dottocomu

Solid Alliance's latest, the UFO-detecting keychain

Solid Alliance, they of the implausible USB devices and ghost-detecting novelty goods, fill another gap in their daft gadget range with the U-tan Radar, a conveniently-sized UFO and alien detector.

Thoughtfully, the U-tan can be hung from your cellphone, where it promises to alert you should you enter an area "where it looks like a UFO could appear". A short push on the button also gives you the ability to manually confirm the possibility of a Close Encounter, and, should you be in the presence of a suspected alien, you can hand them the detector and ask them to hold the button until it beeps. As it appears to work on skin resistance (in the same way as devices that measure body fat), you may find that it has a tendency to tell you that obese people are aliens. If, however, you're still convinced that you don't have a false positive, your choices are limited to playing dumb or begging for your life; hopefully future models will include the all-important option of giving your new friend the U-tan as o-miyage so that the included miniature nuclear device can auto-detonate inside its mothership and wipe out its race.

Developed under the supervision of renowned UFO-chaser Yaoi Jun'ichi, for maximum kudos, and available via Solid Alliance's Rakuten store for Y2,222, though they appear to be sold out until end-November at the moment.

[Via Engadget Japanese]

TakaraTomy's fusion of Tamagotchi and coin bank

TakaraTomy have come up with another great, wacky product in the Life Bank (Jinsei Ginkou), the riff on the coin bank that the 21st century has been waiting for. The Bank's screen shows you the life of a stick man who starts out as a poor pleb in a cupboard-sized apartment and develops into a rich bastard lounging under a chandelier on the 500 yen coins you feed him, all the while counting you down to your up-to-Y100,000 savings target. Then you open up the box and find he actually has spent all your money on 8-bit hos and lo-rez champagne.

Out mid-November in Japan for around Y4,000-Y5,000.

[Read: Product page (Japanese)]

[Via Tokyo Mango]

Baby diamonds

Now this is worrying: A Russian company that will make you a synthetic diamond from your baby's hair (for a--very steep--price, naturally). Pink Tentacle has the sordid details. In fact, they're not picky about what or whom the hair is from, it seems -- so you could wear a little nugget of dear departed Tiddles around your neck rather than having her stuffed, if that's the way you're wired.

Japanese government prepares online lie-detector

Japan's Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications is, for reasons best known to it, earmarking Y300 mn in its 2007 budget to produce what the Asahi Shimbun terms a lie-detector for online information.

The reality appears to be not so much that as an automated fact-checker that draws on related information to spot how likely something is to be a load of old balls. The Ministry envisages it being able to give you search results in order of their reliability, or tell you that a piece of info is 95% crap and ask if you'd still like to display it. Example questions they see it being able to answer include "is this company analysis on the mark?", "is this a natural-sounding description of the political situation within Lebanon?", or "are the functions of this overseas electrical appliance described accurately in this auction listing?".

They note that key hurdles will be whether they can find reliable internet-based sources of information related to a search, and develop technologies that can accurately assess meaning and provide high-level machine translation, amongst other things.

It's unclear how they plan to establish the reliability of information, beyond taking the route of building an engine that tells you how in- or out-of-consensus a particular document is based on word frequencies or some other measure. And we somehow doubt that the AI Holy Grail of software that understands the meaning of natural language and can translate it accurately is about to be reached by some government researchers with $3 mn in funding. But still, nice of them to try.

[Via Slashdot Japan (Japanese)]

USB Korean barbecue

We've featured the work of Kaizo Aho Ichidai before, and it's glad to see he's still pushing out the barriers of hardware idiocy. Latest project is a USB-powered barbecue hotplate, though unfortunately we doubt this is ever going to hit the shelves. Disappointed by his lack of success with USB-powered egg-frying, he wasn't going to do things by halves for his next culinary experiment; his hotplate runs off a desktop with six USB expansion cards in the back, and harnesses the power of 30 USB ports. However, as the video on his site confirms, the result is some bona-fide Korean-style meat-grilling action and, shortly thereafter, dinner.

[Read: Kaizo Aho Ichidai (Japanese)]

[Via Slashdot Japan]

iPod underwear

Not tremendously new, apparently, but we have to post this: the fetishization of the iPod taken into cosplay territory. iAttire offer a range of underwear and other clothing for iPods of all sizes.

[Via Engadget Japanese]

Buddhist altars take on America

First, you should know that butsudan are Buddhist altars placed in homes in Japan to honour departed family members, and that kuyo is the term for ceremonially placing or burning things on said altar to honour, pacify, etc., the departed. You should also know that Osaka firm Yagiken, who make the things, are barking mad. They are about to start marketing a small version of their butsudan, which they're referring to as the KUYO STAGE (hint, guys: in real English all caps means you're shouting) and planning to launch via a gallery they're setting up in New York, under the slogan KUYO IS LOVE.

GOOD LUCK. YOU'LL NEED IT.

[Via asahi.com (Japanese)]

The iShight?

Wonder how long it'll be before someone spots this and fixes it.

Apple Japan homepage (you may need to refresh to get the iMac screen on which this appears)

CMC Solutions' fireproof hard disk

In this age of remote backup services and data centres, there's something almost refreshing about CMC Solutions' IEYAS (Information Easy Autobackup System; also a terrible pun on the name of a famous shogun), an 80/100GB hard disk encased in a safe that'll withstand temperatures of up to 1000 degrees C. They don't say what it costs, but we suspect the ubiquitous "open price" means, in this case, "open your wallet and keep it open".

[Via Slashdot JP (Japanese)]

[Product page (mostly Japanese)]

Win a solid gold C-3PO from your phone

Latest in an occasional series of silly giveaways we come across in the course of scanning the more serious headlines: KDDI's offering subscribers who sign up for its cellphone-based auction service the chance to win a solid gold C-3PO or solid silver R2-D2. Inveterate Star Wars fans that we are, we have to say that this appeals to us a little more than other precious-metal freebies we've seen come out here. Still, KDDI's Episode III campaign is getting a little out of hand--they're stuffing all sorts of video clips and screensavers down the pipe at their subscribers. We'd rather the distributors just quit the buggering about and released the film itself...

[Via K-Tai Watch (Japanese)]

Gadget April Fools from Japan

Proving that fake articles are as much a staple of April Fool's in Japan as anywhere else, Impress has an entire site up full of lies and jokes. A lot of it consists of puns that we're not even going to attempt to translate, but two highlights are the KDD1 INFOBAA wearable cellphone pictured right ("baa" meaning "old woman", incidentally) and the HTT DoCoMou O-Saifu wallet cellphone (saifu meaning wallet, ho ho), which takes the novel step of building a cellphone into a wallet that comes in colours called Wife Red and Husband Black. It doesn't feature a memory card slot, but you can "use it like a ToDo list by writing things on scraps of paper and stuffing them in with your banknotes", they note helpfully. For those wondering about the watermelon cellphone further down the page, we offer the observation that Suica (Japan Railways' smartcard commuter pass) sounds the same as the word for watermelon.

[Impress Watch fake site (Japanese)]

[Via Slashdot Japan]

Lego Doraemon

In yet another answer to the question "what do otaku with too much time on their hands get up to," here's someone who has constructed a life-size version of the animated robot cat, Doraemon. We should note that this is a very large robot cat, too; you'll get a sense of the scale from the soft-drink bottle it's holding.

[Via Slashdot Japan]

[ProjectD website]

Year-round cherry blossoms with the Attachment Tree Sakura-chan

We’re not sure what an Attachment Tree is supposed to be (actually, we’re not sure where to even start with this one), but the upshot is that Japanese lighting manufacturer Ryoukou has created an artificial, LED-illuminated cherry tree that weighs half a ton and costs $33,500. The whole thing stands six metres tall, with the branches spanning a diameter of five, just to dash the hopes of all you bedsit-dwelling billionaires out there. Power routes up through the artificial trunk and fans out through the branches to a total of 7,600 white LEDs (there’s also a version that combines white and pink for the bargain price of $25,400), making for pretty illuminations to sit and get blatted under all year round, in traditional Japanese fashion.

[Read: Japan's cherry blossom season to last all year with cellphone technology]

[Crossposted to Engadget]

DDR memory for your Valentine

Printing seasonal messages into computer components is becoming something of a fad in Japan. Latest to hit the shops are the Valentine Day KISS, a 512MB DIMM stamped with its name and a heart logo, and the Sweet Memory Premium Edition, which comes in a cute chocolate-style box (though the chip itself is standard). We should note that this doesn't indicate a burgeoning geek-girl population, though -- on Valentine's day in Japan it's the guys who get the presents, while the girls have to wait until White Day a month later.

[Update] As an astute reader notes, we forgot to include a link. The above comes via Akiba PC Hotline. Also, Pasocon Shop Ark (Japanese site) is selling at least the Valentine Day KISS online (scroll down the page to find it), though picking up the Sweet Memory may require schlepping down to Akihabara and keeping an eye out.

A sleeping-bag to walk about in

Sleeping bags are great, but there's always that mobility problem to consider; if you need to get up and about there's an inevitable need to unzip and extricate. Japanese mail-order magazine Tsuhan Seikatsu has the perfect solution, though: the Arukeru Nebukuro ("sleeping bag you can walk in") has legs so that, according to the maker, "you can get up and run away should you be attacked by a bear in the middle of the night". Price is Y43,050, which is about what a 40GB iPod costs.

[Via amnesiac-moon (Japanese) via Slashdot-J]

From feedreader to feed-eater: RSS goes cute in Japan

After the success of PostPets it was clear that Japan had a taste for having information delivered to the desktop by fluffy animals, and now the inevitable has happened: A cute RSS reader is upon us. Ageet’s Gene TrialTypeA software aims to pull in non-geek users by offering an interface that allows you to drag-and-drop feed links into it, upon which the mouselike creature called Gene (pictured right) will obligingly eat them and read you the headlines via speech bubbles or aloud. The current release is a free beta, though there’s apparently a full release on the way that will include “blog-themed communication functions”, whatever that might mean. Gene’s speech bubble says “gotta update my blog,” so we’re hoping that with the right settings we’ll be able to have him surf all our gadget feeds and blog the results without us needing to get out of bed.

[Via ITmedia (Japanese)]

[Crossposted to Engadget]

Spoilsports

Japan Today reports that some do-gooder has succeeded in taking out the only fun thing about eating fugu--the frisson of danger:

Scientists at Nagasaki University have recently succeeded in breeding nonpoisonous tiger puffers, a type of "fugu" blowfish highly valued as a delicacy in Japan, by giving them innocuous feed in isolated environments.

[Read: Japan Today article]

Toto's hydroelectric toilet

Leading technoloo manufacturer Toto has added a new only-in-Japan modification to its latest model: it's a toilet that uses hydroelectric power to charge its battery as it flushes. A lot of toilets in this hygiene-obsessive country use an infrared sensor instead of a handle to trigger the flush, but that of course requires either a battery that needs replacing or a hookup to mains electricity, involving the hassle of wiring and so forth. The little hydroelectric generator in the latest version means that the battery lasts about ten years. If you forget to flush, or haven't done so ten seconds after getting up, it'll also take a guess at what variety of waste you've just put into it and flush the appropriate amount of water in response.

[Via Nikkei BP (Japanese)]

The golden gum

Following on the heels of Suntory's solid-silver pissing cherub, confectioner Lotte is offering lucky chewers the chance to win a 3.5-kg solid gold replica of a pack of its gum. As the photo shows, the end can be taken off, just like the real thing, to reveal nine 100g, solid gold sticks of gum. Value is supposedly the same as Suntory's giant paperweight: Y10 mn (around $90,000).

[Read: Lotte homepage (Japanese)]

The price is wrong

This is the kind of mistake you really don't want to make--mislabelling a 5-pack of Apple DVD-R discs as a 17-inch eMac on your shopping site. Especially when that site is hosted on Yahoo Japan, oh, just the most popular site in the country.

So what happens when you offer eMacs for Y2,787 including tax? 20,000 people try to order 100 million of them, is what.

The main site of Catena, the retailer involved, is understandably down at the moment.

[Read: Japan Today: Shoppers flood Yahoo with 100 mil eMac orders after glitch]

Silliest of the silly season

This gets the Lion de Merde of the Silly Season: I realise it is the Year of Turkey in Japan, but is there really any need to open an udon restaurant in Istanbul with--get this--all ingredients to be airlifted in? Especially since the stated target is "homesick Japanese tourists" rather than the locals.

Hardly the Rockefeller Centre, but still, I fear the bubble is once again upon us.

JR to open udon restaurant in Istanbul for homesick tourists

Motorway exit blocked by beer

The silly season continues globally. At just after seven this morning (J article in the Nikkei) a beer delivery truck came out of a motorway exit and ploughed straight into a traffic jam, sloughing 14,000 half-litre cans of beer onto the road. The exit is, needless to say, blocked. Unfortunately I can't find any photos yet, but it must be quite a sight.

Motorway exit blocked by beer

The silly season continues globally. At just after seven this morning (J article in the Nikkei) a beer delivery truck came out of a motorway exit and ploughed straight into a traffic jam, sloughing 14,000 half-litre cans of beer onto the road. The exit is, needless to say, blocked. Unfortunately I can't find any photos yet, but it must be quite a sight.

Motorway exit blocked by beer

The silly season continues globally. At just after seven this morning (J article in the Nikkei) a beer delivery truck came out of a motorway exit and ploughed straight into a traffic jam, sloughing 14,000 half-litre cans of beer onto the road. The exit is, needless to say, blocked. Unfortunately I can't find any photos yet, but it must be quite a sight.