Tag: ONLYINJAPAN

If your office is searching for a new way to go "green," we might have found just the (bizarre) solution. Don't let the name throw you. The White Goat recycles all that excess office paper into rolls of beautiful, white TP. According to DVICE, just dump in the shredded equivalent of 40 sheets of paper, add some water, and, 30 minutes later, you'll have a roll of toilet paper. (Check out a ...

The latest product to come out of the perpetually fascinating land of Japan might just be the most simplistic, yet most disturbing we've yet to see. And that's saying a lot. A new DVD called 'Miterudake for Lady' is designed to help Japanese women deal with men staring at them... by showing them images of men, well, staring at them. According to the manufacturer Avex, Miterudake ("only seeing" ...

Allergies suck -- so the always-resourceful Japanese have decided to sick robots on the problem. Tokyo-based weather forecasting company Weathernews, Inc. is apparently getting ready to install roughly 200 spherical robots across the country to monitor the pollen in the air. The shells of these bots are made of styrofoam, and a monitor inside does the dirty work. The eyes indicate the ...

Back in October, Sony wowed us with delicious pictures of a ridiculously thin television, the XEL-1 OLED TV. Its screen enclosure was just three millimeters (about .1-inches!) thick -- or thin rather. Okay, so it's only 11-inches across, meaning you wouldn't want to make one the focal-piece of your home theater system. But it's hard to resist, given its lithe design. It was supposed to be ...

Hey robot fans! The 12th annual Robo-One Grand Championship match just went down in Tokyo, and boy was it surreal. Here's how it works: To win the tournament, contestants must keep their balance while attacking their enemy, be able to get up when pushed down, and ultimate push their opponent out of the ring. Some of the robots come from professional roboticists in labs, while others come from ...

There are those who prefer their holiday gifts small and cute (either giving or receiving), and for those people, MoPods make a great choice. The idea is to wear your MoPod on your bag, belt, clothing, key rings, then just go about your business and wait for them to spin and flash to alert you when your phone is ringing There's something for every cute fetish: panda, devil, kitten, puppy, and ...

From the land that brought us sushi, Hello Kitty and the surprise attack of the Picachu comes what we're comfortable declaring the most useless, but most entertaining, application of engineering talents ever: the USB-powered humping dog (because Fido's libido should be mobile as well, doggone it!). Yes, the mechanical doggie dongle made its way into the luggage of Switched.com's Tom ...

Sony's all-singing, all-dancing music/speaker/playing/thingamabob has finally touched down (in Japan, at least), and it's every inch the head-scratcher we thought it would be. The Sony Rolly is a motion-controlled device, with sensors that tell it which way is up. In other words, it's a music-playing robotic orb from the same people who brought you Aibo. Confused? It doesn't matter -- just ...

So many of you loved our shout-out to Japanese anti-mugging inventions a few weeks back that we had to post this video from Reuters to show you the bizarre piece of clothing in action (though the commentary may be the best part). It's convenient that this was filmed during the day -- who else thinks that muggers at night might notice the unlit machine that's flapping in the breeze? From ...

Looking for the perfect stocking stuffer for a kid, a nerd or a Japan-o-phile? Mimoco -- the creator of limited-edition USB pocket drives in the shape of 'Star Wars' characters, Happy Tree Friends, and Halo -- has just announced its latest series based on 'Domo,' which is the mascot of Japanese network NHK and huge in Japan. Mimoco's new 'mimobots' are out in time to commemorate the debut of a ...

If you want to encourage kids to save, you might take them to the bank to set up an account, teach them to keep track of what they spend their money on and praise their progress. If you're in Japan, though, you apparently have to dol out severely negative punishment if your kid doesn't save his or her Yen, at least if the advent of this new exploding piggy bank is any indication. The Savings ...

Humans are a weird species. Check this out: NEC has just announced its wideband wearable antenna, which essentially turns a a person (wearing a special suit) into a high-performance mobile antenna. The prototype apparently works in either open space or when using the human body for conduction. The plan is to use it for digital terrestrial broadcasts, so presumably for live TV broadcasts to your ...

Don't ever let anybody tell you playing video games all day won't get you anywhere... at least not if you live in Japan. Game Center CX is popular Japanese reality TV show staring Shinya Arino, who, clad in a light blue workman's suit, plays through classic, and mind bogglingly difficult video games. Arino has played everything from well know titles like 'Super Mario Bros.' and 'Galaga' to ...

Recently, we went to Tokyo helping pick out the coolest and most innovative new technologies at CEATEC, the annual Japanese consumer electronics show. Along with four other reps from Popular Science, CNET, and the Envisioneering Group, we narrowed down our short list to just ten items, either finished products or promising prototypes with some sort of vague plan to eventually get released. It ...

The mind-blowingly quirky piece of clothing pictured above may not deliver actual sodas, but it just might deliver you from evil-doers intent on causing you harm. According to Australia's The Age, the above-pictured skirt looks like a pretty red dress under normal circumstances, but when flipped inside out over the wearer's head turns into a pretty dead-on soda machine disguise -- the perfect ...