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.

Designer: Asahi

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.

Retrofitted with 360 different sensors to take into account information like your weight, the highest value of pressure on the seat and the way you contact with the seat, the seat can identify drivers while they’re sitting down, so as to judge whether or not the person sitting on it is the owner of the car. Only after the seat has assured you’re the owner, you can then start the car to move; if not, the car won’t be started at all. Even though the researchers claim the seat is able to accurately identify the person sitting in it 98 percent of the time, there’s still possibility that the owner won’t be allowed to use the car, which may result in inconvenience to us. Thus, to make the seat widely-used in the future, the researchers need to further develop it, taking other information like how the seat should deal with weight loss and car borrowing into account too.

Designer: Advanced Institute of Industrial Technology

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.

Designer: Yojiya Café

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.

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.

【More Information Here】

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.

Selling Price: $34

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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.

Within minutes after the reagent is sprayed to human body, the cancerous cells will then grow green, therefore allowing for a more accurate distinguishing from healthy tissues. By doing that, all cancerous cells could get completely removed, so as to reduce the risk of disease recurrence. The researchers aim to put the reagent to practical use within a few years, and currently they’re still testing to see whether the fluorescent molecule could be poisonous to cells.

Designer: Yasuteru Urano & Hisataka Kobayashi

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.

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.

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.

Designer: Kisho Kurokawa

【Source】

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.

Designer: Osaka University

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.

Designer: Nendo

【Source】

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…

【Source】

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.

Designer: Koei Industry

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.

Via：Docomo

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.

Developed by a Japan-based company, the new glasses’ secret lies in its storage box that can volatile liquid to keep your eyes wet in the next 2 hours. It’s expected to be launched in October.

Selling Price: 3990Yen

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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.

Selling Price: 1638Yen

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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.

Designer: Yusuke Sugahara

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.

Selling Price: $99

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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.

It is a collaborative work between Osaka University, the mobile telephone operator NTT DoCoMo and other institutes. Via such a design, the researchers aim to make “the mobile phone feel like the person you are talking to” and they proudly described their gadget as a “revolutionary telecom medium”. It is indeed innovative, coming with an outer coating that feels like human skin, installed with a microphone in the head, and featuring a light-emitting chest that will change its color when in different modes. According to the researchers, this cellphone may come into commercial production.

Designer: Takashi Minato @ Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute International (ATR)

Via

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.

Slip the gadget onto your nose, turn on the switch and you can feel gentle electric vibrations coming from the bottom and thus lifting your nose up and up. Cannot believe this gadget can really work? Well, just have a try and you’ll indeed see the difference.

Selling Price: $144

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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!

Selling Price: $71

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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.

Designer: Akira Nakayasu

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.

It is called Tokyo Control and it’s a collaborative work by Fuji and Sony- Fuji created the program and Sony provided equipment and techniques. Eventually the drama series will be available in 3D on SkyPerfectTV while in 2D on Fuji TV.

More Information Here

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. They built a projector and a large fan within the room, and decorated the walls with a sort of clouds. Thus when people participate in the skydiving sport, they will not really fall vertically but actually see the large image below them changing and changing.

For more details, check out the video after the break.

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.

More Information Here

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.

Selling Price: $51

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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.

More Information Here

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?

Selling Price: 10290Yen

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.

Designer: Mount Fuji Architects Studio

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.

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.

Designer: Remo Camerota

The ceilings of Tokyo houses are not always leveled, as the Mount Fuji Architects Studio has designed a new house with a spiral shaped roof for a couple in the local residential area. You’ll know why the house comes with such an interesting ceiling once you step into it: there’s a giant cylinder resembling a tree stem in the middle of the house and the structure gradually fades out into a spiral shape when going towards the ceiling. So you may still feel that you’re living in the country or more exactly in the forest, even though your house is in fact built in the city. Really fantastic.

Designer: Mount Fuji Architects Studio

Who says watermelons are always round? Surprise them with these weird shaped watermelons from Japan! Started by a farmer from Zentsuji in Kagawa prefecture, watermelons were already cube shaped about two decades ago, and nowadays they’re created in more interesting shapes such as the cone shape and the heart shape.

There is nothing special about the Light-Filled Glass Studio itself, because we’ve covered many buildings that use transparent glass as main material. It is odd that the glass architecture is designed for a school of Japan where earthquakes frequently occur, while the studio features no earthquake-resistant walls! But there is no call for you to worry over the studio’s stability, coz the designers have adopted 305 pillars to support the whole building. Made mostly of glass, the studio not only lets in enough light during the daytime, but shines like a diamond when the lights are on in the night.

Designer: Junya Ishigami and Associates

\ (^o^) / Hello everybody, how do you like my new facial expression, isn’t it cute? With the help of the Kaoiro Emoticon Stamp, which has 7 belts with 20 symbols around each, you can create about 2000 interesting Japanese emoticons in total. Fantastic!

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One of the dreams that everybody around the world has is to get close touch with the nature. And expanding upon that concept, the EASTERN Design Office has come up with a unique building that seems to blend into the surrounding landscape. It is the Villa Saitan building.

Outside the architecture are leaf-shaped holes, which not only make the structure rather distinctive, but also let in light.

So you’d like to live in such a house? Go to Kyoto (a city in Japan) or contact the EASTERN Design Office here.

I bet most people will change their wishes of owning a large apartment, after seeing the compact building found in Tokyo. Called as “Reflection of Mineral”, the 44 sqm house looks just like a piece of paper art from the outside, but still features the full functionality, including a bedroom, a living room, a kitchen and a bathroom inside it. And the point I love most is the half-open garage on the ground—that’s really a clever way to make efficient use of space. So you’d like one such house, too? Contact with the Japanese architect Yasuhiro Yamashita then.

Hello, everyone, we’d like to introduce you our new friend, the Nyago Cats, creative robotic toys from Japan’s TakaraTomy. Just keep clapping your hands and these lovely kitties will then start to roll and roll. If you’re considering feeding pets while not planning to spend too much time taking care of them, the Nyago Cats are obviously your best choices.

Selling Price: $79.99

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Memopad and USB seem to be unrelated to each other. But a Japanese company has successfully combined those two things together into the so-called ‘Memopad USB’. It is a 2GB USB flash disk with 100 pieces of scribbling paper for people to take down messages. Sadly the product is only sold in Japan and it is priced at 2680 YEN.

Specification:

Model Number: AB－R017－002

System: Windows Me / 2000 / XP / Vista

Capacity: Flash Drive 2GB

Material: wood, paper

Dimension:15mm (W) × 84mm (USB included）(D) ×16mm (H)

Accessories:

Memo Pad (2)

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These bed headboards take inspiration from the cloth curtains once commonly used by Japanese shops. Each coming with a pole crossing through several loops, the bed headboards could be easily hung on the wall, creating a different atmosphere.

More Information Here

Made from squid skins, these bottle-shaped cans are possibly the most eco-friendly cans we’ve ever met. If you like them, you can also DIY some at home, too. Firstly, you have to prepare some squids, and stuff them with rice or grain; and then leave them under the sun until they’re totally dried to desired shapes. Hmmm, the rice stored by them also has a squid taste, and that’s really perfect for those who love fishy food.

Nowadays, sushi bars are everywhere and most people love sushi a lot. Surely you don’t have necessary skills to make sushi at home, but did you ever try? So we’ve prepared something especially for you sushi-lovers. It is the Anpanman Bento Machine. Just follow the instruction to place materials into the machine in order, roll it and then you can crank out some edible sushi with cute animal faces.

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Hepburn’s masterpiece “Breakfast at Tiffanys” suddenly hit me the moment I saw the Hermes window display, because girls will be completely fascinated by such an advertisement. Tokujin Yoshioka is so clever! An image of woman projected onto a monitor is the main part of the whole display, and when the woman blows on the hanging scarf, it then correspondingly sways in the air. Well, via the display, I’ve somewhat felt the ultra-light, silky texture.

Designer: Tokujin Yoshioka

What couldn’t be artistic, if the most common potatoes have been turned into art works? Via a series of portraitures painted on potatoes, the Japanese designer successfully shows us various aspects of human life.

“Why facial expressions are drawn on potatoes”, the designer explained, “is because potatoes seem to be striking similar to human faces. Not only potatoes have uneven skins, and like us, they have different sizes, shapes and forms.” Amazing!

Russians and Japanese astronauts must have loved beer too much that they decided to grow some barley and make some brew. They call that ‘Space Beer’, which has come to us humans on the earth. Japan’s Sapporo Breweries plans to sell six packs of ‘Space Beer’ to merely 250 people in 2010, costing $115-a-pack or about $19-a-bottle.

A Japanese fashion company has launched an innovative collection of suits for white collars that have to wear formal clothes even in hot summers. Just think of the scorching heat! These suits have been designed with some special ice packs, and they really work to cool down the air. Check the pictures below and see how effective they would be, that’s really awesome!

But at present, only people living in Japan have the opportunity to get such a suit, at the cost of 520 dollars.

The paper toy is a latest series launched by the Japanese retailer Muji and the famous toy-maker Lego. It includes a collection of bricks, paper and hole punching tools, therefore allowing the kids to combine them together with their own imagination.

More Information Here

Who says sunglasses merely defend sunlight? The Japanese Self-Defense Force Sunglasses argued that, they still defend 6.55mm-diameter objects at a speed of 171km/h as well as a 500g shaft of iron dropped from 1.27m…wow, cool! What? Do they withstand a speeding bullet? Oh, man, that only happens in the advertisements.

Selling Price: $317

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