digidenki Japan Digital Lifestyle

The ISSA restaurant chain in Japan introduced an interactive ordering and menu system for their customers.

Each table is equipped with a deatchable tablet PC like device featuring a 10 inch high resolution touch screen. Visitors can browse the menu, look for seasonal specialties or find a cocktail that suits their current mood.

Orders can be placed by simply clicking on the desired items and are then sent via WLAN to the kitchen and the order tracking system. It is also possible to check the current balance or re-order items separately.

This could be the first step towards replacing traditional menu cards and maybe also replacing the human resources necessary for taking orders and recommending meals to the customers.

A logical step would be to integrate FELICA RFID readers into these devices so customer could pay right at their desk using their mobile phones.

And who knows perhaps the next step would then be to abolish the tablet device completely and let the mobile phone handle everything from checking the menu, placing an order up to payment.

Today I came across a very interesting product at the Venture Fair 2006 in Tokyo. It is called the “Flower Speaker” produced by Lets-Co Corporation. Using this device it is possible to turn real flowers and plants into speaker systems for audio players. The company offers different versions. One even includes a FM radio tuner so the flowers can “pick up the waves”. The basic system sells for 5,000 Yen. Actually the sound quality of the tested flower arrangement was not too bad.

Takara released a mobile brain trainer console called the “nousapiens” (brain-sapiens) last month that sells for 26,000 Yen.

The device should serve as a memory trainer and cartridges with new training programs can be bought for 6,200 Yen each. Takara promises that a person can increase his memorizing speed by 4.5 times through the little gadget. The device features a 32BIT CPU RiscOS processor running at 20Mhz and has a 240×160 dot display.

In the last 6 month brain games had been booming in Japan. There are several titles available for game consoles and handheld consoles. (PSP, DS, GBA)

When will a mobile phone come out that features a brain activity measure unit and some brain trainer games? Or even some brain tamer applicatiosn to overcome stress?

Bandai came up with a new reincarnation of the Tamagotchi theme: The Digimon Mini.

Digimon is a famous Animation series by Toei Animations and also well known outside of Japan. In the last years there have been various new ideas for the Digimon merchandise from Bandai.

Digimon Mini lets the user hatch its own digital monster, pebble it, level it up and later find another Digimon Mini owner to start a battle. By connecting two devices the two monsters can fight against each other determining who will win the fight and take the all the glory (and valuable energy points for leveling up).

The small game comes with a strap and can also be attached to a mobile phone. Cost is around 1,300 Yen.

Would even be more exciting to see this game INTERGRATED it into the mobile phone and battle others via IR or Bluetooth or even using GPS creating real battle arenas.

After a weekend of strolling through Tokyo’s biggest Electronic stores one point became eminent: more and more shops are saying “goodbye” to PDAs. Big chain stores like Biccamera or Sakuraya up until a few month ago had a wide range of PDA offerings from Palm, PocketPC to Zaurus models. Now they are only displaying the Zaurus line of PDAs. All other products have disappeared from the average showroom. A small discussion with shop staffs revealed the following: “We stopped selling those products. The Zaurus is still there because it is more like an ultra small Laptop than a PDA. If consumers need PDA functions they can find these in the mobile phones we sell here at the shop.”

Almost all Japanese phones already offer QVGA displays like normal PDAs as well as address book, calendar and note taking functions. Some can even display and edit office documents.

The assumption of the mobile phones being the PDA killer has been around for long. Now reality proves it right.

It will be interesting to see how smartphones will perform in the Japanese mobile market in the long run. As of now DoCoMo (Motorola using Symbian), Vodafone (Nokia using Symbian) and soon Willcom (Sharp using WM 5.0) offer smartphones. More are expected in 2006. Given the advanced state of normal mobile phones in Japan (they are already rather “smart”) finding the right way to market these “smarter smart phones” will be a big challenge.

One of my favourite Japanese design companies, Amadana has released a preview of their upcoming products for this year.

One that I like very much is a digital kitchen timer that simulates an old fashioned sand clock with small pixel falling down indstead of real sand.

Nice idea just a bit expensive for 5000 Yen.