PLANETDAMAGE

yuichiro katsumoto has a new video for two of his pet projects out on youtube - the first being amegatana [sword of rain], the one he’d been presenting at ars electronica, 2007 (see my yt linked at the end of this post) - an umbrella linked to an accelerometer that obviously detects the types of swings that you try to pull off and plays a few sound effects (like thunderclaps and rumblings) if you succeeded in doing so. katsumoto-san describes this “an umbrella for enjoying a blissful walk after a rain“, which obviously means that all Japanese with umbrellas have this innate ability of kicking our asses hard without even trying.

fula, he says, “is a muffler for warming the user’s body and soul on a cold winter’s day“, but it’s more like a gadget with dramatic effects, blowing a scarf off our backs and keeping it floating while we show off our blissful shadow-swordsman technique. if i’m nonsensical, just tap play and you’ll see what I mean.

funny thing is, I did a brief talk-to with him back at second city. turns out he’s a huge fan of bushido blade and this really leaves a mark on the whole amegatana thing. secondly, he said that since the Japanese mobile market is starting to get flooded with handsets with built-in accelerometers, he could rewrite the software for mobiles instead of umbrellas adding multiplayer support. which could leave him with a righteous amount of revenue, so all thumbs up for yuichiro katsumoto!