The undisputed modern master of parody, Weird Al Yankovic, appeared on Japanese television back when his hit ‘Eat It
[via waxy]
Weird Al Yankovic Performs “Eat It” On Japanese TV at TV in Japan
Tag: Japan
Virtual Reality Never Looked So Cool
Aside from looking like you stuck your hed in a giant… somthing, this device is for virtual reality type simulations.
The still experimental 6-pound bubble-headed helmet has infrared sensors on top that detect which way the wearer’s head is moving. A projector in the back of the helmet displays corresponding images on a 16-inch screen right before the user’s eyes.
I’m sure in a few years they will have this cut down to a more manageable size.
Hey! Spring of Trivia Button
Not many people inthe US know about the hit Japanese show "Hey! Spring of Trivia" but it’s a Japanese game show that was shown for a while on Spike TV here in the states. Its still going strong in it’s native land where each week trivia is put to the test. It’s amazingly popular, you can find segments on YouTube if you want to see the originals. The trivia is given ‘hey’ ratings by the celebrity judges on theas to how impressed they were with the trivia. The number of ‘heys’ received translate into the amount of money the submitter gets. 80 heys, 8,000 yen. A perfect score is 100 and that gets the lucky submitter 10,000 yen.
As the show is popular as all get out, Bandai has made a hey button that you can use to play along with the show or even to be used during normal day conversation. It beats applause or screaming I guess.
That button of spring of ~ popularity television program [toribia]
Jinsei Ginkou
I love the idea of a toy bank that gives you a visual analogy of how much you’ve been saving. Even if the bank is set to use 500 yen (about $5US) it would still work if you fed it dollar coins or even quarters.
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.
TakaraTomy’s fusion of Tamagotchi and coin bank
It’s a flash site or I’d run the link through Google or Excite.
Canon ????????- Paper Craft
Need a little something to get you through the week before starting on your next big project? The Canon paper craft site might have a quick (or not so quick) project for you. Everything from planes to spaceships to scale model insects and all are made from simple paper. BTW, if your in a pinch for a quick gift for the uber geek in your life a few of these will definitely make their day.
[via paper forest]
Doraemon!
When you say ‘Doraemon’ most people will say that he is ‘that weird cat thing from Japan’. That’s partially true. He is a cat, a robotic one from the future, and he has been the start of comics (manga) and cartoons in Japan as far back at the 1970’s. The stories are usually about his friend Nobita getting into some sort of trouble at school or by being too lazy for his own good. Doraemon will normally produce some sort of gadget from his fourth-dimensional pouch that will be the perfect cure for the problem. This inevitably will cause Nobita (or his friends) to get too greedy and screw things up even more…