Innovation

Mt. Fuji Travel Tissue Case Blows Its Top When You Blow Your Nose

by Steve Levenstein

Sneeze the moment with a cute & clever Mt. Fuji Travel Tissue Case! The 100% cotton case designed by Tomohiro Ikegaya for Goodbymarket relies on users to provide the case's one moving part: the tissue paper poking out from Mt. Fuji's snow-capped summit.

Coin Laundry Calls When Your Clothes Are Clean

by Steve Levenstein

Kyoto Laundry Service announces "Hello Call”, Japan's first coin-operated laundry voice information service. Got things to do and people to see? No problem, your machine will phone when it needs more detergent, more change or more repairs.

2 comments

Chengdu's Love Zebra Crossing: Street Hearts for Sweethearts!

by China.new

Cross your heart and hope to... live? In an effort to ensure the often bumpy road to romance gets off to a smooth start, the Chinese city of Chengdu has provided a Love Zebra Crossing painted up in lovely red & white.

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Self-Stirring Pot Puts New Spin on Stove-top Cooking

by Steve Levenstein

Is stuck pasta your kitchen nightmare? A Japanese dentist has created a stir with Kuru-Kuru Nabe (“Round and Round Pot”), a cooking pot with sculpted sides. Turn up the heat and watch basic thermodynamics go to work so you don't have to!

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Technology and the Future of Payments: Credit Cards and the Mobile Wallet

by Gadgetry Inc

We are currently living in the digital age, where seemingly advanced technologies from the past are slowly being rendered obsolete. One such technology includes those from the payments industry, where advancements in mobile wallets, which takes advantage of Near Field Communication (NFC) technology.

Calling All Inventors! FridaBaby Wants Your Baby Product Ideas

by Myra Per-Lee

I'm going to try to write this with a straight face.... The FridaBaby company, which I have just learned of, markets some very inventive and 'curious' products for babies so far. One is called the Snotsucker, which employs a mom (or dad) to suck the snot out of their baby's nose....

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Dog Ramen Puts Some Growl In Your Bowl

by China.new

Dog Ramen, an ethnic Korean specialty made in China's northeastern Jilin province, contains real dehydrated dog meat along with instant noodles, seasonings and spices. Hungover Chinese college students thirsty for some “hair of the dog” can now shake off the DTs like a bad case of fleas.

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Chinese RoboCop Keeps An Electric Eye On Crime

by China.new

A robot policeman equipped with a CCTV cyclops eye and a navel-mounted panic button is the new face of crimefighting in China. Though fixed to the pavement and unable to chase feeling suspects, the ersatz RoboCop nonetheless has brought peace to the mean streets of Kunming.

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Google's Autonomous Car Gets Its License To Drive In Nevada

by Myra Per-Lee

You can talk on your cell phone, even text, check your email, eat your lunch, tun-in your radio, change a CD.... You can even take in all of the distractions along the Strip in Las Vegas... if you hop a cab. Or, you can take the Google autonomous car, currently a Toyota Prius, without a driver.

3 comments

Do You Have Enough Klout To Fly The Friendly Skies Or Land The Perfect Job?

by Ron Callari

Klout is to 'personal influence' what Google is to 'page ranking.' While the Big G's algorithms determine the relevance of the Internet's every web page, Klout supposedly ranks the influence of every person online. As a 3-year old start-up, it's raison d'être is to measure influence based on the digerati's ability to drive action.

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How Many "Dumb F*cks" Rocked Facebook's IPO Like It's 1999?

How Many Dumb F*cks Will Rock Facebook's IPO Like It's 1999?

by Ron Callari

The term "Dumb F*cks" has hung over Mark Zuckerberg like a dark cloud during the course of the last 8 years. Not because his nickname "Zuck" rhymes with the expletive, but because the CEO of today's largest social network derided his early FB users as such. In 2004, when first percolating the idea of FB in a Harvard dorm room and asked how he attracted so many followers so quickly, he off-handedly responded they were following him blindly, like "Dumb F*cks."

Saddle Leather Computer Mouse for Skin to Skin Luxury

by Steve Levenstein

Desktop computer users tired of caressing a bland, boring, cold plastic mouse all day can click up to some luxury thanks to Japanese specialty retailer Atelier Wazakura. The so-called Kawanezumi (Leather Mouse) features our favorite handy peripheral swathed in soft, supple Saddle Leather. Giddyup!

KDDI's Concept IIDA Smartphone Features a Manual Analog Clock

by Steve Levenstein

Look Ma, hands! Japan's KDDI is showcasing a curiously retro smartphone that's a real blast from the past. The phone's bezel features a manually-wound analog clock, thus creating a fusion of elegance and technology.

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KFC Japan Serves Beer & Booze Beside the Bucket

by Steve Levenstein

Forget that Happy Meal, at KFC Japan it's Happy Hour! Want a double with that Double Down? Perhaps a cocktail with your cock-a-doodle-doo? Tokyo's newly opened KFC Route 25 restaurant has begun serving beer & booze by (or at least, beside) the bucket.

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From "This Land Is Your Land" To "99 Percenter Song" OWS Guitarists March On NYC (Music Video)

by Ron Callari

Legions of guitarists, string players, troubadours, and DIY-shaker makers will converge on Bryant Park May 1, 2012 for Occupy Guitarmy, as part of the Occupy Wall Street May Day initiatives for social and economic justice. And you're all invited. Just show up at the Gertrude Stein statue at 12 Noon on that date and get ready to jam all the way down to Union Square.

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China's Taobao Internet Mall Offers Beautiful Girl Delivery Service

by China.new

Special delivery indeed: China's Taobao internet mall is boosting their business with the aid of “beautiful girls” who personally deliver customers' orders for a small extra fee.

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Singapore Coke Machines Give Out Cold Drinks for Warm Hugs

by China.new

If you think machines have no compassion, you've either been watching too many Terminator movies or you haven't visited Singapore lately. The Southeast Asian city-state is where you'll find The Coca-Cola Hug Machine: you supply the hugs, it provides the Coke.

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Burger King Japan's Bakin' Up a Big Bacon Bargain

by Steve Levenstein

Got a yen for bacon? Got a hundred yen? Then get your appetite to Burger King Japan! For a limited time only, the popular fast food chain is offering customers a whopper of a deal: 15 strips of bacon on almost any Burger King Whopper for just 100 yen.

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Music Keeps "Occupy" Movement Humming Along (Videos)

by Ron Callari

On March 17th, the 6th month anniversary of Occupy Wall Street, hundreds of 99 Percenters chose to return to their original stomping grounds on Wall Street. But this time they were pushed back by NY City cops, and as tensions rose, one activist was actually punched in the head by officers several times, while others were subdued and arrested.

3 comments

Dice Dumpling Soup Gives Good Luck to Hungry Chinese Gamers

by China.new

Eat a bowl of dice? You bet! Chinese gamers are said to enjoy this lucky snack served at an unnamed casino. From the looks of it, though, I'd say it tastes like craps.

1 comment