Japanese Stores Archive

  • Sony Japan to roll out a limited edition PSP and a new PS3 bundle

    Sony Japan to roll out a limited edition PSP and a new PS3 bundle

    Gamers who've always wanted to own a PSP in pink, here's your chance: Sony Computer Entertainment Japan today announced [JP] exactly that, a limited edition of their handheld system in so-called blossom pink. Needless to say that technically, this pink PSP 3000 isn't different from a standard model.

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  • HA-FX700: JVC’s wooden (and pricey) earphones

    HA-FX700: JVC’s wooden (and pricey) earphones

    About a year ago, JVC started selling headphones with wooden housing in Japan, claiming the superior sound quality they bring justify the high price ($730). And today the company announced the HA-FX700 [JP], earphones partly made of wood. And we have the same things coming with it again: JVC promising high sound quality and a relatively high price.

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  • Japanese department store offers robots that look like their buyers

    Japanese department store offers robots that look like their buyers

    We all knew this day would come and we all knew this would happen first in Japan. And local department store chain operator Sogo & Seibu is ready to make it possible: You can soon buy robots who look exactly like you. Right, life-size humanoids. The company isn't that sure about its idea though as it plans to offer just two robots for the time being. Sogo & Seibu says they'll start accepting orders in all of their department stores in Japan as soon as early next month. But if there are three or more people interested in getting a robotic doppelgänger, buyers will be chosen by lot.

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  • Exemode SQ28m: Cute mini designer digital camera (video)

    Exemode SQ28m: Cute mini designer digital camera (video)

    Japanese camera maker Exemode has developed the SQ28m [JP, the site is currently down], a mini digital camera that's quite nice design-wise. The device is sized at just 53×23×19mm, weighs21g, can be used with your key chain and is available in red or blue. The SQ28m features 64MB internal SDRAM, but there's also a microSD slot that you can feed with 2GB cards. It sports a 1/2.7" 195MP CMOS sensor that lets you shoot JPEGs in 1,280x1,200 and video as Motion JPEG or AVI in 320×240 resolution and at 8fps. You can transfer all material you shot to your computer via USB 1.1.

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  • Hello Kitty Music Player Premium

    Hello Kitty Music Player Premium

    The Hello Kitty Music Player Crystal, made in cooperation with luxury brand Swarovski, I blogged about in October drew the attention of quite a few (mostly female) CrunchGear readers. One of the problems was the price: $150 for a fairly basic music player isn't cheap. But now Japan-based Mouse Computer, in cooperation with iriver Japan, is offering a similar device. And their so-called Hello Kitty Music Player Premium [JP] is less expensive.

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  • Clockman: Japanese alarm clock has its own personality (video)

    Clockman: Japanese alarm clock has its own personality (video)

    Japan sure has a penchant for weird alarm clocks, as we blogged many times in the past. And Clockman, a new model from major Japanese toy maker Takara Tomy, isn't really normal either. Reasons: It looks creepy, it can speak, its eyes and mouth can move and Takara Tomy says it even has a personality and "blood type" (seriously).

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  • Sanyo rolls out “eneloop Stick Booster” for charging mobile devices

    Sanyo rolls out “eneloop Stick Booster” for charging mobile devices

    I know this thing looks like a ...curling iron, but it's not. The so-called Stick Booster [press release in English] is Sanyo's newest addition to it's ever-growing series of green, "eneloop"-branded products. You can use it to battery-charge your mobile devices.

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  • Hitachi Japan to roll out four new projectors

    Hitachi Japan to roll out four new projectors

    Hitachi Japan has announced a total of four new video projectors [JP] specifically aimed at businesses today. The devices will hit Japanese stores on December 21, but Hitachi hasn’t said yet if the projectors will be sold outside this country as well.

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  • Bizarre trailer for Japanese erotic video game features Obama

    Bizarre trailer for Japanese erotic video game features Obama

    The market for video and computer games featuring erotic content, the so-called eroge, is huge in Japan. As a lot of smaller and independent software companies are battling it out in a highly competitive field, you often come across a lot of bizarre stuff (I've heard). School girl- or tentacle-themed games, for example, are especially popular (although the bulk of the latter are being shipped to a person called Bohn Jiggs who lives in Brooklyn/New York, as my industry contacts told me recently). Another of those strange erotic games, called "My Boyfriend Is the President", hit Japanese stores on October 30. The plot: Aliens brainwash the entire human population into thinking their leaders are in fact cute girls. I'm not sure what the developers were smoking, but I'm sure this game will become as big as the next Final Fantasy.

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  • Qosmio G60: Toshiba unleashes new super-laptop

    Qosmio G60: Toshiba unleashes new super-laptop

    Toshiba Japan has announced a slew of new and updated notebooks today, and one of them [JP] is a monster of a notebook (more will be posted later). The Qosmio G60/97J is basically a high-end computer, digital TV and Blu-ray player rolled into one.

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  • Albo: Sanyo’s new photo and video frame

    Albo: Sanyo’s new photo and video frame

    Sanyo Japan has announced a small monitor [JP] that can be used to display pictures and video material from digital cameras and cell phones. The so-called Albo can also play your MP3s and is capable of infrared communication, meaning users can transfer data from their cell phones wirelessly.

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  • NEC floods Japan with 7 new projectors

    NEC floods Japan with 7 new projectors

    NEC announced a total of seven "green" video projectors for the Japanese market on Friday [JP]. Each has different specs, but the one characteristic all devices have in common is the low level of energy consumption, which stands at just 0.6W in standby mode (down from 3W for the previous projector series from that company).

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  • Sony Japan announces 5 new Blu-ray recorder/HDD combos

    Sony Japan announces 5 new Blu-ray recorder/HDD combos

    The flood of video recording devices coming out of Japan doesn't want to end. Today Sony unveiled five Blu-ray recorders with built-in HDDs [JP] for the Japanese market, and one of them has a 2 TB HDD. Sony says they tried to focus especially on usability and design with these machines.

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  • Hitachi announces 5 full HD TVs with built-in 500GB HDD

    Hitachi announces 5 full HD TVs with built-in 500GB HDD

    There is a clear trend in Japan, where all the relevant new TVs come from, and that's building devices to store programs into the hardware itself, i.e. HDDs or Blu-ray recorders. Mitsubishi appears to be especially radical in this respect, announcing a TV with both a built-in Blu-ray recorder and HDD just last week. And today Hitachi followed up by adding a total of two new LCDs and three plasmas [JP] to their Wooo TV series, with all models featuring a built-in 500GB HDD.

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  • DMX-CG11: Sanyo rolls out new 720p Xacti camcorder with Eye-Fi support and HDMI port

    DMX-CG11: Sanyo rolls out new 720p Xacti camcorder with Eye-Fi support and HDMI port

    Sanyo has been offering Xacti camcorders shooting 720p video (1280×720) for quite a while now, and today Sanyo Japan announced the DMX-CG11 [JP], another (enhanced) 720p model. The new device features a mini HDMI interface and Eye-Fi support.

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