Persacom Lite

A Japanese firm is producing dolls in the likenesses of their owners for little more than USD $2,100!

More from Annanova:

Robotics firm Little Island claim they can create a tiny likeness of anyone - even replicating the sound of their voice.

Customers place their £1,500 order and simply submit a photo of the person they'd like their new toy to resemble.

Six months later, and their very own Mini-Me will turn up on their doorstep.

The dolls can be taught to sound like the customer via an in-built microphone, a computer and voice recognition software.

The robots, which are created in a technology centr just north of Tokyo, are equipped with 80 gigabytes of storage and a webcam.

The advanced version can even download the latest news and weather and then read back the reports - in your voice.

Learn English with Luka

Rin and Len meet the new Vocaloid singer, Luka Megurine.
Luka has a special talent, she was programmed to sing in English, so Rin and Len try their best to have a conversation with her.
But Miku comes in, hungry for dinner, and as Luka rambles off a list of Japanese dishes they can eat, the twins soon find that Luka's Japanese isn't that bad either...

Now Luka doesn't always look like a creepy and cute octopus. Here is how she looks 90% of the time:

As you can see, they've ditched the school uniform-type outfits for this Vocaloid2 character, as she is 20 years-old, or so we're told.
Her vocal range is excellent, with capabilities of singing just about anything from the sultry low notes, to kawai-desu high notes, and yes, even English lyrics.

Her videos have become quite popular on Nico Nico Douga just after her recent release.

Japan "Land" Mass Continues to Grow

Japan is growing.

As Sankaku Complex reports:

Since October 1st of last year, Japan has seen an increase in its available
land. Numerous areas, including Tokyo, Ibaraki and Nagasaki, are growing larger,
with Japan’s total land area now reaching 377,943.57 square kilometers (about
10% smaller than California).

...Japan is 90% mountainous and thus
unsuitable for much building.

Several commenters on this atricle proposed some Sim City-style terrain changes Japan could do next, which amused me greatly.