electromagnetic wave testing is performed in the plant's 10m radio-frequency anechoic chamber, used to check conformity with CISPR and FCC electromagnetic regulations.

Although not to the level of the mil-spec lines, whose testing is detailed above, Panasonic's business-rugged models—the kind our Benny Goldman tested in his own, uh, laboratory—are dropped from 3 feet, pelted with dust, doused with 6 ounces of liquid (half a can of Coke), squeezed, pounded on the keyboard, stretched open for hinge reliability, and shocked with an electrostatic discharge. Notebooks also go on racks at the Kobe factory, and are given massages. Using Panasonic-branded handheld massagers (what else?) testers check for vibration resistance as part of an "aging" process. The vibe simulates shaking during shipping.

The plant was established in June 1990 and began PC production in August 1991, now turning out an average of 2,500 to 3,000 Toughbooks a day. In 2007 production hit 660,000 units—Panasonic plans to ramp up output to 800,000 units this year and then 1 million units by 2010. The plant can turn out Toughbooks in up to 2,000 variations of memory, hard disk, LCD panel, software and shiny magnesium-alloy shell, in 10 different colors. Repairs are also carried out on-site 365 days a year.

A Matsushita warehouse in nearby Osaka holds $14 million dollars worth of components, about 2.2 million pieces in 60,000 varieties. The warehouse operates under a system it calls "5S" for five words in Japanese: seiri (arrangement), seiton (tidy), seisou (cleaning), seiketsu (cleanliness), and shitsuke (discipline). Like the factory, which requires all visitors to remove their shoes and don slippers as in a Japanese home, it's spotless.

[Tech-On]

A reporter for Sankei Sports discovered that the camera does not differentiate between faces and printed pictures, so that if you hold a photo of an older person in front of your face you get your cigarettes, no questions asked. Whilst a three-inch-wide photo worked in the town of Kobe, the reporter discovered that in Osaka, size really matters, and only a six-inch picture (culled from a magazine) of an old geezer got him his fags.

All this, however, is relative (size always is, I find), as the vending-machine manufacturers are introducing RFID readers into the gizmos in order to read Taspos, or the' proof-of-age card used in Japan. So suck on that, smokers. [Pink Tentacle]

Lisa, who grew up watching them will probably write about how shitty and tacky and how culturally out of context the show is on her blog. But we did enjoy when the host would make fun of the Americans in Japanese. See, it's better because everyone is making fun of everyone.

I just hope next week's contraption is a little bit crazier because that's what does it for me. What did you guys think of the show? If anyone knows the crew members who design and build these contraptions, please email me. I want to quit my job and work on these sets! [ABC]

Super-deluxe-awesome-o toilets are always on, constantly sipping power—they now make up four percent of household energy consumption, more than dishwashers or clothes dryers. And they're in 68 percent of homes. One expert says it's the Japanese equivalent of the slightly suicidal American love of the Hummer, except that sales of quasi-mecha toilets aren't slowing down. (Probably because 23 to 30 percent of Japanese men apparently sit down to pee. So inefficient.) How serious is the problem? Tricked out commodes might knock Japan out of meeting its Kyoto Protocol goals, even as the government demands more efficiency out of manufacturers.

Toto, for its part—besides cutting energy usage of its toilets in half—has come up with a smart toilet that learns everybody's pooping schedules and warms up just prior to your usual pit stop, so it only powers on when it needs to, rather than staying armed and ready all the time. Technology really can solve all our problems, even the ones it creates. [Washington Post]

The cap is being put into place to control a small number of users who have set up file sharing servers and are pumping out far more than that a day. If you're a downloader, don't you worry, no download cap is going to be put into place, so feel free to continue using the hell out of that gorgeous 100Mbps connection of yours.

Sure makes that Time Warner download cap of 40GB per month seem stingy as hell, doesn't it? Stupid jerkface American ISPs. [Ars Technica]

[Impress]

The commander wakes the child up at 6 a.m., and prompts players to put on the helmet and hit a "roger" button to acknowledge their wakefulness. Then, they are ordered to count to 10 in five different languages: English, Japanese, German, Swahili and Malagasy. At that point, the player is "allowed to take off the equipment and start the day"—wtf?! Didn't Akira start this way? [People.jp via CrunchGear]

It'll be a bit short, however, of the tallest tower in the world, despite some news sources calling it that, with the Burj Dubai already at 2,087 feet and expected to grow to an insane total of over 2,600 feet. But still, 2000 feet is nothing to scoff at, putting it higher than the CN Tower, the Taipei 101 and the Sears Tower.

The top of the tower will feature a restaurant and the requisite broadcast antennae, but it's not known what'll be in the rest of the building. The cost is expected to be around 60 billion yen, or $555 million, and it should be completed in 2011. [Mainichi via Japanite]

[TokyoMango]

[PlaySmart.jp via Trends in Japan]

Wan Love Yu's micro bubble technology can stably produce bubbles with a 20μm average diameter, that's roughly 600,000 bubbles in one square centimeter. The bubbles are negatively charged so that they attach to positively charged organic particles and lift them off. The result—foam that reaches way down into a dog's hair to dissolve dirt and grime.

The Wan Love Yu generator attaches to a regular hose in the bathtub, so it doesn't require any additional piping work. IDEC is planning on releasing Wan Love on June 20 in Japan for between $6,000 to $7,000. Though if that's the price for shampoo free doggy eyes, I say Fido ought to just suck it up and bathe the old fashioned way. [Fareastgizmos]

Not surprisingly, Genenpax has kept the exact details of their technology under wraps, but they did say that their new process, while based on existing technology, is expected to produce hydrogen from water for longer time than any method currently available. Furthermore, WES does not require a hydrogen reformer, a high-pressure hydrogen tank, or any special catalysts to get the job done.

During a recent conference, Genepax unveiled a fuel cell stack with a rated output of 120W and a fuel cell system with a rated output of 300W—and there are plans for a 1kw-class generation system for use in both electric vehicles and houses sometime in the future. At this point, the cost of production on the water-powered vehicle engine itself is around about ¥2,000,000 (US$18,522), but they hope to drop the price to ¥500,000 (US$4600) or less if they succeed in bringing it into mass production. [Tech On]

The Akihabara district is known to gadget lovers the world over as Japan's gizmodic heart. Today, though, a 25-year-old man named Tomohiro Kato allegedly drove his rented van into a crowd of people, then jumped out stabbing more people, including those he'd already hit with the vehicle. Reuters says that among the reported dead were six men aged 19 to 74—one who may have died from a heart attack—as well as a 21-year-old woman.
[Story and photo gallery at Reuters]
[Murky video and additional pics and maps at BBC]
[More local details at AP Japan]

Hayashi says that, lacking a more serious camera and stuff like a mobile wallet (actually useful) and LED flashlight, "It may sell modestly as a smart phone or as an upgraded iPod, but it's not quite cutting it as a competitor in our mobile-based culture."

In other words, it needs more features, even though that would result in the kind of feature overload Jobs loathes. And a survey by Japan Railways says that while half of those polled were interested in buying an iPhone, less than a fifth really knew what it is. The Apple brand at work—which might the best thing going for it over there. [Wired]

This method seems like it'd work in theory. Being able to withstand a woman staring at you angrily for minutes at a time is a skill you have to work on developing. 96 minutes is a long time, however, and Mark Wilson says he only needs about 4 minutes. [Crunchinatrix]

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If that wasn't bizarre enough, it actually gives directions with flair using the six joints in its arms and neck to make gestures—and it will provide information on nearby landmarks when you pet its head. iX plans on expanding their line to include a "variety of shapes, including other characters and a plain mechanical version” in the near future, and they expect to have a product on the shelves sometime next year. As for a reason why anyone would want a teddy bear car navigation system, I have only one thing to say...it's from Japan. [Pink Tentacle via psfk]

If that wasn't enough, the woman even placed a mattress she found in the closet and took regular showers. So what is the deal here? Is this guy's house and closet so big that he simply never ran into her? Or his he just unobservant? Either way, I would have the police comb the area one more time. He could have a whole freakin' village tucked away in there. [SFGate]

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]