So back from Japan and there are quite a few blog entries on the way, as I get the time. The first thing I’m moved to blog about is the new Sony Rolly. Myself and Jason spent a full twenty minutes standing in front of a kiosk in an electronics store in Japan looking at a promotional video of the rolly.
Really. Twenty minutes – twenty full minutes – spent watching a video of the rolly doing what rollys do. Exactly what that is, I’m afraid I can’t tell you, because I still don’t know. Which is why we spent so long looking at it. I couldn’t decide if this was some sort of cross cultural misunderstanding – maybe Japanese people ‘get it’ instantly – or marketing genius along the lines of “let’s make the promos so ambigous, it will keep people guessing!”
It seems to be some sort of music player, except it lights up, pulses colours, dances and has bluetooth functions. But quite what it is or why you’d want it I’m not sure. The Japanese promo videos feature children dancing with their rollys, couple snuggling in bed with their rolly, and people meditating beside their rolly. Apparently you can programme your rolly to dance in specific ways, and then share your dance programmes across the net with your rolly-owning friends. Quite why you would want to do this, I don’t know but this does come from the same culture that brought us the virtual pet in the form of the tamagotchi so who can say?
Either Sony has invented something so totally and uterly redundent and useless that nobody will buy it and it will go the way of the Sinclair C5 or in fact, Sony has come up with an entirely new and original kind of personal electronics.
alexmeehan.com 
Pardon my lateness for commenting, based on the fact that this was posted almost 2 and a half years ago.
But, didn’t Sony create an alarm clock that has this sort of technology in it, like a clock that rolls around when it goes off, and requires one to chase it around to turn it off? Cool little thing though.