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This woman's not crazy. Her teddy bear is actually a cell phone. The Teddy phone was introduced by Willcom at the 2008 Good Design Expo. It's a concept, but the idea is that you can insert a sim card in the bear and hug it against your ear to make calls. You can set the paws to speed dial people (one for each paw, so four total), and the tail is used as the TALK button. You can even set it on vibrate. The estimated cost for this handset (?) is $500.
(Thanks, Baker!)
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» This weekend on TokyoMango from Boing Boing
This weekend on TokyoMango, I wrote about cool sci-fi self-portraits by Erina Matsui; a teddy bear that doubles as a cell phone; Japanese Internet bad-boy Hiroyuki Nishimura; rollerskating ninjas; and an electropop music video by Omodaka featuring 8-bi... [Read More]
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In 2008, Chronicle published my book: Urawaza: Secret Everyday Tips and Tricks from Japan.
I am also the founder of The Tofu Project, a boutique program that helps Japanese entrepreneurs and creators think deeper, tell better stories, and go out into the world in a much bigger way. We work with companies like Mixi, Japan Airlines, and Salesforce.com.
Sometimes I try to explain Japanese culture on CNN, BBC, CBC, WSJ, ABC (so many acronyms!) or in person at places like the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan, ETech, and Ignite!
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a Teddy phone, ha ha. But it quite big. I wonder how she carry it on travel.
Posted by: lifve | September 01, 2008 at 09:18 AM
The one thing I have started to dread in Japan, is the sickly sweet shrill sound of girls/women exclaiming...KAWAII! any chance they get. I'm sure this bear will get tons of that. I'll guess there's people out there that figure, why put on straps to make your keitai look cute, when the whole phone can be kawaii!
I'll bet this phone even get's the immediate follow-up of; Cho-Kawaii!
Posted by: vagrant | September 02, 2008 at 12:05 AM