japan

They're pneumatic in all the right places.

Giant fembots have set up shop in Tokyo and they're drawing both Japanese businessmen and otaku geeks in droves.

Robot Restaurant recently opened in Kabukicho, one of the world's largest tenderloin areas, with a gimmick that combines giant robots with sexy gals.

The establishment is selling out its cheap dinner shows featuring scantily clad ladies riding around on 10-foot-tall female humanoids, also scantily clad. … Read more

Forget the zombie apocalypse for a moment. What if a real disaster struck your neighborhood? Where would you, or relief workers, take shelter?

As thousands of Japanese are still coping with the aftermath of the 2011 Tohoku quake and tsunami, Osaka-based Daiwa Lease recently showed off this shipping container, a home for disaster zones. … Read more

Congratulations, you're expecting! Now, how about turning that great news into something that will fit on a keychain.

Japanese company Fasotec will make a miniature 3D replica of your fetus and hand it off to you in a lovely jewelry box for about $1,280.

Fasotec calls the custom product "Shape of the Angel," an optimistic view that precedes the reality of the tantrums and eventual teenage angst you'll have to contend with as a parent.… Read more

Mecha-heads rejoice: A Gundam-style giant robot has come to life in Japan, promising joyrides aplenty in this 13-foot humanoid machine on wheels.

Suidobashi Heavy Industry showed off its Kuratas mecha bot over the weekend in Makuhari just outside Tokyo.

Kuratas is a four-wheeled, 30-joint exoskeleton that can be piloted from its cockpit or remotely with a 3G touch-screen phone. It was demoed at the Wonder Festival, where legions of robot fans gathered.

Kuratas can move its massive torso, arms, and hands, and has a few "weapons" like a "LOHAS launcher," but it actually shoots BB pellets and fireworks. It can also grab things (like humans) with its claw-like fingers. … Read more

You'd think there aren't any Japanese left whose fingers aren't incessantly caressing a smartphone touch screen, but NTT DoCoMo begs to differ.

The giant carrier will launch the Android 4.0 Raku-Raku Smart Phone on August 1, targeting novice touch-screen users, with a display that mimics the feel of old-fashioned buttons.

When a menu item on the screen is touched, it gets highlighted. The user then has to push more firmly to confirm the choice. The handset responds with a click and slight vibration. … Read more

A Japanese inventor appears to have put an awful lot of effort into enabling laziness. A modder going by the handle of "FRP" looks to have designed a mobile wastebasket that can ambulate around to catch any falling (preferably with a high arc) trash you toss in its general direction.

FRP replaced the bottom of the can with some wheels attached to something similar to an Arduino board. On the other end of the system is a wall-mounted Kinect that watches for flying debris, calculates the landing spot, and then sends the can to catch the garbage like an outfielder going after some rookie's pop-up.… Read more

The art of humorous storytelling in Japan, known as rakugo, isn't as popular as it once was. But now an android has joined the ranks of comics who kneel on cushions while spinning out jokes.

The narrative droid is a copy of Beicho Katsura III, an 86-year-old rakugo comic recognized by the government as a Living National Treasure.

The Beicho Android, as it's known, is the work of Osaka University professor Hiroshi Ishiguro, creator of the Geminoid series of lifelike androids, and makeup artist Shinya Endo. … Read more

Japan's nuclear spring didn't last long. Though the country's nuclear power plants were taken offline following the Fukushima nuclear disaster last year, the government restarted a reactor earlier this month.

But that hasn't stopped a small village some 50 miles from the Oi plant from ditching conventional electricity from the grid and going solar.

Sanno in Hyogo Prefecture, population 42, has become the first municipality to rely on solar power.

Residents of the 11 households have an average age over 60, and the village, like many in rural Japan, is suffering depopulation. Costs for maintaining shared … Read more

Why is it that all the geeks of the universe haven't just up and relocated to Japan by now? The latest demonstration that the island nation is a nerd utopia comes in this video of one man's real-world "date" with a programmed augmented-reality girlfriend.

Using a Microsoft Kinect, AR goggles, and some other sensors, the unidentified man in the video goes to the park with a digital representation of virtual pop star Hatsune Miku. Yes, they have virtual pop idols in Japan, too -- it's kind of like if Max Headroom and Katy Perry somehow managed to get together and reproduce a singing anime hologram.… Read more