Takara's Choro Mode Pet cellphone bot
A line of cutesy minibots that you control with your cellphone? You know there's no way that's not going to have something to do with Japan. Not sure how long these have been out and about, but Takara offers five different Choro Mode Pets—a blue bunny, a brown cat, a green cat, a brown dog, and a white dog (no brown bunny, but we think Vincent Gallo will live)—each of which you can control using the keypad on your phone (press 2 to go straight, 1 to go left, 3 to go right). The Choro Mode Pets can also sing songs, run around in circles, and according to 3Yen, pretend to "see a ghost and get scared." Each pet costs ¥999 (about $9.50), and is controlled via a cable, rather than Bluetooth (hardly any Japanese handsets have Bluetooth).
