OK, now I know what I wanna for Christmas: the ASTACO (Advanced System with Twin Arm for Complex Operation). This machinge god has been developed by Hitachi in 2005 to respond to diverse application requirements of heavy-duty machines. A special feature of the ASTACO is its ability not only to make complex actions, such as cutting an object while holding it, pulling an object while holding other things, and bending long objects, but also delicate actions such as holding soft, fragile objects. This feature allows the ASTACO to operate in various fields, including recycling and handling dangerous articles, and rescuing people at disaster sites.
Ok, maybe the Tomica toy that reproduces the real ASTACO (realeased on August 15th) will be easier to get from my Sexy Santa...


via b1.robot.am (my new favourite blog!)

Today is the day: Kotaku started the final attack the DEATH STAR!  Via @Brian_Ashcraft
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SINCLAIR C5 is the future of automotive industry!!! I wanna buy one and use it in Tokyo!

There is even a new C5 tribute track from Puppet Dys Music !!!  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcirE4qWv6o
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Electronic Music Producer Skweee Recording and Artist Fredrik Mjelle from Stockholm created these super kawaii LEGO synths to celebrate their MP3 album "The Future" downloadable for free from BEEM official website (in the ZIP file there are 10 differentes LEGO cover artworks for each of the 10 lego elecro/disco tracks)...

from ワンフェス2009夏 Wonderfestival 2009 (photo by Epytwen)

AkibaBlog spotted these figures during the WONDER FESTIVAL Summer 2009 so I'm wondering if next week NYT will title: "2  girls 1 cup: 94.3% of Japanese obsessed with toilet feticism"...
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This is the video of the tingeypa's submission for the Microsoft Dare To Dream contest. The contest required entrants to build an embedded application using the new Micro .Net framework which allows C# programming on a resource constrained platform. The entry needed to use a prototyping board with touch screen provided Microsoft. My entry was a touchscreen driven programming & execution environment called Brickstick that allows Lego IO to be connected to the prototyping board and programed and run controlled without the use of a PC. All programming and execution is done through the touch screen. This makes it easy to build remote controlled robot with sophisticated features, without the complexity of a complex programming environment. My entry used a number of complex I/O types utilising the I2C bus such as the NXTCam, NXTServo and PFMate, all designed and built by Mindsensors.

The New York Times just published a scandalistic article about 2D lovers like Nisan (photo above) who dates his Moe cushion.

"Nisan is part of a thriving subculture of men and women in Japan who indulge in real relationships with imaginary characters. These 2-D lovers, as they are called, are a subset of otaku culture— the obsessive fandom that has surrounded anime, manga and video games in Japan in the last decade. It’s impossible to say exactly what portion of otaku are 2-D lovers, because the distinction between the two can be blurry."

Are you sure?! If you have been in Akiba or Toyko even once you know that this "new phenomen" (as they call it) is fake/maked up. Have you ever seen otakus dating their Mow pillows?!  Me no...
This is an example of why traditional journalism is sinking and why writers outside the Otaku culture should stay out of it and do not write about it...

Basically they took a classic WaiWai style "scoop" and presented it as a real and widespread social phenomenon in Japan !!


Have anyone ever seens a person like this freak eating in real restaurants with his moe cushion?!  99.99999% of MOE fans would never take a "REAL" walk with their MOE cushion (usually these photos are staged by otakus for their own blogs).

This guy is the "SO RONERY" net super star that a couple of years ago flooded the otaku forums around the (geek) world...

Kim Jong Il in the movie Team America: World Police by the creators of South Park.

“I’m so ronery, so ronery, so ronery and sadry arone.” - UrbanDictionary.com

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Update: according to the Japanese blogger Hitagi this "story" is 6 years old!!

Update: Adamu @ MutantFrog wrote a great post about this NYT piece.

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Why journalism can't be 2.0 and stop to report about totally fake phenomenons?! They should understand that thanks to google it's easier to uncover fake stories like this (note: for fake I mean take one person and elevate his supposed lifestyle to a social phenomenon)...  Kind of sad that the NYT is so ronery...

I don't have cited he author of this article since I respect her works and I'm sure this is the result of the NYT "cut and paste" editors more than her... I can't belive she really meant to say that this guy is part of a widespread otaku phenomenon!

Whats next on NYT agenda? Support for the anti-eroge campaign started by Equality Now?!
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My old friends Okubo San (author of mecha design for cult games like Tekki for xbox and Infinite Sapce best selling DS game. REcently he published the book Industrial Divinities) and Kentao "Ani" Fujimoto from Nendo Graphixx (the designer that over 10 years ago started the pixel/famicom design boom) are goin to partecipate to natsu comi and will sell a doujinshi called The eightbit fighters Chonicles Vol1. This mini book will feature Okubo 3D reproductions of the best spacecrafts from 8bit shooting games.
 

OK, now tell me that Japan is not the geek paradise. Now you can buy a kigurumi costume to dress like the famous Asimo: the biped robot from Honda! Ok, you must be less taller than 175 cm but nothing is perfect after all. Tjis costume is sold by several Japanese online shops at 37.500 yen (tax included) and needs 5 days to be delivered. Seems perfect for Comicon!
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Nissin have produced a limited edition of Mini Gunpla Cup Noodles (a brand of instant ramen noodle) to celebrate the 30th aniversary of the Gundam robot anime series. There are 4 different model kits (Gundam RX78, ZAKU II, CHAR ZAKU II and the DOM). These GUNPLA CUP NOODLES (GUNPLA = Gundam Model Kits) will be released the 31th August: the last day of the 1/1 Gundam in Odaiba. It’s quite ironic since the Gunpla contained are in 1/380 scale: the smallest Gundam model kits ever produced by Bandai!
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(via modellismo) From the 1st August, Kyosho and Nikon, will shocase a special mix between the micro RC cars Mini Z and the Augmented Reality video/headphones system called UP Media Port. It still unclear if this will be a real product or just a "location test" in the Kyosho Ototesando Shop (Tokyo) but I'm sure if they will tranform it into a commercial product ther ewill be a lot of gadget freaks (like me) ready to buy these cars!
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Her eis a preview of the Tokyo Toy Show 2009 that will be held in the Tokyo Big Sight from 16 to 19 July!
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