Wearable robot

Researchers at Tsumaki Telerobotics Laboratory at Yamagata University have come up with a robot that you wear on your shoulder.

Sorry, I've seen this thing before and I'm getting ready to run like hell.

Honda solar hydrogen station

Honda unveils a solar-powered hydrogen generating station for refuelling your hydrogen car at home. According to Honda, this will produce enough hydrogen "for the average daily commute".

Considering the amount of sunshine Chez Szondy gets, that sounds about right. Mind you, I work at home and my commute means getting from the bedroom to the office by way of the tea kettle. On the other hand, if your commute involves actually getting out of the drive...

Roboshopper

Helps old people buy groceries; hunts for Sarah Connor in the produce aisle.

The limbo president

Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action.

Ian Fleming

Mr Barack Hussein Obama violates both international and White House protocol by bowing to the Emperor Akihito of Japan.

This would not be that big a deal in and of itself. After all, every president makes mistakes from time to time, but The One has a long history of refusing to acknowledge his own country's flag while saluting other nation's and for showing obsequiousness towards tyrants while delivering calculated insults to America's closest ally, so this scarcely counts as a one-off.

What I find most interesting about this is that Mr Obama has an entire State Department brimming with sponge-trousered types who understand protocol and certainly briefed him in detail on how to greet another head of state. Since Mr Obama not only bowed to the Emperor, but did so while a) shaking hands (a tourist mistake) and b) going so low that he looked like a Japanese peasant trying to explain to the local daimyo that the rice crop failed because he poured a truckload of paraffin into the paddies, the only conclusion I can come to is that The Light Worker ignored State's advice and ad libbed to show off his brilliant multicultural chops as America's first "Pacific president" on the start of his next "I apologise for the United States and don't you think I'm fabulous?" tour.

To put it another way, Mr Obama isn't so much bowing to Emperor Akihito as he is mooning the United States.

Next up: Mr Obama gives Kim Jong Il a foot massage.

Update: Scroll down to the comments by richao for a detailed examination of this incident and showing who are the "yokels" here.

Future school

Presenting the school of 1989 as seen from 1969 courtesy of Shōnen Sunday magazine.

I don't know which impresses me more; the robotic thumping rods or those horrible shorts out out Invasion of the Neptune Men.

Wallace & Gromit, call your service

This Panasonic kitchen robot may look like a good idea,

but I'm going for this one from Bojan Nemec of the Jožef Stefan Institute in Slovenia.

Sarah Connor in a carving knife fight or being chased down the slopes by skiing kilbots; that's what I call an embarrassment of riches.

RIBA

If this thing ever takes time off from hunting Sarah Conner to come near me, I'm giving it both barrels in its warm and reassuring conk.

You're hired. Here's your ankle tag.

DSS Co Ltd of Japan strives to make the telescreen obsolete.

Next up: Brain chip implants

Brother, can you spare a diode?

Robots in Japan facing record unemployment; the hunt for Sarah Connor moves to the dole queue.

Robotable

Great. Now when I go down the pub I have to worry about my table running off to hunt for Sarah Connor.

Kobian

The trick of doing GPP is to keep the range of emotions simple.

HRP-4C

The world's first "fashion model" robot.

What she lacks in a figure she makes up for with her devastating killbot moves for her hunt for Sarah Connor.

Tmsuk T-52 Enryu

What I want for my birthday: Two of these.

With flamethrowers.

Future Bath

The ultrasonic bath has long been a feature of our Future House section and now we get to see it in action.

The sounsdtrack is in Japanese, so it's unclear whether they managed to attach shame to it.

How The Other Half Lives

A sushi bar from the sushi's point of view.

It's hell in there.

Death Bombs

A ridiculous and clearly racist 1933 article claiming that Imperial Japanese military pilots would willingly fly a aircraft packed with explosives straight into targets and commit suicide for the glory of the Emperor. This sort of...

Hang on.

Japan's Next-Generation Space Toilet

Go away. Just go away.

Cat Culture

And now, your moment of culture: A cat playing a Theremin.

KAAN

Mazda's KAAN concept car: So swift, so sleek, so electric, so "Where's the #^$&ing door!"

Robomaid

Hunts for Sarah Connor; doesn't do windows.

Put Out the Patient, Nurse.

A surgeon sets fire to patient during an operation.

There's no way to make this sound like a good thing.

Toyota RV-2

Kill it, drive a stake through its engine block, shred it into tailings, bury the remains under a blasted oak on a deserted heath, pull down the factory, and plough salt into the ground so nothing grows again.

Roddy McDowall, Call Your Service

A tavern in Tokyo is using monkeys as waiters.

This is not going to end well.

Reversible Destiny

A pair so-called "architect-poets" are behind a block of flats that are intended to keep their tenats young and healthy by providing them with "perpetual challenges".

The fact that these "challenging" Tokyo flats are indistinguishable from poorly executed examples of self-indulgent posturing, bad taste, and incompetence masquerading as a gross delusion that anyone would actuially want to live inside such a monstrosity is purely coincidental.

Airbags for OAPs

So much for growing old with dignity.

Karaoke Cube

Tomy's Hi-Kara karaoke cube: On the minus side, they're harder to find. On the plus side, you can take them out with one blow once you do find them.

Melon Record

A melon sold at auction in Japan for ¥650,000.

That had better be one good melon.

Guaranteed Collision

The Yamaha Deus Ex Machina; a concept electric motorcycle that features a pair of outrider wheels set on a fork so that you have precisely zero chance of glancing off that lamp post.

Blooming Bidet

What's more frightening than a bidet?

A remote controlled bidet.

Last One Out, Turn Off The Lights

A frightening statistic: At the current birthrate, the population of Japan will fall by two thirds within a century. That's a demographic implosion that no society has ever survived.

It's a good job that the Japanese are responding to this crisis by relying more and more on robots. It won't solve a thing, but at least someone–or something will inherit the place.

Fugu

A painful reminder of that blowfish & chips fast-food investment in Southend that I just want to forget.

Black Saturday, they still call it.

You Aren't Here

The Japanese space agency has released high-definition lunar maps based on their recent Selene reconnaissance mission.

Moonbase 3 is in the sort of northy bit.

I-Spy Glasses

The Japanese have invented a pair of glasses that helps you find things.

Assuming that you don't lose your glasses, that is.

Big in Japan

AP headline:

Japan looks to a robot future

Sarah Connor demands six minutes for rebuttal.

Flying High

Japanese scientists have developed a paper airplane that will fly in space.

Cure for cancer somewhere on the list.

Onion Non-Sob Story

Scientists in New Zealand and Japan have created the world's first tear-free onion.

Do we have the right to play God?

Hello, Kitty "For-Men"

The Japanese are giving Hello, Kitty a more "macho" to appeal to "young men".

I don't think they've thought this one through.

Micro Nuclear Reactors

Toshiba announces that it is marketing micro nuclear reactors.

I'm definitely altering my plans to install a propane generator at Chez Szondy.

Raymond Burr, Commander Straker, Call Your Service

The Japanese Defence Minister claims that Japan's armed forces are inadequate to repel alien invasions-- by UFOs and Godzilla.

A Parable for Our Times

Scientists at the University of Tokyo have bred a mouse with no innate fear of cats.

Stand by for a startling jump in kitty obesity.

Nissan Terranaut

Finally someone comes up with a motor car that meets my needs!

Okay, whims.

Land of the Rising Vending Machine

An in-depth look at the insane array of Japanese vending machines.

Having fallen in love with the pastry vending machines outside of bakeries in the Netherlands that let you buy the odd bun at 2AM that does not taste of cellophane, I can accept most of these contraptions, but for some reason the umbrella vending machine strikes me as downright weird.

One MILLION Dollars

Orbital death rays came a step closer to reality as scientists at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and Osaka University unveil their laser that converts sunlight into world-dominating photon goodness.

Ernst Stavro Blofeld was unavailable for comment.

Blowing It

A Japanese company has developed a teleconferencing system that allows you to blow out the candles on a birthday cake from thousands of miles away.

Now that's out of the way they can get started on that cancer cure.

Robokitty

And now from NEC and Futaba Industrial Company comes the Hello Kitty Robo. It has face recognition, voice recognition, chats, plays games, and hunts for Sarah Connor.

It also costs $6300 dollars and as my daughter's fifth birthday is coming up, I'd appreciate it if nobody told her about the thing.

The Nightmare

You're aboard an All Nippon Airways Boeing 787 Dreamliner flying at 50,000 feet. You're over the Pacific ocean a thousand miles from anywhere. Nature calls and you casually, but quickly walk to the convenience only to be confronted by this where the toilet should be.

Sweet Mother of God! I'll wake up any moment. I've got to wake up. I've GOT TO!

Revenge of the Sushi

Before


After

In an unprecedented example of lunch gone horribly wrong, an island in Japan has been literally eaten by crustaceans.

Ganime was unavailable for comment.

Roboshill

Presenting the Type 02 robot.

Hunts for Sarah Connor, pays the bills by moonlighting as a vinegar salesman.

Sigmund Freud, Call Your Service

And now, from the Land of the Rising Sun (and very likely the Sirus Cybernetics Corporation) comes a water closet that not only keeps track of your toilet habits so that it can "serve" you better, but, God help us all, sings to you as well.

I suspect that this is the default tune:

Share and Enjoy
Share and Enjoy
Journey through life
With a plastic boy
Or Girl by your side
Let your pal be your guide
And when it breaks down
Or starts to annoy
Or grinds when it moves
And gives you no joy
Cos it's eaten your hat
Or had sex with your cat
Bled oil on your floor
Or ripped off your door
You get to the point
You can't stand any more
Bring it to us, we won't give a fig
We'll tell you,
'Go stick your head in a pig'.

The Dream

Nissan develops a new car that is capable of detecting pedestrians for you even if they're around the corner or otherwise concealed.

Yes, this is what we've been waiting for. Finally, those wretched little pavement pounders will be at our petrol-driven mercy. With this new techology, they'll have nowhere to hide, nowhere to run as we rev our engines in triumph and barrel down on them for the final...

Oh. It's meant to prevent accidents.

Never mind, then.

Science Marches On!

From the BBC:

Japan's leading toilet manufacturer Toto is offering free repairs to 180,000 toilets after some of them caught fire.

And 180,000 Adlerian therapists pull out the yacht catalogues.

Only in Japan

Apparently, in Japan you can pay someone to wake you up by vacuuming your face, shoving wasabi up your nose or drizzling hot wax on you.

You pay for this, remember.