Dwango releases environmentally-friendly ringtones

Unlike rude Western nations like the UK,
where leaving your ringtone on even in "no ringtone" train carriages is socially accepted, Japanese good manners dictate that most businesspeople will have their phones set solidly to vibration mode. This obviously isn't an idea that pleases Japan's numerous ringtone providers, and Dwango have taken the lead in launching ringtones that blend into the aural background (and dispelling at a stroke the image their name conjured up of a fat kid with a propeller cap). So now your phone will ring with the sound of someone coughing, or cutlery jangling together, or a host of other "environmental" sounds. We have enough trouble when a character's home phone rings on TV and we reach for the handset, though, and we'd hate to be digging out our cellphone every time the guy next to us coughs. (The photo is of one of Dwango's TV ads, incidentally, not just a shot of two random guys.)