A Japanese toy maker will soon sell a portable, personal karaoke machine so you can belt out your favorite tunes anywhere, and without having to wait for the microphone. The “Hi-kara” karaoke machine, by Takara Tomy, is a 7-cm (nearly 3-inch) cube which weighs less than a pound and works like a real machine.

Once the singer selects a song, which can be downloaded off the Internet or from special music cartridges, the lyrics come up on a 2.4-inch display. The machine also has headphones and speakers attached.

“Hi-kara” will go on sale in October for about $100, with song cartridges costing about $40 each.

Runaway! Runaway!




  1. hhopper says:

    …and you thought idiots on cell phones were bad.

  2. zybch says:

    I’d make a joke about ‘have we got any more nukes’, but that would be in bad taste.

  3. Raster says:

    This could be a Godsend: perhaps it will provide a record and playback feature!

  4. Improbus says:

    Oh, the horror!

  5. Daniel says:

    I thought Karaoke was the scourge of the earth until I was dragged into a small personal karaoke booth in Osaka. It really is a lot of fun after a bunch of drinks in a strange land. Constant 24×7 personal karaoke is a bit much though.

  6. Noel says:

    I may have to stop taking the train all the time if this comes here.

  7. MikeN says:

    First I thought that was a breathalyzer.

  8. hhopper says:

    #5 – Most everything’s fun after “a bunch of drinks.”

  9. Rob H. says:

    Ha-Ha, we already beat you Japan!

    http://www.griffintechnology.com/products/ikaraoke

  10. Whats next – not only to see idiot women careening their car towards you while smiling involved with a relationship on the phone
    They don’t even seem to be realizing that they are driving – just smiling an evil grin as they conduct their relationship on the phone oblivious of any other vehicles on the road
    Whats next – singing to the Karaoke machine while driving down the highway oblivious to anyone else

  11. Shin says:

    Quick quick..ban the use of them now!! Don’t wait like we have with cell phones! After all, there were no accidents before cell phones, and then they shot way way up. Didn’t they? Ummm..any actual figures? Or is it almost all apocryphal fear mongering by cranky non-geeks? “I never needed a phone while I was driving 20 miles to school through the worst blizzard in 100 years…” ^_^

    Guess what…I’ll bet that a good 90% of the people who have had motor accidents while using their phones would have found some other way to have them if there were no such things. I tend to work on the an idiot is an idiot principle..rather than the all must be treated as idiots before the fact…^_^

  12. Gasbag says:

    What the fuck are they thinking??????

  13. jim h says:

    There is a special place in hell for the people behind this product. And it’s not a quiet place.

  14. English Vibrato says:

    It is a mad world.

  15. admfubar says:

    karaoke the worst thing to come from japan since hari kari

  16. Mister Mayonnaise says:

    As I pass through the Valley of the
    Shadow of Death, I fear no Evil

    For I have Portable Personal Karaoke

  17. scadragon says:

    Karaoke… Japan’s revenge on the civilized world for Hiroshima and Nagasaki

  18. Floyd says:

    Karaoke–the fastest way known to clear out a bar.

  19. JimD says:

    Expect more impulsive STRANGULATION KILLINGS, followed by TEMPORARY INSANITY PLEAS !!! Has to happen !!! That would be a good reason to get these BANNED AS A THREAT TO PUBLIC ORDER, or something like that !!!

  20. deowll says:

    Is there some reason the singer looks like they have fangs? Are they trying to tell use something? Maybe it is their front teeth but…

  21. MikeR says:

    aka The iCringe


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