Raincoats, plastic bottles, styrofoam, windshield wiper motors and a love for the sea; that’s what marine biologist and self-taught roboticist Masamichi Hayashi used to make these realistic aquatic robots. Among Hayashi’s creations are a porpoise, great white shark, green turtle, manta ray, killer whale and hammerhead shark. Back in 2009 they were featured on Japanese TV, Hayashi explained how they are used to teach kids about marine animal behavior and locomotion.

The 5 ft long coelacanth robot below weighs 105 lbs and cost 2 million yen ($22,000) to make.

via: Pink Tentacle

Though these images look like a cool user interface from a sci-fi movie, they are actually screen grabs from a very serious program. This is “DAEDALUS” (Direct Alert Environment for Darknet And Livenet Unified Security) developed by Japan’s National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT). It’s a system designed to monitor the Darknet for any potential cyber threats such as computer viruses.
The system has been getting some attention because its GUI reminds Japanese anime fans of the series “Ghost in the Shell”. They speculate that the designer got his …

There are many different types of humanoid robots out there but this is the first one created solely for swimming. SWUMANIOD (SWimming + hUMANOID) was created by researchers Motomu Nakashima and Chung Changhyun of the Tokyo Institute of Technology. The robot was made to reproduce the motion of human swimmers while measuring water resistance.
SWUMANIOD was made by first doing a 3D scan of a real person’s body, then using 3D printed parts to make a 1/2 model. Next they added 20 water-proof motors and programmed the bot to imitate human …

Guys, it’s happened to all of us. The weird looks you get from strangers after leaving the bathroom. Maybe you’ve got something on your face? Nope, your fly is open and to your horror you realize that girl wasn’t smiling at you because you look so sexy in those jeans.
Probably frustrated by this happening over and over again, a resourceful Nico-Nico Douga user created a device to prevent forgetting to zip up. It’s pretty simple, if your zipper is open, an LED lights up making it easier for you to …

Japanese advertising agency Shunkosha have come on with a clever way to get more eye-balls for their ads in Tokyo subways. They’ve started embedding FeliCa NFC chips in straps on the train. Commuters are encouraged to hold their wallet cellphones up to the straps so that the phone browsers will be taken to an embedded URL. These straps can be seen on the Marunouchi and Ginza subway lines. Travel agency H.I.S was the first company to start using this medium.

Getting struck by lightning certainly won’t give you superpowers, you’ll be lucky to walk away from it. But if you happen to be holding a florescent bulb when it happens you’ll look really cool. Back in 2010 the Japanese T.V. show Tobidase! Kagaku-kun conducted an experiment to see what it would looks like. They used a 12-million-volt artificial lightning generator to hit a dummy holding a florescent bulb. You can the results above in super slow-mo.

via: Pink Tentacle

NTT DoCoMo has developed a portable device that not only has a transparent display, but is also touchscreen, touchscreen on both sides! Apart from being really cool, the ability to operate both sides of the screen allows the user to input more complicated gestures. Being able to input gestures on the opposite side of the screen means the user’s fingers would not obscure their view of the display. DoCoMo demonstrated the accuracy this input method by showing a Rubik’s puzzle being solved on the device. One downside of the transparent …

On May 21 Japan experienced an annular solar eclipse. Despite the weather being pretty cloudy, it didn’t stop Tokyoites from standing outside their buildings in droves staring up at the sky. Special glasses for viewing the eclipse were sold-out nationwide, understandable as the next total solar eclipse of this nature won’t be until the year 2386. So in case you don’t feel like waiting 374 years for the next one, here are some of my favorite pictures and videos internet users have uploaded.

by Youtsr on Flickr

@bluestylecom on TwitPic

by Stefano e …

Fujitsu Ten has just released an app that takes video from an iPhone camera, displays it on the screen of a car navigation system and superimposes icons on the video. The augmented reality application can provide useful information about the surroundings to help with giving directions.
The “Driview” application which is available for free download, works with Fujitsu Ten’s “Eclipse” brand of car navigation systems ( ‘AVN-ZX02i’ or ‘AVN-Z02i’ ). The iPhone is connected to the navigation system using a separately sold cable.
The company has previously released smartphone integrated systems …

The robot community in Japan is never short of ingenuity, take this robot maid for example. This custom bot was built by Dr. GIY, a well respected member of the Robo-one scene. The first of the Doctor’s creations I saw live was an anthropomorphic robot cat that wowed the audience in a dance competition. It’s quite obvious he’s a wiz at making his creations dance. Watch her go.

According to Dr. GIY the choreography is not as smooth as he’d like it to be so he’ll be working on refining it. …