AI designs photobooks

The reaction to sharing photos on social networking services is now reviving physical photobooks in Japan, and there are many photobook production services linked with mobile photo applications. But we're selfish, so we feel troublesome to select photos and photobook layout design. So cheetahs, a group company of leading photo supplies company Kitamura, has released a new mobile application sarah.AI, which AI does.

They originally offered the photobook service sarah, and they added an AI to it to automate photobook production. The main functions of this are the best shot function, the automatic grouping function, and the collection function. The best shot function performs layout adjustment by face recognition and quality determination to remove blurring and duplication by scoring. The automatic grouping function groups photos from date and location information and automatically generates a title for each story and event(Of course, you can also give yourself titles). And, with the collection function, you can edit photobooks without having to select photos individually. All they can be done with the application only, but you don't need external communication, so you can protect your privacy. In addition, it has automatic layout function and various designed covers, so you can make a 140 x 140mm 24-page photobook simply by selecting them. You can make one photobook free each month, but you can add pages by paying 25yen for every two pages(Up to 96 pages).
They have only released an Android version, but an iOS version will also be released in June.

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.