While Japanese banks have been using this technology for years, Hitachi have implemented this technology to – Vending Machines ^^. You can pay your can or bottle drinks using your veins! No coins or bills are involved ;)

Hitachi’s proprietary biometric authentication system requires that users first register an account (probably linking their vein pattern to their registered credit card), but it allows the buyers to purchase a can of green tea or coffee by inserting their hand into the machine for a quick scan!
The company also incorporated a digital signage …

As Yotsuba so clearly put it in her statistically sound graph above, the Animation Industry in Japan is currently hurting.
The Animation Market Analysis Project of Japan’s Media Development Research Institute (MDRI) reports that the animation market in Japan dropped for the second year in a row to 212.9 billion yen (about US$2.26 billion) in 2008. The same research firm had reported that  the market peaked at 241.5 billion yen (US$2.53 billion) in 2006, before dipping to 230.2 billion yen (US$2.41 billion) in 2007.
While the artical does mention the drop in …

Just how otaku are you? A certain otaku fan of the IdolM@ster series actually bought 29 boxes of the Petit Nendoroids Stage 2 that were just released this month.

A grand total of 174,000 yen for them O_O

I’m actually trying to count how many nendoroids he got from the 29 boxes. Sankakucomplex posted “174″ nendoroids but I think it’s 348 petit nendoroids since there’re 12 figurines in 1 box(11 figurines and 1 special version)
Okay I guess he’s a HUGE fan that he actually bought 29 boxes >_>. I bought the DVDs …

The makers of Dynasty Warriors, Koei, is releasing a Dynasty-Warrior-style credit card! Only available in Japan though.

If you never knew your old stuff could be useful, think again. Odakyu department store recently had a promotion whereby customers could bring their old ladies shoes and trade in for a 1,050 yen coupon. The coupon can be used for customers to purchase new items. The department store had initially decided to hand out 20,000 coupons, but ended up giving out more than 150,000 of such coupons!
First such sales started in April 8-21 2009. Because of the huge succession of the first trade-in campaign, Odakyu decided to have another …

Do you give gifts to your teachers or professors? It seems that Hokkaido Professors have received cash, gift certificates from PhD recipients. Common in your country?
According to the state-run university’s internal survey, the nine who received the gifts belong to the graduate schools of agriculture, engineering and science and one of them received up to 150,000 yen in cash from two PhD recipients.
Masaaki Hemmi, vice president of the university, said, ‘‘We are ashamed that incidents degrading the dignity of academic dissertations have happened. We will work on measures to …

Just yesterday and today, everything came in. So I decided to postpone this post till today, and take all my loots at one go X) Fresh from Amazon Japan and CDJapan ^_^

I ordered seiyuu magazines from Amazon, and the Fedex postman got lost -_- Talk about going to the wrong block, and attempting redelivery, again to the wrong block. Gosh. And I think you can guess why I ordered the magazines, two of them holds the answer =W=.
Oh yeah, the extreme magazine on the left was bought sometime in Early …

2008 is coming to an end. I always complain that I am poor thanks to new loots. In addition, with a new game console to my family, expenditure will definitely go up. I guess I am one of those people who has to juggle between PS3 gaming and figurines. Wait did I mention that I support Nana Mizuki too?>< Gundam kits are lagging on one end, so I don’t think I will be purchasing any new ones until I see any Gundam 00 MG kit out. Lol. 00 Gundam perhaps? …

^ Is poor me who can’t afford lunches or the Play Station 3 and LBP Dx
Today for the first time since I started interneting I received my first scam-ish phishing e-mail.
We are pleased to notify you that your email address
won the sum of £850,000 GBP from our monthly UK National
Online Promotion held on 6Th November 2008, and released
9Th November 2008. You have therefore been approved
to claim a total sum of £850,000 (Eight Hundred And Fifty
Thousand Pounds ).
Ticket No. 5647 5600 545 188
Contact agent for your claims.
And I thought: OMG! …