From the cute, colorful graphic boxes to the perfectly placed stools to help sugar-hungry kids reach the top shelf of perfectly organized sweets, Japan’s supermarket candy aisles are a testament to accessibility.
Microsoft really wants to hang with the cool kids at the mall. Or, at least park its retail derriere next to the likes of Apple’s sleek boutiques — to the tally of 86 stores by 2014. We know most of you are scratching your heads thinking, “Microsoft store? Don’t you mean Best Buy?” Aye, but we don’t. The MS-branded outfits started cropping up in 2009 and with 11 locations already dotting our map, COO Kevin Turner hopes to plant some more Windows flags in California, Florida and most of the northeast. Comments regarding the Ballmer-led company’s retail expansion came during the 2011 Worldwide Partner Conference and centered mostly on the benefits of customer feedback. It sure is nice to see the former market monopolist catering to us plebes, but we’re more interested in the D-list stars and awkward dancing destined to accompany opening ceremonies.
Microsoft Store to expand retail presence by 2014, makes shopping for a PC redundant originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 15 Jul 2011 15:40:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Big news for Big Red-eyed fans — the Droid 3’s finally made its dual-core, qHD, global 3G surfin’ ways official at the carrier’s retail outlets. You can pick this QWERTY slider up now for $199 on a two-year contract, or just go whole-hog and pay $459 with no strings attached. It’s not the operator’s top of the line offering, nor is it the increasingly mythical Bionic, but it should satisfy your Android needs. Click the source to order the latest in the Droid’s lineage.
Droid 3 on sale now at Verizon Wireless originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 15 Jul 2011 13:10:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Need to pick up a foursome of Detolf display cases? Better know a pal with a pickup, bub. Unless, of course, your nearest IKEA happens to be one of ten situated in Arizona, California, Oregon and Washington. The famed furniture retailer has just nailed down a partnership with ECOtality, with a smattering of its western US stores to host Blink electric vehicle charging stations. Each of the sites be evaluated for feasibility and installation needs, and we’re told that the first stations should become operational this fall. The pilot program is currently set to last through December of 2012, but we’re guessing it’ll end up surviving quite a bit longer — after all, it was already tough enough to resist a weekly trip to this place. Now? Swedish meatballs just become a daily affair.
Select IKEA stores to host Blink electric vehicle charging stations, Volts now suitable for furniture pickup originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 14 Jul 2011 05:24:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Purikura, the photo booth printing trend popular among teenage girls for years, is a versatile beast. We’ve seen it morph into video versions, mascot and character-themed booths, lend itself to FMCG packaging, and even inspire whole digital camera products. Now Sega is opening Japan’s largest purikura facility, named the P+closet, which is remarkable not just for its size but also for its integration of fashion and apparel into the purikura experience, apparently the first of its kind. Opening on July 16, visitors can try on a range of clothes and see how they look in them through purikura photos. Essentially, the booths will now become social changing rooms with the “costumes” being real fashion from brands.
An exercise in very experiential tryvertising for the 13 brands involved, the clothes will become for the target female users another “cute” tool for making themselves look better (or just different). Initially there are some 26 types of items available for trying on (two “co-ordinating patterns” each), from brands like BEAMS, OLIVE des OLIVE and Pageboy. Significantly the opening event will see a dokusha model (”reader model” or a pseudo-amateur model) attend. Purikura is another way for girls to make themselves more beautiful and model-like while having fun with friends, and adding fashion elements both enhances the experience for the girls and provides a new marketing channel for brands.
For the uninitiated, in a nutshell Purikura allows you to take cute pictures with your friends in the booth, and then digitally customize and decorate the images with letters, slogans, motifs and all manner of cute extras before printing them out. The ability for this trend to evolve always surprises and impresses us. The first booths emerged in 1995 and a generation later are still very much around, especially where girls congregate. However, since 2002 booth numbers have been falling, so purikura has been making efforts to enhance its functions as technology and lifestyles/fashion have changed. Now you can send the images directly to your phones and SNS pages using infrared transmission, FeliCa readers and QR codes, or even use your iPhone camera to make purikura pictures when an actual booth is not around.
Of course, fashion and beauty has also evolved. Perhaps most notorious has been the Jewella Eye machine for its dekame (big eye) effects, tapping into the trend for local girls to want to make their eyes look larger. However, it would appear, nigh two decades after their genesis, the very recognizable purikura brand of cuteness itself is still holding strong the tides of change simply because it’s a real world, social activity.
Additionally JJ, a fashion magazine popular among the teenage girl market, is also hopping onto the boat at P+closet with Sega. A terminal will be available inside P+closet that offers JJ’s recommended clothes and accessories, connecting visitors to the magazine’s e-commerce site so that they can purchase anything that catches their eye (including, presumably, the items they try on for the purikura photos). It would be exciting to see other brands catch onto this trend, and perhaps in the near future, purikura takers would be able see themselves carrying a Louis Vuitton handbag or even try on Swarovski x House of Hello Kitty accessories.
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You’ll need to wait until Sunday to get your hands on a Toshiba Thrive at Best Buy, but the Honeycomb slate is ready to head out Newegg’s door, with free shipping to boot. $430 nets you an 8GB tablet with two-day shipping, or you can add 30 bucks to get it overnight. That’s unlikely to mean tomorrow at this point, but if you play your cards right, you could be sliding through emails a la Swype before the weekend is out.
Update: Best Buy has confirmed that the Thrive will be available on July 10th, both in-store and online.
Toshiba Thrive in stock at Newegg, is ready to ship free to your door originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 07 Jul 2011 18:17:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
You’ll need to wait until Sunday to get your hands on a Toshiba Thrive at Best Buy, but the Honeycomb slate is ready to head out Newegg’s door, with free shipping to boot. $430 nets you an 8GB tablet with two-day shipping, or you can add 30 bucks to get it overnight. That’s unlikely to mean tomorrow at this point, but if you play your cards right, you could be sliding through emails a la Swype before the weekend is out.
Update: Best Buy has confirmed that the Thrive will be available on July 10th, both in-store and online.
Update 2: Looks like it’s live on Amazon, too!
Toshiba Thrive in stock at Newegg and Amazon, is ready to ship free to your door originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 07 Jul 2011 18:17:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Japan has a remarkable way of taking everyday products from pet food to coffee, applying an extra layer of thought and attention to detail, and creating extraordinary experiences in product design. We recently stumbled upon a beautiful line of fireworks that are so colorful and well-made that, frankly, it’s a damn shame to light them on fire.
The Japanese approach to fireworks (or hanabi) in general is rather different from what I grew up with. For me, fireworks (purchased in Indiana for maximum TNT), were always about power expressed in screeches and booms. Modern Japanese consumer fireworks, likely due to regulations, are primarily sparklers and fountains, making the focus on beauty over explosions. Unlike most of the U.S., small fireworks are available just about anywhere in Japan. Now, thanks to a new collaboration, they’re now for sale in design-oriented shops as well.
Produced by Tokyo’s classic fireworks maker Yamagata, these sparklers and assorted small fireworks are top quality and certainly invoke nostalgia, but it’s the additional coloring and concept by design firm Method that makes them truly unique.
The logo, packaging, POP, and art direction was done by EDING:POST, the firm behind the aforementioned Omotesando Koffee.
Of course, fireworks with this amount of work put into them don’t come cheap. Sparklers range from around $7 for five large ones, and the traditional Japanese senko hanabi (shown in the last image) are over $30 for a full, beautifully made package.
Each stick is perfectly colored in pastel combinations, and brought together in a simple, minimalist paper package. None of the loud design and plastic that accompanies fireworks from convenience stores. These are fireworks, according to the shop staff, that are “for adults”. Let the kids stay inside with their fireworks projector.
We found these at the Roppongi Hills Art & Design Store, which graciously tolerated our photography, a rare luxury in these types of shops most of the time.
The products and their homepage is brand new and not quite finished, but you can find them online at enjoyfireworks.com.
It’s this attention to detail for everyday items, not manga or other “cool Japan” icons, that separates Japan in a globalized world. Applied across all industries, design that creates experiences for people, even in small ways, is where we should all be striving. Even if we blow it up in the end.
Earlier this year, Pioneer, known for its wide array of electronics ranging from car navigation systems to home theaters, opened a showcase plaza in a fascinating looking building located in the heart of Ginza, one of the more upscale, luxurious shopping districts in Japan. We took a trip to Ginza to find out the latest technology that Pioneer has to offer to the public. The shop’s tagline, “Wanna See The Future?” clearly demonstrates Pioneer’s aim at establishing the newest hi-tech product innovations aimed at enhancing consumers’ lifestyles. Rather than merely showcasing their newest technology, visitors are encouraged to fully experience and interact with the digital products on display.
The Pioneer Plaza is spread out over three floors, each dedicated to a specific theme. As we walked into the first floor, out of the vast lineup of home electronics, the first thing that immediately grasped our attention was the Sound Cocoon. With beautiful alternating color lighting and an extremely cozy sofa, this intimate egg-shaped sound enhancement space was designed to provide ultimate comfort and relaxation for its users. It uses Pioneer’s Acco built-in amp system that can play music from any portable audio device, as well as online radio. With three speakers placed in strategic locations inside the cocoon, the intention was for a “peaceful environment in which the music blended in with the air and embraced the user.”
Our eyes then led us to the Floating Vision, which is an AR hologram monitor that allows users to encounter a 3D experience with their naked eye. What was particularly cool about this product was that it used an infrared sensor that allowed users to interact with the various characters displayed on the screen, introducing a new type of user interface programming. The screen is surrounded by a sensor-embedded frame that extends out about 10cm. It’s possible to virtually touch and manipulate objects, draw pictures, and interact with characters inside the screen just by making the actions in the field of the sensors.
The Floating Vision was made for personal home entertainment allowing users to connect a computer to the unit through a USB cable which then turns the product into a second display, offering a variety of applications. With a downloadable software program called FV_Tool, users can easily create their own hologram display by using visual files of their choice. Going one step further from digital photo frames, the technology makes it possible to upload any personal photos which can then be displayed in holographic 3D and interacted with, such as poking the hologram would “frighten it” and cause it to duck.
Pioneer also integrated the use of Felica with this technology to provide visitors with information about the store and their newest products. Deviating from the existing Felica information providers that merely generate a sound when applied, this particular device offers users with a variety of 3D visuals, adding a little “extra touch.”
Although still in production and not yet for commercial use, the Cycling Computer, attachable to bicycles and other motor vehicles such as mopeds, uses its built-in GPS system to collaborate with Pioneer’s audio and navigation technology. Shaped like a smaller version of an iPhone, the Cycling Computer was not only intended for navigation purposes but for entertainment as well. With a unique sensor that calculates the speed and amount of revolution of the wheel, the user is notified of the distance that they have traveled, their heart rate, and how many calories have been burnt off. Music and animations are played accordingly to different speeds and cycling style. Pioneer is planning to release applications for this device as soon as it hits the market, which would enhance the users’ experience, such as a navigating app that displays the most scenic routes to their destination.
The rest of the 1st floor was decorated with a number of other products that demonstrated product innovations aimed at space conservation, such as an ultra thin speaker, and a new type of thin LED lighting device that further reduces the use of electricity and has features such as its ability to bend, making it easily adjustable to any sort of placement.
As we reached the second floor, we were greeted with a beautiful arrangement of earphones and headsets which visitors could plug into their own portable audio player and try on, each with a unique concept and feature.
The rest of the floor was dedicated to Pioneer’s Carrozzeria car navigation series, which fully utilizes AR as well as the idea of using smartphones as navigators. Its AR Scouter Mode uses a built in camera to display front and rear view images that provides drivers with route and road information onto the actual navigation screen. Landmarks like gasoline stations and convenient stores, distance between cars, directions, and other information are displayed in real time above the front view image, providing drivers with a much easily visible guidance. With the newest UI (user interface) technology it acts as an iPod and DVD player, television, and built-in bluetooth system. This touch-panel navigator has other cool features such as a voice command search system and an added “Eco Navigator” that takes displays a route in which the driver would use the least amount of gas, calculating the weight and size of the car.
With similar brand spaces such as Shiseido’s Total Beauty Facility, there seems to be a general move towards a more effective utilization of store space, deviating from the traditional shop-and-go stores seen throughout Japan. Brands are leaning towards a more interactive orientation by providing customers with product demonstrations and allowing them to fully experience their products and services themselves.
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You may not know the name Ron Johnson, but you’re definitely familiar with his work — this is the man who built Apple’s retail empire. Eleven years ago Jobs brought Johnson on to create the first Apple store, stealing him away from his position at Target. Now the man who brought you the Genius Bar and roaming, iPhone-wielding sales reps is moving on, and taking his expertise to the department store stalwart J.C. Penney. A spokesperson for the Cupertino crew told All Things D that the company was already searching for his replacement, but we’re more interested in what Johnson will be doing with the shopping mall staple when he takes over as CEO on November 1st. We can only imagine that iPad-based virtual fitting rooms and desks of Jean-iuses will be helping you pick out your next pair of Levis. PR after the break.
Continue reading Apple retail chief Ron Johnson takes his empire-building genius to J.C. Penney
Apple retail chief Ron Johnson takes his empire-building genius to J.C. Penney originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 14 Jun 2011 14:42:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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