From Ningin: The Japan Ringing Tone Laboratory has developed 27 ringtones so far that can help ease up some of your troubles. More »

…then join ‘em. Sony stores have been in existence for around several decades, but they have been bland looking places…until now. On March 13th in Nagoya Japan, Sony opened the doors to its first Apple inspired Sony Store. More »

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From Rekuru: Is Purikura too ‘tame’ for you? Has the thrill of drawing strawberries and fireworks all over your friends worn off? Well then you might want to give Videkura a try. More »

From Girlybubble: Sadly, I’m not an owner of a PSP but the PSP-3000 Sweet Limited Package, has got me wanting one in the worst way. The package is a collaboration between Sony and American fashion designer Jill Stuart. The bundle features a Blossom Pink-colored PSP-3000, a 4GB memory stick, a Jill Stuart cloth and a Jill Stuart-branded PSP carrying case. For the fashionista in me, this is one sweet deal. More »

From Rekuru: What do you buy a geek who already has every cool gadget? How about a $3,300 wireless programmable robot, care of Fujisoft. More »

I’m not going to lie; I would totally be willing to drop $160 on the Yantouch Jellyfish LED Lamp. Unfortunately, the lamp, claiming to be able to display 16 million colors, is currently only available in Japan. More »

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iPhones, netbooks, laptops and MP3 players are kind of a snore when it comes to evaluating each based on normality. Luckily for us, 2009 saw no shortage of weird gadgets to off-set the trend of normalcy. This brings us to our list of the Top 10 Weirdest Gadgets of 2009. More »

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Living in a home devoid of nectar bearing flowers, humming birds sightings are a rarity. They’re not quite something I’d blow $2.1 million on though. Japanese researchers are have currently thrown down that much to develop a humming bird robot that’ll be instrumental in helping to rescue people from wrecks, search for criminals and maybe even serve as a space probe controlled by infrared sensors. More »

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From Ningin: The age old question will finally be answered. Who would win in a boxing match, man or machine? The answer is surprisingly mundane. More »

From Ningin: Awhile back I wrote about some USB gloves and how silly they sounded. After reading about some other fun filled Japanese USB gadgets, those gloves actually look quite tame. Useful even. I present to you a few very odd things you should never buy. More »

When I was in high school, we used sacks of flour for that unavoidable home ec assignment that aimed to teach you responsibility in parenting. Apparently, nothing said responsibility to high school teachers in the 90s quite like watching a sack of flour. Sounds a little sad, but it was the 90s. Japan has since taken things a step further by creating Yotaro, a baby simulator designed to teach people or aspiring parents how to care for a child and recognize it’s needs based on facial expressions, movements, and physiological traits associated with babies. More »

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From Ningin: Do you like music and also happen to have a very unhealthy Hello Kitty fetish? If so, then you may want to drop $90 on this worthless piece of Hello Kitty gadget crap. Oh yes, I did go there. More »

From Ningin: I’ve been sitting here for the past five minutes trying to think of some funny or sarcastic thing to write about this, but honestly, I have nothing new to add. The gross horror that is a Japanese School Girl robot more or less speaks for itself. More »

Japan’s Twitter is putting a little twist on how they operate, adding Premium accounts and micro payments. Starting next January, Twitter Japan will allow users to purchase Premium accounts, which then can be accessed by other users who pay a small fee to view these tweets and guess what? Twitter will be pocketing almost 30% of the profits. This isn’t very surprising, since Twitter has no ads on their site, so this is a way for them to make some money while picking up new users. More »

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From Ningin: Konnichi wa, Jinra-san desu! Boy, do I have a puresento (present) for you. Actually, since I’m feeling extra nice, I’ve got two. The first one is Rekuru, our new Japanese entertainment site. Aside from Ningin, Rekuru will be your destination for the best in anything from Anime to Zen. The second one is, you guessed it — the Ningin Japan-a-thon. In support of Rekuru’s launch, we’ve got a special schedule filled with blog posts dedicated to The Land of the Rising Sun. More »