Tech and Amusing Stuff

These are limited edition Zippos, only 300 of each color will be made. And of course as it is often they’re not coming to America: Japan only people.

Via Akihabara News

Via RGS

“Nintendo sold 331,627 units of the Wii in the four weeks to February 24, compared with 89,131 units of the PS3, Enterbrain said on Thursday.The Wii’s lead on the PS3 appears to be widening: In January, Nintendo’s game console outsold Sony’s by almost 3-to-1.

Nintendo’s own “Super Smash Bros. Brawl” for the Wii became the best-selling software for the month in Japan, with 1.33 million units sold, followed by the “Wii Fit” home fitness game, which sold 309,311 units in the four weeks, Enterbrain said.

The Wii has been leading the three-way game console battle with the PS3 and Microsoft Corp’s (MSFT.O: Quote, Profile, Research) Xbox 360 as its strategy of offering easy-to-play and innovative games to expand the overall game population has proved a big success.

Microsoft, whose videogame business is struggling in Japan, home to both Sony and Nintendo, sold 14,079 Xbox 360 units.”

Via Reuters

Via RGS

WTF!!!!

Via about:blank

Sanyo in Japan has constructed an amazing solar-collecting building that embodies both clean-energy ideals and awesome architectural design strategies. The so-called Solar Ark has over 5,000 active solar panels generating over 500,000 KWh of environmentally friendly energy.

read more | digg story

This video is of AI who has been learning linguistic skills since 1978 at the Primate Research Institute, Kyoto University. He is faster than a group of nine able-minded college students on a touchscreen test bed that resembles the best-selling DS game.

Via RGS

The Ocean Dome, the world’s largest indoor beach, Kyushu Island, Japan (about 1,500 kilometers south of Tokyo) — 300 meters in length and 100 meters in width, with a height of 38 meters, it can accommodate 10,000 people.

Designed by the Mitsubishi Heavy Industrial Group and opened in July 1993 at a cost of 200 billion yen ($2 billion), the Ocean Dome was never profitable and recently closed.

A heated ocean with a width of 140 meters sends 13,500 tons of salt-free water sweeping across 600 tons of polished marble chips that constitute a 85-metre long shoreline, ringed by a three-story promenade of shops. Every fifteen minutes, the volcano smokes to life. Every hour, on the hour, it spews fake flames.

read more | digg story

A few years ago in japan, members of the hokkaido industrial research institute started carving thousands of very precise grooves into nearby roads. the slightly loopy brainwave belonged to a mr. shinoda, a guy who accidentally cut a road in several places with a digger and then later drove over the damage in his car.

he realised that with some planning and time to kill he could create rows of grooves which, when driven over at a certain speed, would ‘play a tune’.

Original story

“Sony announced Deep Red… The PSP ! Yep, you are right, here you are, a new color available for the PSP from SONY, and which will be sold later this December in Japan, offered with a nice package of accessories.” Original story