I have no idea why this company decided to use Scary Android Woman for their commercial. It makes me want to run away from the TV screen, but not to go buy bug spray that keeps a robot’s skin soft and smooth.
via Boing Boing
Bug Spray for Robots(title unknown)
Originally from MiniBOT's shared items in Google Reader
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TrackbackThis is a strangely mesmerizing animated music video created by Chiba-born artist Akino Kondoh. It features a folk-ish song about body-less children and a little Daria-esque morphing girl in black-and-white. Kondoh’s work has been featured in museums across the world, including cities like Stockholm, Shanghai, and Boston.
Akino Kondoh Artsy Video Features Creepy-Cool B&W Girl(title unknown)
Originally from MiniBOT's shared items in Google Reader
Comments rss TrackbackWho needs human bartenders when you can have a robot pour your pint? Asahi has partnered with UK department store Selfridges to showcase this guy, who claims to be the world’s first bartending bot. It weighs a quarter of a ton, speaks with a British accent, and can snap open a bottle and pour you a pint with perfect precision. He doesn’t even expect you to tip.
Robot Pours Asahi Beer, Speaks British English(title unknown)
Originally from MiniBOT's shared items in Google Reader
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Akiba is great for Japanese otakus, but what about the thousands of geeks that flock electric town from places like the US and China? The Tokyo Anime Center in Akihabara just opened a new tourism office that offers information on Tokyo’s geek heaven in English and Chinese. The guides are dressed in cosplay, of course, and they’ll tell you all you need to know to navigate the figurine stores, aisles of manga, and multiple floors of electronics here. Pictured left are Jane Fong, the Singaporean CEO of Akiba tourism company GI Jane, and her Shanghainese maid friend Cherry Drop.
Related stories:
Maid taxi offers otaku paradise on wheels
Video: Cosplayer off-kai ends in police raid
New Service Offers Akiba Tours in English & Chinese(title unknown)
Originally from MiniBOT's shared items in Google Reader
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Do your coworkers suck? Now you can launch missiles at them from the comfort of your desk. It’s powered by USB so you don’t need batteries, and it comes with a little missile-launch pad that you can hide behind your keyboard. 2500 yen. Get yours here.
USB Miniature Missile Launcher(title unknown)
Originally from MiniBOT's shared items in Google Reader
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In Japan, it’s not uncommon for someone to still do math on their abacus. I even had to take an abacus class during summer school as a kid—and I didn’t even go to a Japanese school. In a way, it makes a lot more sense than a digital calculator. Anyway, some clever developer created this abacus app for the iPhone. You use the touchscreen to move the balls up and down to do your calculations, and i has a motion sensor so that you can shake the phone to clear it. You can see a video of it in action here.
Abacus iPhone App Offers Alternative to the Calculator(title unknown)
Originally from MiniBOT's shared items in Google Reader
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I found this bright red, slippery shiny Love Pillow while walking around a Roppongi superstore one night with Kayoko and Lara. From the picture, it looks like you can use it as a pillow or as a more standard stick-shaped vibrator. It’s waterproof, too, so you can use it in the shower or hot tub.
Waterproof Vibrating Love Pillow(title unknown)
Originally from MiniBOT's shared items in Google Reader
Comments rss TrackbackIf you want to know the first thing about Japanese humor, then you have to get to know Ken Shimura. He started off as part of a five-man show called the Drifters; later, two branched off to become Kato-chan and Ken-chan, an iconic comedy duo from the 80s, more famous and influential than Beat Takeshi to most mainstream Japanese. Ken Shimura was always the pack leader. Deceptively good looking but outrageously silly and politically incorrect, he mass marketed below-the-belt jokes, inappropriate slapping, and the unique blend of traditional Japanese and contemporary Japanese and Western influences. He also spearheaded some of the most famous Japanese TV memes ever, like "Daijobu da" and "Henna ojisan."
Here’s a video of one of his more famous skits, a hilarious Thriller parody that ends with Henna ojisan. More videos after the jump.
This song is famous, and will up your Japanese joke cred. It goes
through the days of the week and calls them nonsensical noises. One of the common themes in Shimura’s TV shows was to have comedians
dress up as sumo wrestlers or as little school kids and do dirty skits
or silly dance moves. Back then, female celebrities were more open to
looking ridiculously funny on TV, not just glam and cute the way they
are now. And yes, this was long before cosplay became a national phenomenon.
There’s a very raw, SNL-like feel to his performances.
Shimura is almost 60 now, but he is still wandering around Japan making people laugh. If you’re Japanese-literate, you can read about his daily life on his blog.
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My below-the-belt prank tutorial
Talking celebrity cell phone straps
Ken Shimura’s Thriller Parody (and Tips on Upping your Japanese Joke Cred)(title unknown)
Originally from MiniBOT's shared items in Google Reader
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This makes me so sad. Robots in general have always made me sad, and it only got worse after I saw AI. In movies, relationships with robots are often doomed, and remind us of that sorry state of being where you love something that can’t love you back, whether the unrequited one is the human or the robot.
In Japan, they’re developing robots to care for the elderly, in anticipation of the aging of the population, which will be 40% elderly by 2055. This inevitably means that many, many senior citizens in Japan will be living alone, which is hard to imagine, considering that in Asia today, adult children typically take care of elderly parents. The University of Tokyo is leading this project to create these helper robots as part of the Information and Robot Technology Research Initiative, in conjunction with Toyota Motor Corp. and other private companies.
Caregiver robots to take care of Japan’s elderly?
Originally from Popgadget: Personal Tech for Women
Comments rss TrackbackWhen it comes to facial hair, most Japanese men aren’t hugely hirsute, with more than a few having to make do with the likes of manufactured moustaches. Yet baldness on the other hand doesn’t appear to be that big of a problem, which, while great for the majority, makes it even more catastrophic for those considering a combover.
Thankfully though, help is at hand, with wig makers well versed in such worries.
The only problem being that, on a caricature, the pronounced parting looks passable, but on a real person, it’s positively preposterous.
Originally from Tokyo Times
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