Hitokara at Home bridges phones with home karaoke

Written by: Michael Keferl on October 6, 2008 at 3:58 pm | In Technology & Gadget Trends | 1 Comment

Despite dropping numbers, karaoke is still the official after-school pastime of Japanese youth. Besides being a technology driver by being early adopters of mobile phone, e-money, and interactive loyalty programs, karaoke also plays a large role in the music industry by upping the demand for karaoke-friendly tunes.

Last year Sega released their mobile karaoke service called Hitokara, meaning (karaoke for one). The free mobile phone service began with 35,000 karaoke songs available for download, ranging from pop tunes to traditional Japanese mucis, but has since expanded to include over 43,000 free songs for it’s 1.5 million members. Now Sega has made a real world accessory for its digital service called Hitakara at Home, which connects the mobile phone to enhance the karaoke experience.

The Hitokara at Home is a miniature karaoke box including speakers, microphone and an LED lit mirror ball for when the lights go down. Users can connect the mobile phones to the device, choose the songs, and rock out at home or with a friend. Consult your doctor before mixing with karaoke pills!

Tags: Entertainment, Karaoke, Sega
Category: Technology & Gadget Trends
Other categories: Marketing & Ad Trends, Fashion & Lifestyle Trends, Press coverage

Homestar EX from Sega Toys

Written by: Michael Keferl on June 19, 2008 at 6:55 pm | In Technology & Gadget Trends | 6 Comments

UPDATE: The official name has now become the Homestar EXTRA, and it’s coming out in December 2008!

For our first post from the first day of the 2008 International Tokyo Toy Show, we are proud to introduce the latest in Sega Toys’ Homestar home planetarium series. Yeah, they just debuted the Homestar Spa in the last couple of weeks, but the Homestar EX is poised to be the Pro-version of the…err…Homestar Pro? (product page link)

Though it won’t be released until the end of the year, the Homestar EX uses large star discs, is a much higher-quality home planetarium than anything else in the Homestar series, and is bright enough to see the stars clearly with the lights on in the room! Other new features include a digital multi-function remote control, and a truly random (not fixed) shooting star function.

Of course, such high celestial technology doesn’t come cheap. While no price has been determined, the Homestar EX is expected to sell for over $800 when released.

Tags: Homestar, Homestar EX, Sega, Tokyo Toy Show, Toys
Category: Technology & Gadget Trends
Other categories: Marketing & Ad Trends, Fashion & Lifestyle Trends, Press coverage

Tokyo Toy Show 2007 coverage with video and pics!

Written by: Michael Keferl on June 29, 2007 at 2:59 am | In Technology & Gadget Trends | 4 Comments

The CScout Japan team went to the Tokyo Toy Show 2007 today, and had an amazing time checking out all the newest toys and gadgets from Japan for this year. There are many cool things coming out, and we’ll go into much more detail over the weekend, but today is just a basic overview. As usual, we were most impressed with Sega, especially their lifestyle gadgets like the Homestar Pro, but Bandai and Takara Tomy were right up there as well. Konami is a definite must-see, but only because they have the best models

We also got to see the Puchi Puchi virtual bubblewrap up close, as we mentioned in this post. For some reason there was a major surplus of three kinds of items: Helicopters, air guitars (the kind not made of air, which was confusing), and models of Tokyo Tower (we saw at least five). No shortage of girls either! Check out the rough video coverage below:

We can’t possibly fit everything in here at once, so we’ll cover our favorite items in the coming days, one-by-one. Click below to jump and see some eye-candy from the show before we unveil some exclusive pics of some very cool Japanese products coming your way soon…

Click here for more

Tags: Bandai, Homestar, Sega, Takara Tomy, Tokyo Toy Show, Toys
Category: Technology & Gadget Trends
Other categories: Marketing & Ad Trends, Fashion & Lifestyle Trends, Press coverage