Great news for all you lovers of wacky Japanese products out there with the announcement that Thanko has added an English portal to their Rare Mono Shop.

Via Akiba Today

The Apple iPhone seems to be experiencing a cooler reception in Japan than it did in other countries around the world.

Here’s a video of a guy who figure out how to get his Wii Balance Board to control the movements of his Roomba.

Of course, the next question is why anyone would want to, but. . .

Via The Raw Feed

Like most countries, the keitai (mobile phone) has become a huge part of life in Japan, and for the younger generation, cell phones seem to be supplanting the personal computer as the primary Internet device of choice.

The newest trend is young people using their phones to access sites called purofu ( “prof,” from the English word profile, which looks very similar to “blog” when rendered in katakana), centralized services that allow people to create profiles for themselves showing their pictures, specifying their age and location, and listing their favorite music, movies or food.

These purofu services are sort of like guestbooks optimized to display on cell phones, where people can search for keywords then leave comments or links and have random, meandering discussions, creating a way for lonely Japanese young people to make friends.

No one knows exactly how many users of these services there are in Japan, but conservative estimates start at 1 million or more.

The new Internet services aren’t without problems, however, some of which came to light last week when a 17-year-old student attacked a 14-year-old in Chiba Prefecture with a metal baseball bat for writing insults on his profile page.

Well, the International Day of the iPhone is here, when Apple’s new 3G iPhone launches around the world.

In Japan, the line outside Softbank’s flagship store in Omotesando, Tokyo reached 1500 people and over a kilometer in length, as Japanese fans lined up to get their hands on the device for the first time. Masayoshi Son, the enigmatic president of Softbank and the mind behind the success of Google-trouncing Yahoo Japan, was beaming as he watched the lines of iPhone buyers, most of whom were switching from competing cellphone companies au/KDDI and NTT Docomo.

Being a maverick has helped make the UC Berkeley-educated Son, a third-generation Japanese of Korean descent, the richest man in Japan, and his ability to “think different” probably helped him win the contract for the iPhone from Steve Jobs.

While I’m still not sure if the iPhone will bowl over Japanese keitai users, who are extremely hidebound and love their flip-fones with the fancy styling and easy-to-type (for them) numeric keypads, I do love the coming havoc the iPhone will wreak in the Japanese cellphone marketplace as users realize they don’t have to give cellular providers power to dictate everything about their phone, from what music formats they can listen to to what applications they can run — they can just stick anything in iTunes and sync it over.

Today I updated my (first-gen) iPhone to the updated 2.0 firmware and downloaded the app I’ve always wanted, a light saber sound simulator (iTunes link). Any phone platform that can bring that kind of awesomeness to its users will certainly find a niche in Japan.

The New York Times has a nice bio piece on Shigeru Miyamoto, the man behind Nintendo’s Wii game system as well as Mario Brothers, Donkey Kong, and Zelda! The latter 3 games have sold more than 350 million copies while the new Wii system has sold 25 million units.

japanese robot nostalgia from engadget.

I’m currently in love with this watch by LA based designer Tokidoki. The designer, Simone Legno, is actually from Italy, but with a keen eye, and a sense of humor (not to mention a Japanese girlfriend), he’s created a world of charming characters that remind one of the playful sensibility pervading the world of anime. No wonder he has a devoted cult following.

This summer is supposed to see the launch of several new Tokidoki products, including a special bag for Sportsac and a collaboration with Onitsuka Tiger. I’m really curious to see what the items will look like!

If there is a way to make something cute and fuzzy, when it is an everyday, mundane item, Japan finds the way.

These elephant trunk doorstops would make anyone’s day brighter.

3,570 yen each, purchase via Rinkya Stores

Someone seems to think so. . .

From Yomiuri Shimbun:

From Popgadget comes news of a super-looking little digital camera - the Rolleiflex MiniDigi AF5.0. And the magpie in me is squawking “Want!”

Made by Komomura Corp., the MiniDigi AF5.0 is modelled on the original twin-lens 6×6 Rolleiflex, which debuted in 1929 and is still going.

This is a follow-up to the original MiniDigi, which was hugely popular with toy camera enthusiasts, with the resolution increased from 3.1 megapixels to 5.

The AF5.0 has definite retro chic, though the price is a thoroughly modern ¥41,000. For that price you don’t get much in the way of functions, but that’s unlikely to worry fans and gadget freaks.

It’s come to light that the otherwise troubled Playstation 3 has something of a serious patron in the US Air Force. Specifically, it appears that this branch of the US Armed Forces has ordered up 300 of the latest Sony consoles. To do what, you ask?

People much smarter than I, and far more dedicated to technology have spent numerous posts trying to figure out just what the Air Force is up to, with most of the comments focusing on just what the processors can do. The speculation, mixing science fiction with fact, is delightful.

edion, a japanese electronic retailer, has announced today that they will allow customers to return their hd dvd consoles and purchase blue ray dvd players for the difference between the original price of the hd dvd players and the sale price of the current blue ray dvd players. talk about building customer loyalty, i would never shop anywhere else again.

haptip to gizmodo

i wasn’t really that impressed by the group of japanese engineers conclusions about the short comings of the macbook air’s design quality. it really seemed like nitpicking to bring up the amount of screws that hold down the keyboard and the non utilized space inside the casing. moreover, feigning surprise that apple would leave room for an upgrade or price drop next year is laughable. really, a corporation using price discrimination to recoup their research expenditures by charging early adopters more for the same thing people who wait will be able to buy next year? you don’t say?

that being said their are some legitimate reasons for not liking the macbook air. some have been mentioned elsewhere so I’ll go over those quickly, however there are others that not many know about that i’ll go over in deeper detail.

1. non-upgradable after purchase: the ram is soldered on with no extra card slots, the hard drive is not customer replaceable, meaning you void your warranty if you even look at the logic board, if you cant plug it into the one usb port than its not going to happen

2. increased repairs: need a battery change? have to send it in. need to reset the smu? send it in. ram need replacing? send it in. hope you don’t have any problems, or when about a year passes by i hope you don’t have any files that you haven’t backed up yet when you’re computer has to go in for a week. moreover i hope you enjoy that feeling of getting screwed when your battery dies after a year and apple care no longer covers it (over $150)

3. using the wireless migration and setup assistant is slow- it takes fourteen minutes to boot to the install disk wirelessly on a 25mb connection. i shit you not. want to migrate files from your old mac using migration assistant? depending on your internet connection speed and the amount of files my experience has been anywhere from 2-20 hours. there are many people who mistakenly think that their macbook air is broken when they’re just waiting on a slow ass connection. and just wait till when you back up your files using time capsule, enjoy.

4. wtf is with the hard drive space?- 80GB? are you kidding me? or you can “upgrade” (for a total price of $3000) to a solid state drive of 64GB. the ipod classic comes with a bigger hard drive and they couldn’t fit something a little bit larger into the macbook air?

5. remote disking cds and dvds- apple has been wrestled by the riaa and the mpaa into using dmr to disallow the wireless transfer of encoded dvds, blue ray dvds, (the now defunct) hd dvds and audio cds. thats right, without a hack you can’t transfer or play a dvd from another computer.

6. want accessories that might make the wireless transfer process a little faster, or maybe allow you to boot to the operating system before you pass out from boredom, maybe you’d like to transfer your remaining cds to onto the computer so you don’t have to buy them from itunes well never mind, because they are expensive as hell for what you’re getting.

7. processors are last generation-even the cheapest model of macbook comes with a 2.2hz processor, you can get up to 2.6hz on the macbook pro. on the macbook air the upgraded version comes with 1.8hz. you are paying premium price for last year’s model in a nice shell.

8. all this to drop three pounds-yes that is the difference in weight between the macbook air and the macbook

9. slim and sexy?- more like easy to break. these things are about a heavy key stroke away from annihilation. just look at it, does this seem sturdy to you?

10. why not just buy an iphone- seriously. they have 90% the same capabilities of the macbook air and they’re about the quarter of the price

long story short, if you’re going to buy a macbook, buy a macbook. if you want a cool toy buy the iphone or ipod touch.

A team of engineers made up of representatives of “Japanese PC makers” have declared the MacBook Air computer to be a “perfect, sophisticated external appearance, but its insides are full of waste.â€

Specific problems include the number of screws to secure the keyboard (30), and a structure that is “hard to comprehend.” Once engineer went so far as to say, “If I proposed such a design, our company would never approve it.â€

Pileus is working on an Internet enabled umbrella that will allow the user to check out websites while their walking down the street, by looking up at the underside of the umbrella. It works by using a small projector to put the image on the inside of the umbrella. It’s enabled for Google Maps and Flickr.

It’s not quite ready for mass production yet as the projector is still pretty bulky and power-hungry, but it looks really cool.

Check out this Reuters report on a Japanese guy who has totally given up on women and maintains a harem of 100 sex dolls.

Looks like the Americans may be gearing up to challenge the Japanese in innovative toilet technology. . .

Thanks to Mr. Pink