Japanese Edutainment: Space Trends, Home planetarium, Moon Watch and the Universe on PSP

Leave it to the Japanese to make learning cool. Say what you will about the educational system, because outside of school there’s a lot of learning going on. From “brain trainers�? to manga that visually demonstrate the Theory of Relativity or how to repair a motorcycle, entertainment is quite often merged with education.

One of the biggest trends in the last year has been space. While it’s basically impossible to view the stars clearly in a big city like Tokyo, products like the Homestar Planetarium from Sega bring it all right into your living room with amazingly bright detail for 10,000 stars (with the occasional shooting star blasting through), all projected on your ceiling or wall. The popularity for the Homestar has been overwhelming for Sega, and the release of the upcoming Homestar Pro (integrating color!) will solidify that.

Citizen’s Astrodea series of watches are not only cool looking, but highly functional tools for measuring time with space coordinates. The newly updated Celestial watch series comes in both the Northern and Southern hemispheres for stars, a Moon Age version for lunar time, and even a cool celestial wall clock that glows in the dark.

Out last month, the Homestar Planetarium has even gone mobile, with cool PSP software. While not a game per se, the Homestar Portable is the gateway to five million stars and astrological phenomena from location specific areas, and even by date or time. Users can navigate, zoom in, and otherwise explore the universe with detailed information about constellations, planets, and everything else that makes up infinite space. Homestar Portable also recreates events such as Aurora Borealis and eclipses, while also giving a fifteen chapter guided tour of space in Fantasy Theater mode.



However, the coolest part of Homestar Portable will come in December when Sony releases the GPS adapter for the PSP, which will make it the best space reference in the…umm…Universe?