The hangover from Japan Day – an ice suit and a book-reading robot

By Andy Dawson

Yesterday was Japan Day on Bitterwallet, but before we fold away our kimonos and pour all the sake that we couldn’t finish off down the sink, here’s a couple more joyful items from Tokyo.

First up is the New Ice Suit (left), designed with the clammy Japanese summer months in mind. The suit is specially tailored with spaces to fit ice packs into for keeping the wearer cool during that sweaty commute.

Like most things Japanese, it’s the stuff of fantasy for the Bitterwallet team. Whenever it gets a little hot down here in our underground HQ, we simply pour a tray of ice cubes down the front of our jogging pants. Job done.

Next comes a cumbersome but much more exciting rival for Amazon’s Kindle e-book reader. Why bother with a portable and manageable book substitute when you can have your own robot?

Meet Ninomiya-kun (right) – a 1-metre-tall, 25-kilo aluminium robot developed at Waseda University’s Information, Production and Systems Research Centre. Ninomiya-kun reads books. Not e-books, but real books. Let’s get it shipped over here and give it some telly shows to present. Can it really be any worse than Vernon Kay?

[Crunch Gear] and [Pink Tentacle]

Tags: ice suit, japan day, reader, robot
Posted in Odd stuff June 19th, 2009 | 8 Comments

This entry was posted on Friday, June 19th, 2009 at 10:15 am and is filed under Odd stuff. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

8 Responses to “The hangover from Japan Day – an ice suit and a book-reading robot”

Posted by -> Insert Witty Name Here | June 19th, 2009 at 10:31 am

What the fuck, is the point of a robot that can read books?
Posted by The Real Bob | June 19th, 2009 at 11:17 am

I think the point is that it reads them out loud to you, although why the hell you couldn’t just pick up the damn book and read it yourself kind of beggars belief.
Posted by Andy Dawson | June 19th, 2009 at 11:28 am

Because you’re blind or busy.
Posted by Jill | June 19th, 2009 at 11:41 am

In that case, I would rather just get an e-book, cheaper than a book reading robot I’d imagine!
Posted by acecatcher3 | June 19th, 2009 at 12:28 pm

but then u cant tell ppl that u have a robot that reads to u…..thats ultra cool
Posted by The Real Bob | June 19th, 2009 at 2:11 pm

Andy, if you’re busy then why the bloody hell would you want a book read at you, you need to pay attention in case you miss something vital and if you’re blind then just buy a braille version.
Posted by goon | June 19th, 2009 at 2:11 pm

you could get the robot to read an erotic novel. and then see if it also a plesure model robot.

‘does not compute’
Posted by wayne king | June 19th, 2009 at 2:20 pm

can it transform when moving onto next chapters?!?!?!?