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Really impressive huge-sized installations finished by Japan-based artist Motoi Yamamoto, and all of them are made of salt… Don’t feel doubt about that, even though it sounds unbelievable!

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There’s always one reason you love the lunar craters: to the scientists, they’re mysterious part of the Moon that may bring them new findings; while to Shiro Studio, they’re rightly the source that inspire them to design these Mare Tranqullitatis. The diversity of depths carved in them allows you to steadily place different objects, and at the same time they can create a changing height and art too.

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Although video conferencing setups are no longer new creations, this system from Japan-based NTT lab is still worthy of your consideration. Completely different from those people use today, the breakthrough system utilizes a technology dubbed as “MM-Space”, which makes the process of talking over a network seem more realistic. The system comprises actuators, speakers, projectors and a see-through screen, which is announced capable of recording faces and voices of people who are participating in a video conference. Whenever the person is talking, the recording will be made; and it will be cast where the conversation is created.

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The unbeatable charm of technology is that it makes everything possible: in Japan, the males can now kiss girls in a poster, in a way, completely virtually. Named as “Interactive Kissing Poster”, the design is put forward by researchers from Keio University. Mainly based on a built-in sensor, these new posters can give the viewers a sense that he/she is kissing the person on the screen… Also, the person you kiss may get a blushing face as you move away from the screen. The developers hope to include other sensory options such as smell, taste and audio in the future, which means the next-version Interactive Kissing Posters will become more attractive and interactive.

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Small small matches, big big world, these creative miniature sculptures from Japan are finished with high-level crafting skills and amazingly splendid imaginations, and each of them is related to either a famous people in history or a character in movies (or novels).

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It is said the world’s best violins come with strings made from catgut – which sounds bit of weird and uncomfortable to somebody. Thus, if you cannot try with those violins, you may take the violin with strings made from spider silk into account. In Japan, a researcher Dr Shigeyoshi Osaki has used thousands of strands of spider silk to produce a set of violin strings, which announced to have a “soft and profound timbre” compared to gut.

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Bite, bite, and bite, these amazingly cute erasers here want to remove every word from your paper with their sharp white teeth… Isn’t it interesting? Available in four different kinds, these erasers are priced at 128 Yen.

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The beverage or snacks in vending machines seldom attracted your attention? Never mind, as they have now managed to draw the crowds to move closer and closer, by offering WiFi without any charge. Unveiled by Japanese company Asahi, the machine sends out internet waves that cover about 164 feet around it, allowing people to use it continuously even though there’s a 30-minute limit on each session. Asahi is planning on rolling out 1,000 of these in 2012.

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New method is put forward here to keep your cars away from theft, and it’s the Car Seat Identification technology developed by Japanese researchers.

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No more a long waiting time in cafes, as a vending machine can actually offer us a cup of coffee with a patterned foamy top too while costing less time and less money. This special vending machine appeared at the Yojiya Cafe in Haneda Airport, Japan, which uses drips of coffee poured carefully through milk to form a face on the top of your hot beverage. Currently the machine only offers coffee with the face of a woman floating on the top, and possibly in future the machine would come with other options like a hello kitty.

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I love vending machines, because I could always easily find my favorite cola there. But things are different now, as the Transparent Touchscreen Vending Machine developed by Sanden, in cooperation with Okaya Electronics and Intel offers me another reason to appreciate the machines: you love it simply because the vending machine is fabulous! It comes with a 65-inch full HD vertical screen on front, displaying animated graphics, clock time and other information from time to time. As people walk by, it would display customized menus based on facial recognition technology.

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Toshiba’s latest development is a portable video camera that provides real-time visualizations of radiation hotspots. It is built with a radiation sensor and a signal processing device, indicating the amount of radiation in different colors: red for high amounts of radiation and yellow, green, blue for lower levels. The device is not only functional, but also saves large quantity of time usually spent on radiation detection, thus claimed to be quite ideal for detection work. The company will have a field test of the camera in collaboration with Fukushima City within this month and plan to promote its use to the central bureaucracy and local governments in Japan in early 2012.

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Speed up, speed up, when using these Japanese Bullet Train Chopsticks to enjoy your lunch, you may feel that the food is “flying” into your mouth with a higher speed… Wow, so cool! But in fact these chopsticks are common ones as others, although they feature a unique shape of bullet trains, they’ll never threaten your life as real trains do.

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The treatment for cancer may soon find a more effective alternative, as scientists from Japan and America have collaborated with a new reagent that makes cancer cells glow and thus visible to human’s naked eyes.

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On the Tokyo Motor Show Toyota has unveiled its Fun-Vii concept, a futuristic vehicle that allows the drivers to change the exterior design “with the same ease as downloading an application”. But that’s not all, because the Fun-Vii also features magical exterior display technology that lets drivers to display information on any places inside the car. To make the Fun-Vii more functional and attractive, the car can even be customized, with many themes and an augmented reality function taking place of the traditional navigation system.

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Though many of my friends love cup noodles, they seldom know that the first cup noodle was launched by Nissin Food in 1971. Now forty years have passed, the Nissin has collaborated with Japan’s Vstone (JP) robotics to make some Cup Noodle Robot Timers in commemoration of the 40th anniversary of cup noodles. There will be totally 10,000 timers sold to the public under some sort of a lottery system.

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What will the futuristic architecture look like? Japan-based Kisho Kurokawa’s “Nakagin Capsule Tower Building” may offer us some inspireations. Put forward in 1972, the tower building was constructed of 140 individual pods that could be changed and moved freely, thus to create a modular building with full functions. In the designer’s assumption, the 140 pods should get replaced about every 25 years so that the whole building could have a 200 year life span.  To let many more people get in a close touch with the “Nakagin Capsule Tower Building”, Kurokawa recently showcased one pod at the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo, in which the visitors would find a full-furnished house for temporary living.

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Can balloons be used as an input device? Even though currently they cannot serve as functionally as keyboards or touchscreens, the system invented by a research group from Osaka University indicates that a balloon is really able to input and send your messages. With a pressure sensor and a microphone built inside the balloon, it can detect the distinctive sounds of stroking, striking the balloon or feel the change the pressure when it is squeezes, so as to recognize your actions.

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I’m another Alice now, experiencing everything that she has ever met in Wonderland with this whimsical climbing wall. Designed by Nendo for Illoiha fitness club in Tokyo’s fashion district, the climbing wall is built with mirrors, picture frames and other elements drawn from the “Alice in Wonderland”, making it not only full of odd unreal color but also quite intriguing to the users.

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Japanese-based TOTO is possibly the first toilet manufacturer that keeps their product on the move. Its main aim is to promote TOTO’s environmental efforts, by converting human waste into bio-gas fuel. Another good thing about this Toilet Motorcycle is, the TOTO toilet can play music or even communicate with the users. Though the idea is quite amazing, it is bit of crazy to take a toilet everywhere…

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Almost all things change to create their own beauty, and so does the waterfall. In Osaka City Station, there’s a unique waterfall designed by Koei Industry that performs various patterns as the water falls down. The system is based on a printer that emits illuminated water droplets, which are controlled with a computer. To learn more about the fantastic beauty, let’s check out the video below. [Read the rest of this entry...]

On the Good Design Expo in Tokyo, Japan-based Docomo company built a giant screen to introduce their latest Palette UI interface, something that would improve the navigation between each app on your cellphones by assorting your softwares. Still, the Palette UI is really fantastic, because it would attract butterflies, numbers, and other elements into a cellphone and changes then into colorful stripes. To understand how great the Palette UI is, please check out the video below for more information. [Read the rest of this entry...]

Believe me, we people working at a computer for days are badly in need of such special glasses with moisturizing function to prevent our eyes from fatigue or dry. [Read the rest of this entry...]

Pity that the summer makes you hot but happy that this unique foam from Japan will cool you down. Simply with a press on the button and you’ll get blue foams on your skins to have their temperature go down. Sepecially, these foams can become cute ornaments if you build them into a wrist protector or something else. [Read the rest of this entry...]

The way a vehicle moves will soon meet much more great changes in the future, especially after a Japanese research team led by Yusuke Sugahara has come up with this ground-effects vehicle that floats within inches above the road. Featuring a top speed of up to 124 miles per hour while eliminating rolling resistance more effectively, the Aero Train may begin its service in 2020. Let’s wait for it. [Read the rest of this entry...]

Facial Lift At Once promises that you can have your cheeks, chin, lips, mouth and nose get enough exercise with merely 3 minutes’ use everyday. Featuring effective functionality, this gadget is also easy to easy and what you need to do is to slip the Facial Lift At Once into your mouth. So convenient! To meet your different needs, its pulsing comes in four different levels of strength while all in a 360-degree spread. [Read the rest of this entry...]

Japan often brings us with new telecom products and concepts and this time some designers from this eastern country have come up with a prototype that resembles a human body. [Read the rest of this entry...]

Smile and say hello. With this training apparatus worn on your face, you’ll be forced to smile no matter whether you’d like to do that or not, because the device will produce weak electricity to have your facial muscles move and act. So seriously: smile and smile, or you’ll feel stronger electricity… until you truly smile.

Everyday you need to spare only three minutes with the Beauty Lift High Nose and the handy beauty gadget will then ensure you a beautiful nose. [Read the rest of this entry...]

The Tama-Robo Ball Robot is recently quite popular in Japan and we bet it would soon find some new fans in America. Tama-Robo comes with four light sensors and as a result it will move toward the light whenever the robot “feels” the light. But before you play with the Tama-Robo, you’ll firstly need to put him together. So have you gotten ready for that? The Tama-Robo is soon coming! [Read the rest of this entry...]

Plant Robot, designed by Japan-based Akira Nakayasu, gets its name not only from the same shape as real plants, but also from the fact that it can make the leaves wave too. It has 169 mechanical branches and each of them is controlled by a separate engine. As a result, the leaves will wave automatically when you sweep your hands across them. [Read the rest of this entry...]

So you’ve already gotten 3D television equipment home but still waiting for a TV Serie or another 3D movie to try them? Then congratulations as you can soon watch the world’s first 3D TV series at home. [Read the rest of this entry...]

Skydiving is usually believed to rank the top three among numerous venturesome sports, and the high risk of getting hurt has kept many people away from the exciting extreme sport. What a pity… But recently several Japanese designers have found a new way to let people engage in this sport. [Read the rest of this entry...]

Fujitsu Laboratories Ltd. recently announced a new hybrid energy harvesting device that can convert both heat and light into electricity. Different from other devices that generate electricity from heat and light with the help of other devices, this one from Fujitsu can manage that process all by itself. Furthermore, the hybrid device is also believed to “pave the way to the widespread use of highly efficient energy harvesting devices” due to its low cost. [Read the rest of this entry...]

Honestly the Furoshiki Bag 2 is neither a promotion nor a new design, but it does bring back the good tradition of using original cloth bag to carry things. Reusable and eco-friendly, these bags can also keep your things neatly for convenient packing. [Read the rest of this entry...]

For so long a time we’ve been dreaming of a TV set that lets us smell the delicious foods when we see them on the screens, however it’s still a dream nowadays. But good news is that we can at least own a printer that lets us smell the foods on the pictures now. The amazing printer is a collaborative work by Japanese scientists from Keio University, who developed an innovative technology that can print smells using a modified ink-jet printer. Therefore next time you see an apple, you can catch the sweet aroma of the apple too. Isn’t that fantastic? I even couldn’t wait to have a try with the Smells Printer. [Read the rest of this entry...]

When most shoe designers still go after delicate surface decorations and creative shoes patterns, somebody pays more attention to making shoes that have beautiful soles. Inspired by Japanese woodblock print, these shoes each features a unique sole and will leave behind ‘Great Wave’, ‘Swami’ or ‘Surfing Penguin’ as you step forward. Isn’t that amazing? [Read the rest of this entry...]

Who would ever dare to sit on a piece of mirror, which is usually believed too brittle? Obviously the Japanese dare to do so. At the Towada Art Centre in Japan, there’re several mirrored benches standing beneath cherry trees for the visitors to sit on. When the cherry trees were in full blossom, these chairs will also look quite beautiful. And to tell you the truth, these chairs are not made from mirror but stainless steel so you needn’t worry about your safety. [Read the rest of this entry...]

Will kids and adults enjoy as much fun as that they have when seeing fish swim freely in the water, if they’re actually in such a frozen aquarium? Maybe everyone has a different view about this. But at least we’ll all agree that the idea of preserving over 450 specimens of marine life in ice is bit of cruel, right? After all, a place that is full of iced fish can not be named as an “aquarium”, but a cold storage instead. [Read the rest of this entry...]

Possibly next time you’re asked why Japan is a country full of creativity, you should show them the example of Japanese manhole covers. In a photography book “Drainspotting”, artist Remo Camerota has documented many interesting drain covers, in order to show the world something Japanese that hasn’t been spotted. “Carrying at least four cameras at any one time you can be assured that I will be documenting much that Japan has to offer in the coming future and releasing books, Ipad Photo books and Painted Artworks.” Camerota writes. [Read the rest of this entry...]