The robot of popular anime was reproduced

Now, SF film Ghost in the Shell was shown in Japan. Ahead of this film, gadget maker Cerevo reproduced the robot of the original anime of this film.

It is mini-size of the 1/8 scale(352mm × 391mm × 249mm), but is a real robot, not a model. This is "TACHIKOMA", the AI deployment tank appearing in anime "Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex". Cerevo made this with 1/8 scale as part of a project to reproduce the items which appeared in animes, games, and the movies using the technology of the household appliance. This has joints, pod, a manipulator, wheels, and of course they move.

Furthermore, this has a sound recognition function, a voice synthesis engine, a camera and is connected to the cloud Internet. And owners can talk with this. When you show an apple towards the camera of this and ask "What is this?", the object recognition engine in the cloud recognizes it and answers "I know, this is a apple". When someone tell this that "the apple is sweet", this understands it, sends the information to the cloud and share information with other TACHIKOMA. In other words, this learns a lot of information by many owners talking to this. They accept the pre-order of this, but surprisingly the price is 169,992 yen!(in Tax). Furthermore, SPECIAL EDITION using aluminum parts is 191,592 yen!(in tax). The shipment start is June.

Japanese flea market app "Mercari" went into the U.K.

Japanese flea market app "Mercari" step forward abroad steadily. They released application in U.K. This is their overseas development following the U.S. and they aim at the European market. U.K. version site is here.

Mercari was released in Japan in July, 2013. Various flea market apps existed before this, but as for them, web service for PCs was the main constituent, and the mobile apps were late departure. However, Mercari was the "mobile-first" thoroughly and simple(they have web service for PCs now). If you want to sell something, you have only to take its photos with the camera of the smartphone and write its captions. If you have luck, it may sell in several seconds. I used Jp version of Mercari, and earned about 170,000yen(about 1,510USD) so far. In Japan, we must pay recycling fees when we discard large garbage and household appliance garbage. However, we can earn pocket money if we sell these in Mercari.

They released U.S. version in September, 2014, and apps broke through 20 million downloading now(40 million downloading in Japan). They established branch office "Mercari Europe" in the U.K. in 2016 and prepared for the advance to the European market.

Mercari was established in February, 2013 by Japanese serial entrepreneur Shintaro Yamada.