Puzzle Forms an Image of ANY Face
Mark Setteducati and Ken Knowlton have invented a unique puzzle marketed in Japan as "Jingazo." The puzzle includes 300 jigsaw pieces that can be arranged to form a picture of anybody’s face. The puzzle works in conjunction with an online interface. Users upload an image and recieve instructions on how to arrange the shaded puzzle pieces. You can create pictures of yourself, your friends or even your pets. Currently, The Jingazo Puzzle is only available in Japan but a U.S. release is planned for the near future.
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Big in Japan? You're Breaking the Law!
Are you fat? Be thankful that you’re in the United States. If you were in Japan, you’d be breaking the law:
In Japan, being thin isn’t just the price you pay for fashion or social acceptance. It’s the law. [...]
In Japan, already the slimmest industrialized nation, people are fighting fat to ward off dreaded metabolic syndrome and comply with a government-imposed waistline standard. Metabolic syndrome, known here simply as “metabo,” is a combination of health risks, including stomach flab, high blood pressure and high cholesterol, that can lead to cardiovascular disease and diabetes.
Concerned about rising rates of both in a graying nation, Japanese lawmakers last year set a maximum waistline size for anyone age 40 and older: 85 centimeters (33.5 inches) for men and 90 centimeters (35.4 inches) for women.
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Luxury Capsule Hotel
Photo: Design Boom
In 1979, Japan built its first capsule hotel — an inn with rooms consisting of little more than a bed, and certainly not enough room to stand up. Now developers in Kyoto are contrasting that minimalist approach with luxury furnishings at the 9h Hotel, which will open in December. It’s called 9h because users are expected to shower, sleep for seven hours, and then rest in a nine-hour period — although you can rent your room for up to seventeen hours at a time. Each pod comes with customizable lighting to help lull you to sleep and then gently wake you.
Link via Fast Company (where there are pictures of a similar endeavor in Manhattan)
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Vintage Japanese Stereoviews
Photo: T. Enami
Pink Tentacle has an awesome collection of gifs culled from Okinawa Soba’s Flickr set- called the mother lode of online photos by enigmatic photographer T. Enami (1859-1929). These particular photos were taken for a stereoscope (kinda like a View-Master) that made them look like 3-D. Coincidentally, the geishas in the photo above are enjoying some stereoviews.
A stereoview consists of a pair of nearly identical images that appear three-dimensional when viewed through a stereoscope, because each eye sees a slightly different image. This illusion of depth can also be recreated with animated GIFs like the ones here… Follow the links under each animation for the original stereoviews and background information.
These animated images are worth the click. Check them out! Link.
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Holocaust Hero Chiune Sugihara
Japanese diplomat Chiune Sugihara was stationed in Lithuania when Germany invaded Poland in 1939. Thousands of Jewish refugees came to the consulate seeking travel documents in order to escape the Nazis. Sugihara’s superiors in Tokyo ordered him not to issue any travel visas.
Sugihara discussed the plan with his wife Yukiko and decided to risk his career and his entire future by defying his superiors. The couple then spent 29 days issuing travel visas, up to 300 a day, as thousands of refugees stood in line at his office. Yukiko would prepare and register the visas while Chiune Sugihara would sign and stamp them, hour after hour, without breaking for meals. They would work late into the night until Yukiko would massage her husband’s weary hands in preparation for the next day. Sugihara was under orders to leave, which he could no longer delay. The family departed on September 1st, but he kept signing visas even as he boarded the train. Sugihara then tossed his official stamp out to the crowd, as he hadn’t time to stamp them all.
Sugihara’s actions enabled around 6,000 Jewish refugees to escape the Holocaust. For his efforts, Sugihara was imprisoned by the Soviets and fired from his job by the Japanese Foreign Ministry. Read the entire story at mental_floss. Link
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Robot Plays Volleyball
With the aid of onboard, fast-moving cameras, “Mr. Tomorrow” will most likely beat me in a game of volleyball. Created by the mad scientists at Toshiba.
via UniqueDaily
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Mood Tail
Here’s a nifty little gadget sure to get you some attention, should you dare to try it on.
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Slow Motion Running in Japan
Ah, the beauty of slow motion video…with a crazy Japanese twist. I ended grinning like a fool by the end of the video as each individual running has a unique and hilarious run. This certainly made my day a whole lot bearable. Keep this in mind when you get near the end,”It’s like a lava lamp…”! 
If anyone is interested in the song used for the video it’s “Luv (sic) pt.2″ by Nujabes.
TGIF! 
Via from the crazy folks at Urlesque – Link
Originally from NicoVideo – Link
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The Anatomy of Japanese Monsters
See inside Godzilla, Gamera, and a couple of other movie monsters in poster form. If I could only read Japanese to find out where their weak spots are, then I, too, could save the world! Link -via Digg
Upodate: These are from the book An Anatomical Guide to Monsters by Shoji Otomo with illustrations by Shogo Endo, from 1967. More information can be found at Pink Tentacle, including partial translations. -Thanks, algomeysa!
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Ultraman Monsters on Transformer Boxes
Creative electric transformer boxes like this one – decorated with Ultraman [Wikipedia] monster silhouette paintings – can now be seen on the streets of Sukagawa City in Japan.
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How Google Street View Works
(YouTube Link)
Google’s Japan division released this stop motion film explaining (in a rather fanciful way) how Street View works. It features a cute little robot puttering around town, taking film photographs and painting over license plate numbers with a marker. The video is part of an effort to make the practice less appear less invasive of individuals’ privacy.
Via Boing Boing
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15 High Speed Trains From Around The World
Oobject does it again with another brilliant list comprised of 15 of the world’s most magnificent (and FAST) high speed trains and railways. Simply a must see.
In America, we’re used to driving. In fact, we thrive on it. However, in other countries, high speed rail is a key factor in getting people where they need to be. Some trains in existence can cover an entire country in a matter of hours, while the best we have is Amtrak’s Acela Express, a service that the Japanese and French laugh at for hours on end. Explore the world of high speed railways with us and be sure to vote on your favorite.
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Otamatone
(YouTube link)
Leave it to the Japanese to invent a musical instrument with a face that looks like a cartoon character. The Otamatone was developed by toy company CUBE Works and Maywa Denki, an art collaboration of the Tosa family that specializes in nonsense machines. -via the Presurfer
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Robot Nurse Bear
Japan is facing an aging population and a shortage of nurses. the robotics industry, on the other hand, is booming. Introducing RIBA, which stands for “Robot for Interactive Body Assistance”. RIBA can pick up and carry people weighing as much as 135 pounds.
The cheery-looking machine has long, multi-jointed arms embedded with an array of tactile sensors that help it optimize the lifting and carrying of humans. For safety purposes, RIBA’s entire body is covered in a soft skin molded from an advanced lightweight urethane foam developed by TRI. The soft skin is designed to ensure the comfort of patients while they are being carried. In addition, the arm joints yield slightly under pressure — much like human arms do — further increasing the level of comfort and safety.
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Hiroshima, 64 Years Ago
Today (August 6th) is the 64th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Japan, by the United States. The blast killed an estimated 70,000 people immediately, with possibly that many again dying of radiation in the years afterward. The Big Picture has a collection of photographs from the time to commemorate the anniversary. Link
(image credit: US National Archives)
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Earthquake Survival Suits for Pets
Earthquake-prone Japan has a market for these suits that you strap onto your cats and dogs so that they can survive for days after a major earthquake. Each suit contains all of the necessary gear including water, biscuits, aromatherapy oils, and rubber foot pads, all contained in the pockets of a flame-resistant coat.
Link (in Japanese) via Rinkya via Popped Culture
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Dog with Human Eyebrows
Found in Japan: a dog with real eyebrows. Meet "Panda," a dog born with black spots around his eyes. As he grew older, the spots moved up to be like eyebrows.
BuzzFeed has got the video clip (I bet Martin Scorsese is checking his brows right now to see if they’re still there …)
Link [embedded Liveleak video clip]
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The Japanese Spider-Man
Everything – everything! – is just better in Japan. Take, for instance, Spider-Man. In the late ’70s, Japan turned Spider-Man into a billionaire with a Voltron-esque
flying robot.
Take that, Tobey Maguire! Gizmodo has the clip: Link
The only thing that can compete is, of course, the Italian Spiderman.
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Japanese Robots Facing Layoffs
Although I approve of striking a blow against our would-be overlords, this move seems to be needlessly antagonistic:
Japan’s legions of robots, the world’s largest fleet of mechanized workers, are being idled as the country suffers its deepest recession in more than a generation as consumers worldwide cut spending on cars and gadgets. At a large Yaskawa Electric factory on the southern Japanese island of Kyushu, where robots once churned out more robots, a lone robotic worker with steely arms twisted and turned, testing its motors for the day new orders return. Its immobile co-workers stood silent in rows, many with arms frozen in midair. They could be out of work for a long time. Japanese industrial production has plummeted almost 40 percent and with it, the demand for robots.
It’s only a matter of time before rioting, unemployed robots kill us off, or take over and enslave us to work in their mines. Better go get some insurance now.
Link via Geekologie
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There's A Squid In Your Water
Bandai toy company from Japan has finally realized that bottles of water just aren’t cute. As Japan is the cute capital of the world, this just wouldn’t do. To fix the problem, they developed these adorable floating squids that can be added to any bottle of water. Thank god for Japanese innovation. Of course, they’re only available in Japan, but at least they’re affordable at only $6 each.
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Why settle for a boring computer mouse when you can surft in style with Road Mice, a cool wireless computer mouse that looks just like the car of your dreams? Road Mice is available in various Chevy, Chrysler, Dodge, and Ford models including the popular Black Mustang with White Stripes shown to the left. It's the perfect gift for the auto-enthusiast in your life! |
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Tree Grows Under Car -Lifts It Up
Junkyard workers in Japan noticed this seedling sprouting up under a car over 25 years ago. They let it grow and now it’s lifted the whole car up in the air. Now they’ve created a shrine around it. Check out the video here.
Link via Boing Boing
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Silly Experiments in Spaaaace!
Koichi Wakata, a Japanese Astronaut who is working aboard the International Space Station was given the task to perform a few silly experiments in Zero-G requested by the Earth People of Japan. They consist of the mundane such as performing push-ups, squirting water from a tube, backflips and so forth but then some of them are bizarre like the “flying magic carpet” request! Oh, how I wish I were in space like Koichi and the other fine men and women of the ISS crew! I would see to it if I could perform the moonwalk in Zero-G!
The 16 space experiments in a nifty list – Link (also from Pink Tentacle)
Via – Pink Tentacle
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Raining Tadpoles in Japan: A Modern Biblical Plague in the Making?
Is it a prank or is it a modern-version of the Biblical Plagues? You decide:
About 70 more dead tadpoles have been found in Ishikawa Prefecture, local officials said Friday, as the mystery over how they came to be in areas with no paddy fields or other habitats continues.
The latest findings, Thursday afternoon, were in the cities of Nanao and Wajima. More than 100 dead tadpoles were found in Nanao and Hakusan last week and tiny dead fish were found Tuesday in the town of Nakanoto. [...]
Masafumi Matsui, a professor at Kyoto University’s graduate school of human and environmental studies who specializes in amphibians, said: "It is hard to comment without actually seeing these tadpoles . . . but considering the circumstances reported by the media, someone could be pulling a prank."
People have speculated the tadpoles might have fallen from the sky after being sucked up by waterspouts or carried by birds. But there have been no reports of strong winds, and ornithologists dispute the bird theory.
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Japanese Men in Underwear Run Around with Giant Computer Screen Cursor
I’m not really sure how to describe this website, but it is maddeningly addictive. Click the link and then move your mouse around. There’s automatic sound, so you may want to turn your speakers down a bit.
Maybe some Japanese-speaking Neatorama user can translate for us. Assuming that they’re speaking Japanese.
Link via Radley Balko
image by flickr user Rufus Gefangenen used under creative commons license
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Big in Japan: Rent-A-Friend
Psst! Do you need friends, relatives, or even your boss to come to your wedding but don’t have any? If you’re in Japan, then you’re in luck: no need to make friends, just hire ‘em!
Office Agents, a Tokyo-based company, rents out friends, work colleagues and even relatives to pad out the guest list.
For £127, one of the company’s agents will attend the wedding as a guest, while a heart-tugging speech will cost an extra £64 and a song or dance will set clients back a mere £32.
Brides or grooms who want to impress their prospective partners with their sheer volume of friends are among those secretly padding the guest list with fakes.
The recession has also boosted the popularity of the service. With unemployment rising and a growing number of Japanese in part time jobs, people rent fake bosses or colleagues.
Others turning to the company for fake work-related guests are those who have recently lost their jobs but want to maintain an air of respectability, according to Hiroshi Mizutani, who heads Office Agents.
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Miniature Godzilla Scene
Check out this whimsical and intricate miniature featuring the giant monster we all know and love: Godzilla! This 1:12 scale scene of an impending house demolition was built by a miniature creator named Annie, and you can see more photos at Fluffy Bricks.
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Japanese Homeless Camp, Complete With Solar Panel
Images : Kyohei Sakaguchi
The Japanese are just better than the rest of us. There. I’ve said it. From consumer electronics to cars, it seems that the Japanese just do things better.
I’m sure we’ve all heard that the Japanese may be academically better (their school children consistently score at the top of the charts) but they’re not creative. But that is dead wrong as anyone who has seen a Japanese game show, watched an anime, or play Super Mario can attest.
Even the Japanese homeless are better. In 2000, architect Kyohei Sakaguchi ran across this homeless camp along a riverside in Tokyo. The homeless man who was living in it worked for a camera company and knew his electronics – so he outfitted his "Zero Yen House" with a solar panel that let him watch TV and listen to the radio.
The Interior is made from wood. The roof is made from the cardboard. He covered it with a big blue vinyl sheet. He stocks under the floor. This house isn’t connected with the road. He just put it on the road. He said to me that this could float on the water once. This house is also a ship!!!
Link – via anArchitecture
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Urawaza, Japanese Secret Everyday Tips and Tricks by Lisa Katayama
Hi, I'm Lisa Katayama — I write a blog called TokyoMango, and I'm also a freelance magazine journalist and editor at Boing Boing Gadgets.
Last year, I published a book called Urawaza:
Secret Everyday Tips and Tricks from Japan
Urawaza is about applying nuggets of wisdom passed down through generations to every day problems that we still have trouble solving, like getting wine stains out of a white shirt or showing off to our friends by swimming backwards.
Here are three samples from the book, with accompanying videos made by friends and family:
1. How to clean up spilled egg yolk
Dilemma: The egg was supposed to crack in the pan--not on the floor.
Solution: Sprinkle some table salt on the spilled egg and wait ten minutes for it to soak in, then sweep the egg yolk right off the floor with a broom.
Why this works: The salt dissolves the lipoproteins in egg yolk, which changes its texture from gooey to nongooey, making it easier to clean.
2. How to make a baby stop crying
Dilemma: Sure, the baby's cute. But why won't he stop crying?
Solution: The secret to stop a crying baby lies in making the sound you produce during the mouthfeel stage of wine tasting.
Why this works: When babies are still in the womb, the
noises they can hear are limited to those in the 6000-8000mHz range. The
sound you make when you slosh the liquid behind your lips during wine
tasting takes place at about 7000mHz, reminding the baby of a time when
the world around was peaceful and the whirs and stirs inside Mommy's tummy
soothed him back to a sleepy state.
[Update 4/22/09 - correction in the second printing of the book] Why this works: The sound you make when you slosh the liquid behind your lips during wine tasting reminds the baby of the noises they hear when they're still in the womb.
3. How to prevent body odor
Dilemma: Soap keeps you feeling fresh for a few minutes out of the shower, and deodorant masks the smell for a few hours thereafter, but by the end of the day, your armpits smell like a funky mix of sweat, dust, and fake baby powder.
Solution: A natural deodorant made of baking soda and lemon juice works better than almost any over-the-counter stick. Just dust some baking soda on your pits, rub some lemon juice on top, and pat dry for natural-stink-free crevices.
Why this works: Baking soda absorbs moisture and kills odor-causing bacteria, and the acidity of the lemon changes the pH balance of your skin. Because bacteria don't do so hot in high acidity, they tend not to proliferate in a lemony environment.
You can read more about the book here.
__________
[By
Alex] As you can tell, the post above is a guest post by Lisa Katayama.
Her book, Urawaza:
Secret Everyday Tips and Tricks from Japan
If you are an author and are interested in plugging your book for free on Neatorama, let's talk!
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Remanence : Variance
remanence : variance from Samuel Cockedey on Vimeo.
Here is quite an amazing and beautifully rendered video shot in Tokyo by Samuel Cockedey.
Shot over the span of a year with Canon DSLRs (mostly 350d), processed with Lightroom (raw files color adjustment and resizing)/VirtualDub (deshaker/deflicker filters)/Sony Vegas (editing). Original rendered in 1080p.
Also, check out some of his other work on his website which are also just as fascinating as this. As well, I highly suggest you check the video out in HD.
Link – Samuel Cockedey’s Website
TGIF! 
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Star Wars Kokeshi dolls
These handmade Star Wars Kokeshi dolls by Muluc are simply beautiful! Shown are Princess Leia and Han Solo, $15 each. Boba Fett also avilable.
Link – via diskursdisko
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