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Most so-called ‘designer’ gadgets for women are thinly veiled attempts to flog existing products at the end of their life-cycles, so it’s a pleasant surprise to see a decent-looking - albeit technologically old-hat - feminine flash Walkman from Sony in Japan.

Japanese residents tired of squatting when they go to the smallest room can get themselves all Westernized thanks to the latest in new-fangled toilet converters from Inax.

Learning a new language isn’t always the most fun activity for many people, especially during the endless hours of repetitive listening to tapes or CDs needed to learn how to understand the spoken word. Fortunately, a novel study aid from Japanese firm Imajinsha aims to make the time-consuming donkey work a little easier with its new polyglot pen.

We all know Japan loves its fake turds, particularly atop buildings or dangling from cellphones, but this is the first we’ve seen that doubles as a flashlight.

Those tedious arguments about whether or not the Apollo moon landings were staged could be all over next month when Japan launches its Selene satellite on the most extensive lunar mission since the US program ended in 1975. On board the probe will be the first space-going high-definition movie camera to be pointed directly at the moon.

Sure, it’s still speculation, but we give some credence to suggestions of an iPhone launch in Japan when it comes straight from the horse’s mouth. The horse in this case is an Apple Japan account exec looking to place an ad in a particular Tokyo-published magazine.

Regular visitors might have noticed - via links like the one at the page head, at the end of stories or over there on the far right - that we’ve moved into the dating website business and you might wonder why…

We’ve already seen a Japanese system that uses mobile phones to give advance warning of the earthquakes that plague the seismically hyperactive archipelago, so it was inevitable that something similar would arrive for domestic use.

Confirming the promise we saw in Sony’s GPS-shunning PlaceEngine application recently, comes the news that Japanese mapping giant Edia will use it in its next round of navigation software.

Reports from Japan say the first incident in a predicted wave of iPhone-centric street robberies has occurred a full two days before the US launch of Apple’s world-changing, famine-ending, disease-curing ‘Jesus phone’ that is destined to be all things to all men.

If you’re even just marginally into video games, you’ll know that Nintendo has been taking all the plaudits over the last year or two thanks to the runaway success of its DS handheld machines and the more-recent Wii console.

The largest city in western Japan has just seen the start of an unusual security trial that uses IC tags, GPS and drinks vending machines to make the streets a little safer.

DWT friend and all-round good-egg Roland Kelts has a new book out about the bizarre and intriguing bonds between the cultures of Japan and the US. Japanamerica touches on everything from manga to maniacs, so get your click on and hear what Roland has to say for himself after the jump. PS If you’re in Tokyo, don’t miss the chance to get it straight from the horse’s mouth tomorrow night - details at the end.

Trading on nostalgia never hurt any company with an eye on the bottom line, which is obviously what Digital Cowboy had in mind when it created its ‘iPod shuffle Randoseru Carrying Case’ - a faux leather shuffle cover in the style of an elementary-school satchel.

Here in Japan, Softbank Mobile - the brand Vodafone Japan transformed into last year - is about to launch a service that will surely appeal to the nation’s legendary drunken Friday-night salarymen who seem to have a habit of leaving their phones anywhere but their pockets.

Everyone knows that when it comes to wasting money on unnecessary luxuries there’s gullible and then there’s plain stupid - you can be the judge on this one, as I’ve lost all sense of what passes for normal here in Japan.

The tense security climate that airlines worldwide currently operate in is now bringing an unexpected technical challenge for both passengers and staff, as Japanese carriers have been finding out recently.

Anyone who’s ever been through a major earthquake will immediately recognize the value of an early-warning system being planned by Japan’s largest mobile phone operators.

If you thought commercialism of all sorts and advertising in general were pervasive in the West, then you’ve probably never been to Japan, where inducements to buy have been elevated to an art form.

Sony Japan announced yesterday that it would make life a little easier for gamers wishing to use their PS3 consoles to buy and download online games and other content from the PlayStation Store by providing pre-paid cards exclusively for that purpose.

When it comes to Japan, it’s commonplace to see a lot of drivel and preconceptions pushed as fact by ill-informed Western media, particularly when it comes to stories about technology and how it is used there.

Quantum computers that manipulate subatomic particles to perform lightning-fast calculations came closer to reality recently when a Japanese team demonstrated that it had created a quantum circuit that could control the building blocks of atoms.

Satellite phone calls are set to come to the masses within a few years through the Japanese government’s plan to launch an orbiter with a ‘mega antenna’ so large ordinary cellphones will be able to pick up its signal with only slight modifications in their design.

Last month we looked at the next-generation barcodes commonly found in Japan and pondered why few people seem to actually use them. It seems we aren’t alone in thinking that something can be done to encourage their use, as the latest versions of the QR Codes now include images and video.

Mid-sized Japanese ISP and telecoms provider J:COM is launching a domestic security package that will rival, at least in part, the U-Consento service we saw from NTT last week in the intelligent-home stakes.

The continuing march of the limited-edition (Product) Red goods that are part of the eponymous charity’s drive to raise funds for AIDS relief and research across the world reached Japan today, when Motorola unveiled its red RAZR for the market here.

Nissan, which is apparently on a mission to push cars into a new era in Japan, this week announced the latest stage in ongoing research into using technology to reduce traffic accidents, particularly those involving pedestrians.

Looks like YouTuber pireze has been up to no good with his USB Humping Dogs — just check out the sordid scene he’s coerced them into in the vid after the jump.

Cellphones in Japan are so much better than yours — heck, they even allow you to ruin your eyesight by squinting at FULL NOVELS on those tiny screens.

Panasonic reckons it has found the perfect way to make us all feel safe in our own homes at last — it claims that its air-filtering Super Alleru-Buster technology can all but eliminate the bird flu virus from air it comes into contact with.

Japan is well known for its many peculiar festivals but not so many people are familiar with the regular large-scale drills held here to prepare for earthquakes and other natural disasters. Naturally, these drills now involve cellphone companies and other services reliant on technology.

Find out more in our video report on exactly how it’s done in Nippon after the jump.

As Japan’s mania for vein-authentication technology shows no signs of slacking off, the country’s first private-run prison has announced plans to keep tabs on its inmates by encoding their biometric info on IC cards.

Japanese library users are set to make the rest of the world feel even more low-tech than usual when they start checking out books using palm-vein authentication technology.

With about the same predictability as night following day, a Japanese company has come up with a Peanuts-themed iPod. Runa is offering a run of 1,000 of these customized 2GB nanos.