In an empty space in its former factory in Fukushima Prefecture, Japan, electronics-maker Fujitsu is now developing an unusual product: lettuce. Grown in a clean room, the lettuce has been engineered to contain low amounts of potassium. The growing operation uses a cloud computing system to optimize levels of humidity, CO2 ,and fertilizer.
What you might not expect when you're expecting: a company that wants to 3-D print a statuette of your unborn child. Japanese engineering outfit Fasotec will gladly take an MRI scan of an expecting mother's fetus and using its BioTexture modeling software to capture 3-D data related to human tissues convert that scan into a CAD file, then print it up in resin. It's called the "Shape of Angel" service (what else?), and it will only set you back roughly $1,250.
Japanese company WHILL's eponymous product is one of those things that's so smart that it's almost annoying that no one has done this before. WHILL, which debuted recently at the 2011 Tokyo Motor Show, is a prototype aftermarket drive train that attaches externally to an ordinary wheelchair, augmenting it with electrically powered drive.
Japanese company NSK has pulled off the mother of all Kinect hacks, and all they had to do was build a fully functioning robotic dog around Microsoft's gaming peripheral. With help from Tokyo-based University of Electro-Communications, NSK has built a robotic guide dog for the visually impaired that uses a Kinect to evaluate and understand its environment and help its owner safely navigate.
