Sharp's tegakichat concept phone brings the purikura booth to girls' pockets

Japan is drenched in arcades with female-only purikura (photo booth for you gaijin) corners in which aflutter girls take pictures, bless them with sparkly decorations, and print them to book cover friendly stickers for all to see, for better or worse, to the horror of their moms, to the delight of their potential boyfriends. Let's say Sharp was to take the purikura phenomenon and fuse it with to the teenage girl's number one obsession: the cell phone (keitai for our Japanese readers). That's exactly what it did with this concept phone and software, complete with a shared art space that can be collectively decorated over wireless networks. Scary? Perhaps. Cool enough to snap some video in awesome disbelief? Most definitely.

Gallery: Sharp tegakichat

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[konshuss @ Sep 30th 2008 11:55AM]

amazing, a paint application.

[josh @ Oct 1st 2008 7:22AM]

Did you not read the part about it being concept hardware as well?

[whowhatme @ Sep 30th 2008 11:56AM]

purikura in my pocket. yatta~

[Hellaphunt @ Sep 30th 2008 12:07PM]

Is it me or are phones getting longer?

[Jaws @ Sep 30th 2008 12:52PM]

a lot of it is to make up for the bigger screens which are pretty darn big (compared to what North America gets). A lot of it is for the TV watching I believe....
My g/f has a fairly low feature Japanese cell and it is on the large part a pretty big flip... but like everyone knows..... its got a lot more going for it than most NA phones.

[GON @ Sep 30th 2008 12:07PM]

Awesome. Is it running Windows Mobile?

[kjb434 @ Sep 30th 2008 12:36PM]

That's what it appears to be!

[Lowest Ranked @ Sep 30th 2008 12:13PM]

"Congratulations, you have twin girls!"

[YoJIMbo @ Sep 30th 2008 12:30PM]

You all need an editor! Look at the spelling your title... "purikaru"!? Shijirarenai yo!!! Kiotsukette na!

[Tokyo-Ben @ Sep 30th 2008 1:22PM]

Wow, multiple errors in a correction comment? Nanka hazukashikunai? Fixed: shiNjirarenai; kiotsukeTE or ki wo tsukete (usually followed by NE, rarely NA).

But you are right that the OP title should read "puriKURA".

[YoJIMbo @ Sep 30th 2008 1:36PM]

Irony... irony!

[James @ Sep 30th 2008 2:43PM]

Engadget, please keep all this mobile crap over at Engadget Mobile seeing as that's what it's for. Seven articles on here today already...

[AutumnBringer @ Sep 30th 2008 3:30PM]

Yes please. Even though I read Engadget to read about, well, gadgets of all sorts, I too am allergic to cell phones. Even reading about them can set off my allergies sometimes. Please keep these articles out.

[Jay @ Sep 30th 2008 3:56PM]

i'm sure had this been a crap article about how someone made a panorama picture by stitching photos from their iphone together you wouldn't be complaining.

[Tamer Brad @ Sep 30th 2008 3:13PM]

i don't know how much you know about japanese culture -- personally i am an expert -- however,

[Reader @ Sep 30th 2008 5:05PM]

Lawl.

[Xin @ Sep 30th 2008 5:40PM]

I seriously thought that it said Pikachu. I have no idea why.

[jupiterthunder @ Sep 30th 2008 6:59PM]

awkward. JF kinda drifted way too deep into that fantasy.

[sbattazz @ Sep 30th 2008 9:45PM]

I don't see this actually hitting the market. Can't have these guys undercutting the purikura industry.