Hands dedicated to potato chips

You might think of this as a silly gadget, but it certainly seems useful. Toy maker Takara Tomy-Arts is collaborating with confectionery maker Calbee to release Smart Potato Chips hand on June 29.

This is the dedicated device that allows them to eat Calbee's potato chips without getting their hands dirty. This is an item that modernized the potato chip magic hand Potechi-no-Te(ポテチの手) released in 2010. Potechi-no-Te gained popularity that it was possible to eat potato chips without getting its hands dirty and became a huge hit item selling over 300,000 at that time. This renewal is based on the background that the number of people eating snacks with chopsticks is increasing so as not to dirty the screen of smartphones with the spread of smartphones. They have added the function of a touch pen for smartphones to the magic hand. You can grab potato chips with a magic hand, eat it, and operate your smartphone with the touch pen on the other side.

In addition, in collaboration with Calbee, coloring and logo based on package design of 4 kinds of popular potato chips flavor are adopted. The size of this is 37mm × 178 mm × 40 mm, the weight is about 36g, and the price is 1,382yen(tax included).

via https://www.takaratomy-arts.co.jp/specials/smartpotatochips/ (Japanese)

Smart Speaker teach you how to take out the garbage

Take out garbage is a very troublesome daily routine. Especially in Japan, waste separation is very complicated. So, Shaxware and Kobe City in Hyogo Prefecture released the Gomi-Maru, a garbage guide application link with Amazon Alexa.

This is an application that tells you about the types of garbage and how to take out each. For example, when you're busy doing housework or childcare, talking to an Alexa-equipped device, then it will tell you the classification of garbage in Kobe City and Toyohashi City, Aichi Prefecture, and the date of garbage collection by region.

If it's a smart speaker, users can control it with their voice, which is useful for older people with blindness, blind people and disabled people. With devices that have screens like Amazon Echo Spot and Amazon Echo Show, users can see what they've checked on the screen.
Shaxware launched its service for their hometown, Toyohashi, Aichi in August 2018, and in September 2018, they won the Life Category for the Alexa Skills Award 2018. They are recruiting other local governments that want to use this. The application is offered free at the Alexa Skills Store.

Card with special content

Usually, cards linked to smartphones and Web services contain points or e-money. However, this has special content instead of them.
Touchcard and BIGLOBE have released BIGLOBE TOUCHCARD, a cloud-type PR tool that enables users to view special content by touching the card to the screen of their smartphone. They are selling this to companies.

This is a card using a special print technology with a patented conductive ink that Touchcard has, and when the users touch on the card-touch website displayed on the screen of the smartphone by card, It will be recognized as like touch by a human finger, and the screen will transition to the special page. Customers can also print their original designs on top of the conductive ink. Also, customers can place different content on the front and back of the card. For example, it is possible to provide digital contents such as videos, audios, and images on the front, and provide discount coupons for limited goods on the back.
They say that it is very friendly to the community where there are a lot of specific fans such as the sports team's player cards or the huge game events. Furthermore, in international competitions, it is proposed to use as a tool for guidance in multilingual commentary and surrounding facilities. If customers distribute 10,000 cards to fans, the initial cost is 1.8 million yen for creating cards, and 150,000 yen / three months for system usage fee. The time required to create cards is one month, and the system construction can be one day.
As the first case, Shimizu S-Pulse, a J-League football club will distribute a bonus card that allows to see the original video for purchasers of 2019 season's official uniforms from this month.

Printer that can print only the necessary part

Although RICOH is one of the major printer maker, the situation in which people use printers is gradually decreasing. So they added an idea to the printer. It is to make them smaller.

RICOH Handy Printer is a handy-size monochrome inkjet printer that lets you print texts, images, QR codes, and barcodes anywhere by sliding it on paper. Even if the information you want to print does not fit on a regular printer, such as irregular-size paper or cardboard, you can easily print them using this.
Its weight only about 300grams and has a battery that can run for 2 hours in a row, and the size is 46 x 121 x 81mm and you can take it anywhere.

If you want to digitize information, you can do it by using a mobile app, Bluetooth or USB connection. They will release application fir Android and Windows in May. They will also release an SDK for this to support users own development.

Hello, I'm a smart hello kitty

Smart home appliances remote control has already been released by many manufacturers, there is no novelty. However, if you like something cute and it have a hello kitty face? Softbank's gadget shop SB C&S has released a limited model of smart home appliance remote control in collaboration with Hello Kitty, as the 45th anniversary item of Sanrio.

It is a small smart home appliance remote controller developed by gadget maker Ratoc Systems in Osaka, you can connect it to Wi-Fi at home and operate various smart appliances with infrared light. It supports not only mobile apps, but also Google assistants, Amazon Alexa-powered speakers, and voice operations using Siri shortcuts.
The distance of infrared rays is up to 30m, and remote control data of general household appliances such as TV, air conditioner, ceiling light, fan and recorder are also preset more than 350 kinds. In addition, learning of infrared remote control by manual is also possible and it has cloud function and sensors of temperature, humidity and brightness, so you can check home conditions with the mobile app and then operate your home appliances. The surface of this is printed with a Hello Kitty face, and it can be stored against the wall so you can always look at the Hello Kitty face in the room.

The size is 45 x 45 x 15mm, the weight is about 16grams, the power is 5V at 1A, and consumes 150mA in standby and 900mA in infrared transmission. You can buy this for 8,640yen(including tax) on Amazon.co.jp.