Kawaii -- Engadget

kawaii posts

Mimoco releases a whole new batch of adorable flash drives

by Joshua Topolsky posted Aug 9th 2007 at 7:44PM

Have you been looking for that special something to whip out at the big meeting to show everyone that you've got style, class, and money to burn? Well perhaps you should take a peek at the latest set of Mimobot Core Series 2 USB flash drives, which come fashioned in a wide variety of cute-as-all-get-out cartoon monsters, designed by illustrator Dino Alberto. While we can't say that we prefer these to the company's previous Star Wars-themed line, there is something intriguing about this new set, like the fact that these adorable little guys all have an elaborate back-story that's loaded onto the drives for your viewing pleasure -- although you may just want to scrap that to make more room for your "business documents." The drives come in 512MB, 1GB, 2GB or 4GB capacity, and range in price from $39.95 to $109.95.

Hot new DAP comes in Japanese chili powder container

by Cyrus Farivar posted Oct 31st 2006 at 4:15AM

Who says you can't have your audio player and eat it too? Not that we recommend ingesting consumer electronics, but you just might be tempted to if your DAP was encased in a small container of shichimi Japanese chili powder (we're betting that they've rinsed it out, though). This 2.6-inch tall 128MB player will play back both WMA and MP3 files, and features a headphone cable integrated into the neckstrap. It'll set you back a scorching ¥8800 ($74), and while that may not buy you the kawaii-est player in Nippon, it'll surely get you the hottest. We'll be here all week.

[Via Engadget Japanese]

Hello Kitty takes over portable media players

by Cyrus Farivar posted Sep 20th 2006 at 2:03PM

When will the madness of Hello Kitty gadgetry come to an end? We can't take it anymore, seriously. To review, we've seen a cellphone, Xbox, MP3 player, guitar, SD card, laptop, and tailpipe (plus lots more we couldn't find or didn't even post about) in the last two yeare. Our partners in crime over at Engadget Chinese came across the latest sighting of the queen of kawaii: a Hello Kitty mobile DVD player with a 3.5-inch screen and a three hour battery life. This whole package can be yours for 4,000 yuan, or about $500 -- not as cute as we'd thought with a price like that, but really, who can resist that puss? As proven, certainly not us.

Hitachi's DV-DH1000D WOOO DVR maxed out at 1TB

by Cyrus Farivar posted Sep 14th 2006 at 8:47PM

Yesterday we joked that we'd all have 1TB storage devices hard-wired to our brains by 2056. We're not quite there yet, but today we're taking some of the first steps: Hitachi has just announced three new models of its WOOO DVR, which top out at 1TB. These sleek little players, the DV-DH1000D, DV-DH500D and the DV-DH160D all record in Hi-Vision (Japan's version of HDTV) and come in three colors including "piano black," "champagne silver" and another metallic color that Google couldn't translate for us. Hitachi's latest range from ¥120,000 and ¥200,000 ($1,020 and $1,700), and while the two higher-end versions will be released in early October, the DV-DH160D won't be out until the middle of that month. Each recorder comes loaded with two terrestrial digital tuners and two BS / CS digital tuners (a Japanese digital stream standard), along with three sets of component and S-Video ports on the back, HDMI, iLink (on the DV-DH1000D only), Ethernet, an SD card slot and a DVD-R / RW recorder. So if you're in Japan, get ready to smash your piggy bank or whatever it is that the Japanese are keeping money in these days -- knowing them, it's probably something way kawaii-er than ceramic swine anyway.

[Via Akihabara News]

Hello Kitty invades the Epson Endeavor NA101

by Cyrus Farivar posted Sep 2nd 2006 at 5:29AM

Until now, hardcore Hello Kitty fans deeply lamented the fact that their laptops were clashing with their iPods, cellphones, and SD cards. Fear not, legions of the kawaii army, Sanrio Japan has just released an Epson Endeavor NA101 rebranded with Kitty's lovely mug (or optionally, 20 of her mugs) on the cover. You'll pay a ¥44,000 ($376) premium for this though, compared to the un-Kittyified blank NA101. But really, that's such a small price to pay to have the cutest computer in Shibuya.

BiblioRoll, the new digital literary baton

by Cyrus Farivar posted Sep 1st 2006 at 5:57PM

We're not sure that the BiblioRoll exactly meets the definition of kawaii, but it's definitely all sorts of awesome looking, and feels pulled from a 70s sci-fi. The BiblioRoll is a 15cm (about six inches) plastic cylinder that contains three 2-inch LCDs encased in separate sections of the cylinder. Each section can be rotated to display pages of different books, each of which can be linked and referenced together. The good folks from Media Design Okude Laboratory at KEIO University in Japan say that the BiblioRoll won't be complete until 2010, which should give us enough time to save up enough money to actually buy one of these things. Maybe by then we'll also have organized a BiblioRoll throwing contest.

[Thanks, Takashi Matsumoto]

PaPeRo : Shibuya girls' favorite robot

by Cyrus Farivar posted Aug 31st 2006 at 7:04AM

While we tend to prefer more aggressive robots, or more sporty robots, most of the 500 Shibuya girls surveyed in the latest issue of Robot Life tend to prefer kawaii (um, cuteness). The champion of the informal 500 person poll was PaPeRo, a short stubby little mini robot that looks like the lovechild of R2D2 and the Fighting Nun puppet. PaPeRro, whom we fell in love with at CeBIT, beat out such competitors as the security guard bot Wakamaru and the ifBot, an elderly-friendly little droid. We still think that PaPeRo should enter the Robo-One in the Space competition, which is totally feasible since it has few years to work it out and get in fighting shape. Click on for the list of today's best robots, as rated by a ton of Japanese ladies.

[Via Wired Blogs]

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