Sega is set to release a Doraemon game for the Wii. The game will bring Fujiko F. Fujio’s character to life in a “boardgame-styled video game”. Expect a mini-game extravaganza in Japan this winter.
“I WILL CRUSH YOUR SOFT HEAD LIKE AN APPLE!” is something you might say to someone you don’t like. Especially if you’ve been working out with these finger weights from Rakuten. 3,150 yen (£13/$26) to be able to crush someone’s soft head? That’s a bargain if you ask me!
Via A Rinkya Blog
After your dog has been out on a long photo shoot, it’s essential that he or she take the time to relax as well as clean those mucky paws. This paw jacuzzi is the perfect way of doing so, and comes with a special super-absorbent mat and towel for drying off. Get it in either pink or blue from Amazon Japan for 5,800 yen (£23/$48).
Sky News is currently hosting a little picture gallery of a new aquarium that’s opening in Yokohama on Friday. Have a look here if you’re not too busy!
The Illustrated Braille Club is a group of volunteers who get together in Kitajima, Tokushima Prefecture, to turn picture books and other illustrated stories into Braille. The group takes the books and encodes them into dots, which are then printed by a special printer that punches raised dots into the paper. The finished Braille volumes then make their way to not only Kitajima’s local public library, but also to libraries and schools for the blind.
The club’s representative Kōji Sangawa, 82, said “the visually impaired don’t have many opportunities to experience art, so they enjoy our work. I want to continue working as long as my body allows me, with the encouragement of their words of gratitude.” What a nice man.
Sony has revealed their latest audio prototype, the Hana. For those who don’t know, “hana” means flower in Japanese, so the silver-plated flower petal LED lamp is fairly well named. Functioning not only as a lamp, but also as an mp3 player with full-length speakers, the Hana seems like it’s the combination of two random items pulled from Sony’s product top hat. If it’s good enough for David Bowie lyrics, it’s good enough for Sony.
Source: BBC News
That’s not the real title of this flash game, but it’s as much fun as you would imagine a game with that title would be.
Via Japundit
Sharp has decided to create a massive solar power system that floats on water. Instead of taking the usual approach with solar panels and sticking them on a roof, Sharp has created a “buoyant resin-made platform” for the panels to sit on. The system generates 200 kilowatts of electricity, which is enough to power 50 houses. It was expensive, costing 220 million yen (£884,000/$1,815,000), but at least it helps power their enormous factory in Kameyama.
Source: Nikkei
“That’s neat that’s neat, I really love your tiger feet”, sang Mud, about an early prototype they had seen of this new product from StrapYa, a tiger paw cleaning pad for mobile phones. The band didn’t really understand the product at the time, as they’d never even heard of mobile phones/cellphones, but unphased they wrote a song about it anyway. The phone-buffing paw comes in whole host of colours, but if that’s doesn’t satisfy your cat accessory craving, why not get one with a furry tail?
The paw costs 399 yen (£1.60/$3.30) from StrapYa.
The thought of going to a gym can be negative, especially when you think of puffing away on exercise machines, and sweating so much that your hair sticks to your face. A machine in Japan called Conbini, a name taken from the Japanese for convenient store, is proving to be very popular though, as it prevents either of those off-putting aspects. The machine pushes the person’s feet up and down, and back and forwards, and a sweat is rarely broken, as it seems to be doing most of the work. A 500 yen coin ($4.10/£2) is simply inserted in the Conbini, and a 10 minute exercise regime begins. To prevent wandering male eyes, there are ladies only sections and partitions between machines to give you a carefree bounce about!
Via Wired
How can StrapYa possibly know my what my two favourite things in the world are? I don’t know either, but incredibly they’ve combined both CDs and dice to make a Dice CD storage rack! Available in 4 colours (orange, green, pink and blue), the rack holds up to 60 CDs each and costs 1,575 yen (£6/$13).
Please note: I don’t actually like CDs or dice; I think they are the creation of the devil.
“Transformers, fall apart and make you cry,” we hilariously sung to the transformers motif as kids. I never thought I’d see technology approaching the point where an actual transformer could come to my house and beat the crap out of me for singing that song. It may be small, but it’s a sign of things to come…
Feast your eyes on the greatest pizza ever created! Forget cheese being the only ingredient in a stuffed-crust pizza, Pizza Hut’s new Double Roll sticks hot dog sausages in there too. It’s also lovingly sprinkled with hamburger pieces for the full fast food meat experience. The medium size costs 2500 yen (£10/$20.50) while the large will set you back 3550 yen (£14/$29).
Aowww!! That water is too hard for my super soft skin! Good job Think Associates Japan has come up with the “Mist & Massage” showerhead. The showerhead contains little ceramic balls that reduce the amount of chlorine in the water, helping protect my squashy face. At 2,890 yen (£12/$24), that’s a bargain.
Here, for your viewing pleasure, is a selection of old Japanese Famicom commercials edited together into one convenient YouTube video. Enjoy!
