JapanSugoi

Japanese company March Development Corporation of Fukuoka has created an automated rocking baby crib for new parents who are tired of getting up every few hours to rock their baby back to sleep. The 420,000 Yen Suima 電動ベビーベッドsuima(スイマ)  which has the slogan”Happy Child Care Life”does the rocking for you.

The 946 × 619 × 885mm 60kg bed has a built-in sensor to detect specifically a baby’s cry and the bed automatically starts swaying left and right to a width of about10cm. At first the bed does quick-paced rocking, then slowly settles into the pace of the mother’s heartbeat and eventually, it rocks slower and slower to a more sleep-inducing pace. If all goes according to plan, the baby should be asleep again within 15 minutes.

The bed was made in collaboration with Kyushu University and is for babies aged 2 weeks to 10 months old.  If you’re in Japan, the bed can be purchased for 420,000 yen or rented for for 10,000 yen per month.

Japanese custom robot manufacturer Little Island displayed its new Look Alike Wedding Robot at the recent exhibited 2009 Tokyo International Gift Show.   The robot doll is a follow up from their last year’s Look Alike Talking Robot.

The robot dolls are essentially just a plush PC itself (complete with a 500MHz Geode processor) with sensors that greet people when they detect someone nearby and can respond to voices and carry on a conversation.  That is not new.  What is new is these robot doll looks like you (created from your photograph image) and converse using your voice using prerecorded voice data which is enough to freak out any family relatives.

If you like robots and are thinking of marrying your Japanese girlfriend, the Look Alike Wedding Robots are about 80cm high, weigh 4kg  and can be used in place of the traditional welcome boards seen at Japanese weddings.

Look Alike Wedding Robots

Look Alike Talking Robots

If you enjoyed watching Murata Boy, Murata’s popular bicyclist robot, then you’ll enjoy his female cousin Seiko-chan a unicycle riding robot. The 50 cm-tall robot made by Kyoto precision parts maker Murata Manufacturing, can go forward and back on one wheel and come to a full stop without toppling over.

Seiko-chan uses the same gyro sensor and flywheel technology that went into Murata Boy and kids who saw the biker asked the firm to create a unicyclist and a female employee designed its look.

The small robot can be controlled via Bluetooth and is also equipped with an obstacle sensor and a video camera.  Murata made a total of four Seiko-chan robots to be loaned to schools in Japan and overseas  as a teaching aid. There are no plans currently to make Seiko chan a commercially available product.

Seiko Chan Videos

Seiko-chan riding unicycle

Shimizu TRY 2004 Mega City Pyramid 清水TRY2004大都市金字塔  is a futuristic sky city proposed to be built in Tokyo Bay that is nothing short of impressive.

Should it ever be completed the Shimizu TRY 2004 Mega-City Pyramid will stand 12 times higher than the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt at 6,574ft tall or 2km high with an area of 3 square miles at the base making it the largest man made structure in the world. The proposed structure is so large that it cannot be built with currently available materials, due to their weight. The design relies on the future availability of super-strong lightweight materials based on carbon nanotubes.

The structure would consist of 8 layers stacked on top of each other which would have a total area of 34 square miles. Each layer will consist of smaller pyramids with layers 1 through 4 devoted for mixed residential and commercial usage and layers 5 through 8 for leisure and social facilities.

The Mega City Pyramid plans 240,000 housing units each with its own energy resources (sun and wind) to accommodate up to 750,000 people.

Transportation within the city would be provided by accelerating walkways, inclined elevators, and a personal rapid transit system where individual driver less pods would travel within the trusses.

The exterior facade of the proposed hyper structure will be sprayed with a photovoltaic coating to convert sunlight into electricity for a greener city.  Situated in Tokyo, the Mega City Pyramid will be designed to stand high winds and survive earthquakes and tsunamis.

For many Japanese women, snoring male family members is a real challenge especially considering living in tiny apartments.  An estimated 20 million people in Japan suffer from snoring problems.

One smart anti snoring device is the V1 Snore reduction vibrating pillow developed by Japanese interior design company Francebed who make goods for homes and hotels. Their technology packed V1 Snore reduction pillow is equipped with sensors which when they pick up the sound of 3 successive snores,  starts to vibrate making the snorer change position and stop snoring.

The pillow even has a microphone jack to record the effectiveness of the pillow. It is battery operated and priced at 29,800 yen, or around $300.

Last summer, the city of Sakai 堺市 (near Osaka) teamed up with  Sharp Japan and Kansai Electric Power to announce the green initiative “Sakai City Waterfront Mega Solar Power Generation Plan” 堺市臨海部におけるメガソーラー発電計画. The city plans to build two mega solar power generation plants by 2010 that will will reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 10,000 tons annually.

Although having Asahi’s beer dispensing machines or home robot Asahi Robocco pour beer for you is a nice gimmick, sometimes you want to go to your local bar and have a human (preferably a cute Japanese babe called Nozomi) pour your beer for you.

However, since Japan has a shrinking population, more than likely, you be seeing more of robotic barmen called “Mr Asahi” in the future.