This is a video of a humanoid robot in the window of a Japanese department store designed to interact with customers and attract more business. Oooooooor get fondled by perverts. Japanese department store Takashimiya installed an eerily lifelike interactive robot for its Valentine’s window display. The retailer called on robotics guru Hiroshi Ishiguro to provide the humanoid dummy, which can not only wink and yawn as people approach, but also display a range of emotions…While this was just part of the store’s seasonal promotion, it might be a hint at where visual merchandise is going. Oh, it’s a hint at where visual merchandising is going alright. STRAIGHT DOWN THE SHITTER. Oh man, I remember going to the mall when I was a kid and some of the stores would have real-life people posing as mannequins in their windows and my brother and I would try to get them to laugh. I think I may have even showed them my penis once. Which, in hindsight, was probably illegal. For them . I was seven! Hit the jump for I will hide in the bedding section until you close the store for the night and then BURN IT TO THE GROUND.

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I Smell A Boycott (Or Is It A Giant Pretzel?): Customer Attracting Humanoid Store Display In Japanese Mall

TokyoFlash’s new Kisai On Air watch uses an always-on touchscreen LCD to display the time; the “minute hand” points to the hour and displays the minutes. The watch has a bunch of fun animations and some limited customizability, too. A multi-functional watch design, Kisai On Air features touch screen technology and displays the time and date. It also has an alarm mode and animation. The touch screen display has four hot-zones (top, bottom, left, right) which you can simply touch with your finger to change mode; time, date, alarm, light up. Holding your finger in place for a few seconds allows you to customise; hold your finger over the alarm zone to set the alarm, hold it over the time zone to set the time. It’s intuitive, simple and fun to operate. After 15 seconds the screen will lock to prevent accidental input, however the LED light up function can always be operated. To unlock the display, simply swipe your finger across the screen from left to right. Please see the video at the bottom of the page to see this in action. Kisai On Air Black

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Touchscreen "one hand" watch

Behold, the fearsome Japanese War Tubas, used as “acoustic locators” by the Imperial Army. War Tubas

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Imperial Japanese Army acoustic locators: Let loose the tubas of war

I love these “polar ice” molds from the Japanese site Monos; they resemble penguins and polar bears perched on icebergs, and are balanced so they stay upright in your drink. ( via Super Punch )

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Ice-cube molds shaped like penguins and polar bears standing on ice-bergs

If you love Japanese ice-spheres in your booze, but don’t want to spring for a pricey bespoke machine to accomplish the trick, you can always pick up one of Muji’s silicone ice-ball molds, a steal at ?7.50.

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Silicone ice-sphere mold

Greetings from Tokyo! Sean Bonner, who I’ll be meeting in a few days along with the Safecast crew, shares word of a nifty, limited-edition USB gadget to benefit Japan tsunami relief . The tsunami and earthquake have faded from the headlines, but the need for aid is still real. Incubot, in conjunction with partners World Events Productions and CustomUSB, have created a line of Japan Relief customs 2G USB drives : limited edition, fully licensed, and in colors honoring the japanese flag. Packaged in “Ganbari Japan!” custom boxes. 100% of profits go to Japanese Red Cross Society and to Safecast radiation monitoring efforts.

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Incubot shiroi voltron + shiroi nekobot USB Japan tsunami relief

Fun for the whole family! (except children under 48″) This is a picture of Japan’s new Takabisha roller coaster at the Fuji-Q (NOT Suzie-Q) Highland amusement park near Mount Fuji. It features a 121-degree drop so, not only will you be ejected from your seat, but hit by the coaster car afterward . You hear that, Disneyland?! There’s a new happiest place on earth AND IT’S CALLED HEAVEN. …the Takabisha roller coaster boasts the world’s steepest freefall: A gut-melting 121 degrees capable of inducing g-force levels equivalent to those experienced by fighter pilots. The 141-foot, 62mph drop is merely the cherry that tops a 2-mile-long roller coaster cake filled with seven major twists and turns Count me in — I f***ing looooooove puking. Helps remind me I’m alive. Also, that I boozed as hard as I could. GO BIG OR GO HOME! Ooooooooor to the hospital to get my stomach pumped. That charcoal taste is growing on me. Hit the jump for two videos of the dizziness. The first from the ground, the second from the front seat. Now I don’t feel so good.

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Blowing Chunks:121-Degree Rollercoaster Fall

Japanese cooling foam : it may look like dried shaving cream, but it’s not. It’s cooling foam. It makes you feel cold . Also: telling someone you don’t love them. *shivers* Mmmm — plus it’s cheaper. * admiring new dime-sized nips* Products such as these are not new, but we have seen a boom in demand for them this summer with the idea of “setsuden” (energy saving) becoming more imminent in Japanese people’s everyday lives. Products such as “Hokkyoku Monogatari” (directly translated: Tales of the North Pole) offer a whole new method of cooling down in an interesting way. Not only are they convenient, they can be transformed into anything, ranging from a icy wristwatch to graffiti sprayed onto one’s body. The blue foam feels like a giant ball of confetti and as they squeeze it, the air bubbles expand and then “pop,” releasing a refreshing breeze of cool air. Now, I already know the question on everybody’s mind: but is it edible? Thankfully they sent me a can, so here goes nothing! *PSSSHHHHHHH* Not bad. I’m kidding, I’m kidding! *peels off label* Look — I just took the label off a cooling foam and stuck it on a can of spray cheese! “Yeaaaaah, that says ant and roach killer.” Oh shishi. Hit the jump for a video demo if you’re into that (I am sooooooo into that).

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Beating The Heat (Oooooor Shaking A Can): Japanese Aerosol Cooling Foam

This Japanese Emergency toilet may look like a man squatting in a trash bag in front of other people, but that’s just because that’s exactly what’s happening. But — BUT — inside that privacy bag (which should also come with a masquerade mask IMHO) is another, smaller bag containing some sort of weird absorbent pills that soak up all your urine and doodle water and turn it into some sort of disgusting, gelatinous shit monster (video after the jump!). It’s really not a very happy ending. Kind of like in the book I’m writing. SPOILER: Everyone dies. Hit the jump for a deuce-droppin’ demo.

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Pfft, If It’s A REAL Emergency You’ll Just Use Your Pants: The Japanese Emergency Toilet

You know what I want to get into? Taxidermy . Just kidding, but I would get into a bed made of pillows and sleep for like two weeks straight. You know, or a car with a stranger. Candy or not, he’s cute! ‘oritsunagumono’ (translated as ‘things folded and connected’) is a collection of origami works by artist takayuki hori, created to highlight the environmental threat of pollution to a number of species native to japan’s coastal waterways. each translucent sheet is first printed with either the images of fragments of an animal’s skeleton, or, on some pages, human-made discarded objects that are often ingested by the animals in the wild. using the ancient tradition of folded paper, hori assembles the pages into a three-dimensional model. once the paper is folded, the printed components are united as a whole, telling the visual story of the animal’s plight to survive in an increasingly polluted and hazardous ecosystem. Dammit, why’s everything always gotta be about something? How come we can’t just have x-ray origami animals without the sad commentary? Great, now I’m all depressed about birds. One time I knew a goose that as in love with a duck. They lived in my apartment’s parking lot. Personally, I don’t know what that duck saw in him. Hit the jump for a whole bunch more.

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Art As Awareness: X-Ray Animal Origami