Inspiration 365 Days!

Items confiscated from delinquent taxpayers - from brand-name lingerie to a model locomotive - are turning into a gold mine for cash-strapped local governments, who are auctioning them on the Internet.

In fiscal 2007, final auction prices for such items totalled nearly 4.68 billion yen (S$60 million), according to Yahoo Japan, which runs a special auction site for seized items and other government assets, the Asahi Shimbun reported.

That tidy sum is 100 times more than what similar auctions fetched in fiscal year 2004, when Yahoo Japan started the service.

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Nintendo is banned everywhere but the classroom at Tokyo Joshi Gakuen school in Japan as the ubiquitous DS consoles become the latest tool in English instruction.

Junior high school teacher Motoko Okubo has used the handheld DS and textbook software since May in weekly sessions focusing on vocabulary, penmanship and audio comprehension.

With years of games such as Super Mario on the prohibited list, she says students weren’t expecting the Nintendo welcome.

“They’ve been using it at home playing games, so at first they were surprised they can use it at school,” Okubo said.

Toys are no longer just child’s play in Japan, where an ageing population and expanding waistlines have spawned a wave of gadgets to help adults beat stress, battle the bulge or relieve loneliness.

From exercise assistants to dancing robots and nodding potted plants, Japanese toymakers are increasingly turning their attention to grown-ups as a growing market to make up for flagging sales to kids.

The shift comes amid increased efforts to get people into shape in a country where more than one fifth of the population is aged 65 or older, a percentage expected to rise to 40.5 percent in 2055, according to the government.

Meet Hasbro’s Ampbot, the mother of all Rollys

Cross a Segway with a Rolly and Miuro and out pops this A.M.P. soaked in a grey-goo afterbirth of Robotic procreation. The two-wheeled, dancing A.M.P. (Automated Music Personality or Ampbot) from Sega-Hasbro stands 2.4-feet tall and features a MP3 or iPod cradle on its back, stereo speakers, and the ability to follow and interact with its owner. There’s a 5-inch mid-range speaker in the chest and a pair of smaller tweeters in the shoulders for a total output of 12 watts. Osamu Takeuchi of Sega Toys says, “The owner can also enjoy being chased around the house by the robot.” Uh, yippee? The Ampbot and controller require 6x D and 3x AAA batteries for about 10-hours of continuous music. The stalking begins November for $745 $500 in the US and Japan.

A Japanese man who developed the world’s smallest helicopter will take flight in the birthplace of Leonardo da Vinci in tribute to the Renaissance genius’ original idea.

Gennai Yanagisawa, 75, said Thursday that a demonstration flight of his one-man helicopter is planned in the city of Vinci, near Florence, Italy, on May 25.

Yanagisawa developed the GEN H-4 helicopter — with rotors, a chair, footrest and handle bar — in the late 1990s.

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TOKYO - A Japanese man who developed the world’s smallest helicopter will take flight in the birthplace of Leonardo da Vinci in tribute to the Renaissance genius’ original idea.

Gennai Yanagisawa, 75, said Thursday that a demonstration flight of his one-man helicopter is planned in the city of Vinci, near Florence, Italy, on May 25.

Yanagisawa developed the GEN H-4 helicopter — with rotors, a chair, footrest and handle bar — in the late 1990s.

Conan, a Chihuahua, sits on his hind legs, raises his paws and puts them together at the tip of his nose.

“He may be showing his thanks for treats and walks,” says a priest at Jigenin temple on Okinawa island.

Priest Joei Yoshikuni would like Conan to meditate, but “it’s not like we can make him cross his legs”, he says.

“Basically, I am just trying to get him to sit still while I meditate,” he told Associated Press news agency.

Mr Yoshikuni said it only took Conan a few days to imitate the motions of praying.

Mao Asada’s opening move was heart-stopping - and not in a good way.

As she went to take off for a triple axel, a jump so hard few women even try it, she slipped and slid across the ice.

“I was surprised myself,” Asada said.

But the two-time Japanese champion rebounded with a huge triple flip-triple toe loop combination, righting her long-program fortunes and capturing the gold medal at the World Figure Skating Championships on Thursday. She finished with 185.56 points, winning by almost a point.