Japan and its alarm clocks. We just blogged the bizarre Clockman on Monday, but major Japanese toy maker Banpresto’s two new models aren’t too normal either. The company has designed alarm clocks using wrestling and boxing gongs as the design motif. The idea actually kind of makes sense but is cruel at the same time.

The way both devices work is that first a referee’s or broadcaster’s voice tortures you with a count down before the bell rings. The only way to stop it is to hit the clock within ten counts in the boxing version or three counts in the wrestling model (with the small hammer you see on the pictures). Otherwise the bell will go on ringing and ringing. The idea is to test the user’s reaction early in the morning.

Banpresto will start selling both version in Japan in the middle of next month. You can get both the boxing and wrestling model shipped to addresses outside Japan over at Geek Stuff 4 U for $49.84.

Via Akihabara News

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).

There are four different versions of the clock, and each of them works differently. The Clockman with blood type A, for example, is the polite type. He wakes you up by saying “It’s time to wake up. Please wake up.”, while the one with blood type 0 will try to get you going in snooze mode by shouting “Fight! Make an effort! Stand up! Fight!” (in Japanese).

The Clockman is sized at 80×83×80mm and weighs 297g. Takara Tomy says each one can speak 300 pre-installed sentences.

The Clockman will hit Japanese stores November 19. It’s available for pre-order at the Japan Trend Shop for everyone living outside Japan (price: $57).

Watch the video (in English) below to see the Clockman in action. It’s creepy.

Via IT Media [JP] and The Japan Trend Shop

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Hello Kitty is 35 years old now, and she still continues to be the dream cartoon cat of millions of teenage girls. If you’re one of these people and have a penchant for gadgets on top of that, this new and strictly limited music player might be the right thing for you. The so-called Hello Kitty Music Player Crystal [JP] is the result of a cooperation between iriver Japan, Hello Kitty company Sanrio and luxury brand Swarovski Crystal.

The player is sized at 47.2×18.0×37.5mm, weighs 19g and comes with 300 of Swarovski crystals that just boost the cuteness a little more. It features 2GB of storage, which is enough for around 480 songs and can play MP3 and WMA files. It supports Windows PC only (via USB 2.0).

The player is Japan-only and will cost $150 when it goes on sale (exclusively online) on October 30. I suggest you contact the Japan Trend Shop, Geek Stuff 4 U or Rinkya in case you live outside Japan and you’re interested in getting one.

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The hardware isn’t that spectacular spec-wise (Atom CPU, 1GB RAM, 160GB HDD), but that’s not really what you’re looking for when you buy this computer, do you?

Via Akihabara News

Japan is heaven on earth for fans of cute gadgets. In the case of mega-popular cartoon cat Hello Kitty, the country offers Kitty-branded notebooks, USB flash drives, a ventilator and even a photo printer. And today, major Japanese telecommunications company SoftBank announced another Hello Kitty gadget, the PhotoVision HW001 KT [JP] (a digital photo frame).

The device supports JPEG/GIF/BMP files, features a 7-inch touchscreen (800×480 resolution), 384MB of internal memory, an SDHC/SD memory card slot and is able to receive MMS sent from SoftBank handsets. On the front, it says “Itty Bitty, Kind And Pretty, The Cat’s Meow, It’s Hello Kitty”.

So far, so cute, but you need to live in Japan and sign a contract with SoftBank in order to lay your hands on the frame (which will be released in this country on Friday).

Sanrio, the company behind the dream of millions of teenage girls around the world, cartoon cat Hello Kitty, is to celebrate the cat’s 35th birthday on November 1st. Reason enough to team up with design USB flash drive maker Mimoco and give us the Hello Kitty X Mimobot, quite possibly the cutest USB stick out there.

The USB drive you can see above is actually just the first in a series of Sanrio-branded Mimoco drives, which will store between 2GB and 16GB of your data.

Expect the first models to come out early next month. No prices have been announced yet but you have to love the detailed press release the two companies put out and that I copied below in its entirety.

Mimoco and Sanrio Global Consumer Products Announce Launch of Hello Kitty® x MIMOBOT® in Celebration of 35th Anniversary!

As part of Hello Kitty’s 35th Anniversary celebration, Sanrio Global Consumer Products is pleased to announce a new partnership with Mimoco, creator of the MIMOBOT® line of contemporary character-based USB flash drives. The collaboration will transform SANRIO® characters into MIMOBOT designer flash drives, debuting in early September with multiple Hello Kitty x MIMOBOT designs produced and released in time for the pop icon’s 35th Anniversary on November 1st.

“Our new partnership with Mimoco brings forth an exciting collection that infuses SANRIO characters with the fun, pop-art world of MIMOBOT” said Janet Hsu, President of Sanrio Global Consumer Products. “The launch collection celebrating Hello Kitty’s 35th Anniversary is sure to be a hit among our fans and MIMOBOT collectors.”

The crossover collaboration with Mimoco will begin with Hello Kitty® and expand to include SANRIO friends Badtz-Maru®, My Melody®, Kuromi®, Keroppi®, Chococat®, and TuxedoSam™ in MIMOBOT form ranging from 2GB to 16GB capacities. The MIMOBOT flash drives will also be bundled with the mimoDesk™ personalization suite of SANRIO-themed wallpapers, screensavers, icons, and avatars, as well as videos and other digital surprises. The line will be available for purchase at MIMOBOT.com and SANRIO.com, select SANRIO boutiques and other specialty retailers.

“We’re honored to be amongst those licensees celebrating Hello Kitty’s big party!” said Mimoco CEO, Evan Blaustein. “We couldn’t be happier to combine the sweet, cute, friendly and legendary Japanese icon with our data hungry MIMOBOT fiends and flash drive platform.”

Hello Kitty x MIMOBOT is one of many special releases honoring 35 years of Hello Kitty. SANRIO is celebrating Hello Kitty’s 35th Anniversary with an exclusive offering of commemorative products, special brand collaborations and ‘Three Apples’, a three week, multi-dimensional event that includes a product retrospective & exhibition at Royal/T in Culver City, CA. Contemporary artists Gary Baseman, Ron English, Buff Monster, Camilla d’Errico, Luke Chueh, Deph, Yosuke Ueno, FriendsWithYou, and Simone Legno are just a few of the 40+ artists that will interpret their vision of Hello Kitty in one-of-a-kind pieces of art that will be for sale and on display throughout the duration of the ‘Three Apples’ event.

Via Akihabara News

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The dream of millions of teenage girls around the world, Sanrio’s Hello Kitty, gets yet another notebook in Japan. This time, the cartoon cat is supposed to boost sales of an Epson model, the Endeavor NJ2150 in “pearl white”. It will be available in two different versions.

The standard version comes with a Celeron 900 processor (2.2GHz), 1GB Ram and an 80GB HDD (price: $1,350). The high-spec Hello Kitty notebook is equipped with a Core 2 Duo P8700 processor (2.53GHz), 2GB of RAM and a 160 GB HDD (price $1,650). Both models feature a 15.4-inch screen, 5 USB 2.0 ports, a 3-in1- card reader, IEEE 1394/IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n WLAN and Windows Vista Home Premium.

In addition to the super-cute design of the hardware itself, you’ll also get a Hello Kitty screensaver and wall papers (which you could have downloaded anywhere on the web anyway). The notebooks will be sold from July 17, but they’re available only in Sanrio’s Japanese online store and a few Hello Kitty shops in Tokyo.

Contact the Japan Trend Shop or Geek Stuff 4 U if you really want to get one shipped outside Japan.

Via PC Watch [JP]

UPDATE: This has been confirmed as fake by Taser.

You know you’ve made it when your product gets the Hello Kitty treatment. This hot pink Hello Kitty Taser is perfect for the man or woman on the go who requires the best in personal protection but isn’t willing to sacrifice style.

If by “style” you mean it’s pink and has the Hello Kitty logo. That’s apparently all you need, though.

Sadly, I’m unable to actually find a product page for this wonderful device meaning that it’s either fake, hasn’t come out yet, or is buried somewhere on the internet. It probably doesn’t matter all that much, though, huh? Were you really going to buy one?

via Topless Robot

We blogged about a number of particularly cute digital photo frames in the past, but this Hello Kitty model beats them all. Announced in Japan by Sanrio [JP] today (Sanrio is the corporation behind the cartoon cat), the device goes on sale in Nippon on May 31. There will be two variations.

The photo frame has a 7-inch screen (resolution: 480×340) and a built-in speaker, comes with a cute remote control and supports the following media formats: JPEG, MP3, WMA, MPEG-1, and MPEG-2. Users can put up pictures via USB or by inserting CF/SD/SDHC/MMC cards or a memory stick. The frame has 6MB of internal memory.

People interested in the Hello Kitty frame (and living outside Japan) might want to contact specialized online shops like the Japan Trend Shop, Gizmine, Geek Stuff 4 U or Rinkya. The Japanese street price is $180.

So, lets say you’re one of the top display makers in the world. Congratulations! Except you’ve grown bored of making all these monitors – you want to mix it up a little. What do you make? Toaster ovens? Nah. Hello Kitty kitchenware? Hell no. You make cell phones. The jump is oh-so obvious, isn’t it?

Read the rest of this entry >>

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There is a big number of gadgets available that feature Hello Kitty, the super-cute cartoon cat and love of millions of teenagers worldwide. There are Hello Kitty-branded digital cameras, alarm clocks, cell phones and even notebooks. Until today, only a ventilator was missing. Not anymore.

Sanrio, the company behind Hello Kitty, has started selling a mini ventilator that’s shaped like Hello Kitty’s head [JP] on Monday. The Japanese street price for the device is $27. Contact the Japan Trend Shop, Gizmine, Geek Stuff 4 U or Rinkya if you live outside Japan and want to make your female friend or yourself happy.

No LaVie (pictured), Hello Kitty, full flat or any other NEC computers for Non-Japanese customers anymore. The Tokyo-based tech giant today told Japanese media it will completely wind down its PC operations outside Nippon within the year and focus on the Japanese market instead.

Production as well as sales in all South East Asian countries will be shut down as early as this July. NEC Computers Asia Pacific, a subsidiary based in Malaysia, will have to fire 270 people. The subsidiary achieved sales of $53 million for the current fiscal year, which obviously wasn’t enough.

In Europe, PC operations will be stopped this summer (after 28 years). NEC shipped a total of 3 million PCs last year, 2.5 million of them in Japan.

In January, the company announced it will have to lay off 20,000 workers. NEC expects a group net loss of a whopping $3 billion for the current fiscal year, with losses made in Europe and Southeast Asia accounting for around $50 milllion.

Hello Kitty, the cutest cartoon cat in the world and dream of millions of (mostly) Asian teenage girls, celebrates her 35th birthday soon. Reason enough for Sanrio, the Japan-based company behind Hello Kitty, and luxury brand Swarovski Crystal to produce a Hello Kitty figure of a very special kind.

The so-called Super Hello Kitty (great naming) weighs 569g and costs 15 million Yen or $152,000. The diamond-clad thing is currently being showcased at a watch and jewelry trade fair in Basel. So hurry to Switzerland if you own that kind of money and want to make your girlfriend really happy.

Via AFP BB News [JP]

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I covered quite a few alarm clocks with annoying features from Japan in the past months, i.e. one that’s shaped like a railroad crossing sign, one that wakes sleepers with helicopter engine sounds and Bandai’s brilliant Gun o’ Clock.

But none of these devices is as cute as the Hello Kitty Action Alarm Clock, today announced by Sanrio (the company behind the ultrapopular character) in Japan.

Once activated, the clock starts moving until it hits a wall and starts to go in circles from there until you catch it and stop the alarm. If not, Kitty plants her feet firmly on the ground and says (in Japanese) “Good morning, it’s time! Goooood morning! Hey, hey, you’re gonna be late!”. Good god.

The Hello Kitty clock goes on sale in on February 12 and costs $70. As it’s Japan-only, I suggest you try contacting either the Japan Trend Shop, Gizmine or Rinkya if you want to make your sister or girlfriend happy.

Via Impress [JP]