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A Quick Glimpse of Tokyo Toy Show 2008
Posted by Mark Wilson at 11:45 PM on June 20, 2008
For those of us not lucky enough to be at this year's Tokyo Game Show, here's a quick highlight video running through some of the more interesting products. Our favourite has to be the AeroSpider by Takara Tomy. It's an R/C car that can burn donuts on 90-degree surfaces (like walls) and then top off the act by driving completely inverted on the ceiling. We're sure that parents will just love it. [CScoutJapan via bbGadgets]
I know, you thought tequila was only good for inducing impromptu wet T-shirt contests. And who would have expected more from the famous alcohol? But now, researchers from the University of Nueva Leon have found that tequila can be an even better semiconductor component than silicon.
One little piece of trivia that I learned 
Those egg-heads from Thanko have spent the best part of a year banging their large, domed cerebelli together, tackling what is without doubt the biggest question that the human race faces this millennium: how to upgrade their air-conditioned tie. And this is what they came up with—hiding the fan grille behind the fabric. Let us stop on this Friday morning (day, slow, news, a, it's, yeah. Now make a sentence out of that) and consider the evidence:
Things'd have to be pretty desperate in your love life if you needed one of these Ikemenbank, or "handsome men banks" from Bandai. For each 500 yen coin you drop in the heart-shaped gadget, you're rewarded with the next step of a virtual love affair with a Tamagotchi-like digital chap inside. He speaks to you with emotionally supportive phrases, but needs constant attention. Not dropping a coin in for five days results in him leaving you, with nothing but a digital love letter to remind you of his pixels. Fill it up with 100 coins, however, and you get the romantic conclusion—it can be happy or sad—but I'm not clear exactly how pornographic it would be... Anyhow, if you're lovelorn, and in Japan it will be out for around US$46 in September. [
German car manufacturer Mercedes is buying the iPhone-is-God credo, and has come up with a designated piece of gear to allow Benz drivers to integrate their iPhones into the car system. The US$249 gadget works with the C-, E-, CLK-,
The Orange County District Attorney has charged 18-year-old student Omar Khan with 69 felony counts—including identity theft, computer fraud, falsifying a public record, second degree burglary and watching Ferris Bueller's Day Off and War Games 5,405 times—after allegedly getting into Tesoro High School's computers to change his grades. The Matthew Broderick wannabe was not very subtle, though, leaving a trail the size of the Exxon Valdez's oil spill.
Rather like Holland in the Euro 2008 soccer tournament, Sega seems to be going all out on the ball front right now. Its latest addition to the Homestar family, those spooky-ooky balls that throw kaleidoscopic and galactic crazy shapes across the walls of your home, is the Homestar EX. Bigger, blacker brother to the 
This gizmo from Brando is a carabiner with a USB flash drive embedded in it. M'kay. Handy for... um... snapping onto your notebook case, and securing it to your climbing harness as you tackle the north face of the Eiger? Actually no, because despite supporting Windows, OS X and Linux, it won't support you: I'm sure I should be able to see a "do not use for climbing" sign on it somewhere. It's got 4GB of storage, comes in six colours and is US$32. [
Hey guys. 
It's been a while since we brought you some 
The "$1 per Watt" barrier may not sound as impressive as the sound barrier, but this next-gen wind turbine is the first, and has an unusual design. The AeroCam's horizontal-axis, flat-blade shape has blades that are dynamically angled to maximise wind-catching. It's also compact, so can fit into urban environments, and captures wind from any direction. Plus, AeroCam turbines make less noise and vibration than conventional ones, wear out less quickly and cost less to build. They may even be cheaper than solar panels, so it seems like a win-win-win. Since a 250kW unit will cost US$250,000, it'll be your energy suppliers, not you, that ends up owning one. [
With the 3D drawing pad, your ugly scribbles will look like high-tech masterpieces. The paper on the pad has a special background that makes black pencil marks appear 3-dimensional when seen through those classic blue-and-red specs. A pack of 50 sheets (with glasses) is only US$4, an awesome deal if it really works. I know what you're thinking, but I'm more mature than that. I would use my 3D pad to draw ripe, juicy watermelons and big, long rocket ships. [
The Mars Phoenix just issued a highly official 
This Bluetooth speakerphone will take your phone's address book and read out callerID names on ring. It also can pair with 8 devices and connect to the one ringing. [
Intel's for-profit take on the OLPC concept will soon share a UI with its spiritual predecessor. Walter Bender, the guy who made the original child-friendly Sugar interface with the OLPC project, told PC Magazine that Sugar will be adapted to the Classmate PC. Intel had previously disassociated themselves with the OLPC program because they really wanted to continue developing the Classmate. Because I guess earning money from the emerging world is more satisfying and because, you know, Intel needs more. That and more gas on the OLPC and Classmate flame war. [
Recently, Disney announced the grand opening of their new Innoventions Dream Home located in Tomorrowland in Anaheim, Calif. The construction was a collaborative effort between Disneyland, Microsoft, HP, Life|ware and home-builder Taylor Morrison--so naturally the home functions more as a big advertising campaign for current products than an actual "home of the future." Still I wouldn't mind booting out the fictional Elias family from their 5000 sq ft home to get my hands on some of this tech.
Not only are we gigantic fans of the Metal Gear Solid series as a whole (we're guts deep in the latest saga right now), we're also big fans of being able to tell time. That's why this limited edition MGS4 watch, given to preorder sales at UK's Gamestation, is so damn fantastic. There are only 500 of these Hideo Kojima-endorsed watches in the entire country, which makes us sad. Preorder yours now if you're a Brit and you like the action stylings of Solid, Liquid, Naked, Solidus and Old Snake. [
Move over 
This week Nintendo 
The special edition is 28 bucks down from US$40. But there is no non-special edition. Fishy, but hey, 
SE2 Labs let us have a look at the ITC One, an integrated movie, TV, gaming and music system 
ATI's next line of Radeon graphics cards--the RV770-based 4800 series--doesn't officially launch until June 25, but Hot Hardware's got benchmarks already on the first shot, the mid-range US$199 Radeon HD 4850. It's prompted a response from Nvidia in the form of the US$229 
A Toyota Prius outfitted with one of Lithium Technology Corporation's plug-in conversion kit exploded after the owner saw balls of fire in the backseat. Luckily the owner was smart enough to vacate the cars after seeing flames, but not smart enough to not drive the car even when its PHEV15 plug-n kit was experiencing "charger-related problems." Other than the fact that you should learn to be careful after installing aftermarket parts on your car, the only other thing we can take away from this story is to jump out of your vehicle when you see fire. [
This great "HD for Kids!" coloring book by Non-Toxic Reviews teaches tykes all about the joys—and pitfalls—of High-Def TV through activities like tracing burn-in on a plasma screen and the borderline-autistic "draw 1,080 dots inside this HDTV". The book is too funny not to be a little tongue-in-cheek, but the lessons are real and helpful for people of all ages. I can definitely relate to the part that gets the younggins disappointed early in life when they realise they have four HDMI devices, but only one input to plug them into. Check out our favourite pages in the gallery, and get the full book for free by hitting the link. [
AT&T's doing a desktop browser called Pogo--it's a "3D visual web browser" built on Firefox 2. (They're moving it to Firefox 3 currently.) It has some graphically interesting ways of doing bookmarks, history (probably my favourite feature with a Time Machine-like 3D timeline) and tabs, and a dock along the bottom. I'm kind of mixed on it so far--the eye candy doesn't always translate into more productive browsing--but they're looking to spread out the beta pool and have given us a code that's good for 500 downloads if you want to check it out. Update: Code is DEAD! But we're trying to get more.