Beginning on September 1st at the Mitsuoka Motors showroom in Osaka, car enthusiasts will be able to rent the company's supercar, the Orochi, for 33,000 yen per day (or about US$390). While Mitsuoka is not an especially well-known name in the motor industry, the company is making a splash among gearheads looking for a slick car that will make heads turn. Read More

Sanyo's new pocket camera clearly takes aim at the Flip, while at the same time liberally borrowing inspiration from its success. The design moves away from previous Xacti gun-shaped designs and adopts a more Flip-like form factor, even including the signature pop-out USB connector from which Flip takes its name. Assuming that Sanyo didn't infringe on any patents here, we're excited that the company sees the value and marketability of simple cameras with few buttons. That was the common appeal of the Flip, and that same simplicity might help Sanyo take a bite out of the pocket-camera/camcorder market. Read More

imaGinyze is a new app that brings augmented reality to your car via the iPhone. When mounted properly in the center of your dash, an iPhone with imaGinyze installed will detect the lane that you're in, marking it with border lines that match up with the painted lines on the road, and filling the inside with a blue overlay. Once the app has established your lane, it can detect any vehicles that are in front of you within a given range. imaGinyze will also flash a "Vehicle Ahead" alert when you're approaching a car from behind. Cars to the front are color-coded according to proximity – first green, next yellow as you approach, and then to red when you get close. Read More

Japanese company PhotoFast Co.,Ltd. is set to release the iPADock at the end of September, and if these first pictures (released this week) are any indication, it's quite possibly the most bad-ass iPad/iPhone charging dock we've seen to date. This docking station can accommodate various combinations of devices – you can connect two iPads at once, four iPhones at once, or you can mix it up with one iPad and two iPhones. You can also use iPADock to charge up your iPods, as it's compatible with the Touch, Nano, and Classic models as well. Read More

Digital artists will no doubt be excited to hear that the online art community deviantART has just released Muro, a free, web-based drawing tool. And as an added bonus, Muro is built with HTML5 (read, 'No flash') which means you can use your iPad as a drawing tablet. Read More

The folks over at Seiko, apparently lamenting the fact that the company doesn't manufacture cars, are jumping on the hybrid bandwagon nonetheless. In late August two hybrid clocks will be released in Japan. Seiko's new timepieces will combine both solar and battery power so as to reduce the frequency at which you need to replace the batteries. Read More

For any unfortunate mobile users whose phone goes kaput due to water damage, there's now a new machine designed to suck moisture right out of your phone – if you live in Japan, that is. JMC Risk Solutions has installed a number of new 'Dryer Boxes' in selected Yodobashi Camera shops around Tokyo for those whose phones get caught out in the rain. Read More

Readers who follow developments in the growing field of bio-signal telemetry (perhaps we can call it "life data monitoring") will likely be familiar with the Fitbit, an activity monitor that collects and measures data about your daily movements. Hitachi's Life Microscope goes a few steps further, collecting even more data that can be used to analyze your life trends. Read More

TokyoFlash, the maker of creative LED watches such as the "Broke" stained glass watch, the Retsu and the Round Trip Pocket Watch, is at it again. Always on the lookout for wacky new ways to display the time with LEDs, the company has just released the "Traffic" watch. Read More