We've seen some pretty odd things in our trawls through Japan's dark, gadgety secrets, but few are as downright bizarre as TakaraTomy 's digital camera for our furry friends in the canine world - yes, a camera for dogs.
The ¥5,980 (£27) Wonderful Shot is a simple 0.35-megapixel camera that straps onto the front of a dog's collar, dangling just below the chin. The first syllable, incidentally, of 'wonderful' sounds like the Japanese equivalent of 'woof'.
The 38g camera comes with a remote control handset that allows owners with far too much time on their hands to activate the shutter and take a snap then and there. Either that, or it can be set to take photos at regular intervals while the dog heads out on the town.
Up close and personal
Snaps are stored in the 8MB of onboard memory, which should hold about 90 blurry shots of Rex doing the conga in the local park or inspecting his pals' hindquarters at length. TakaraTomy's cutting-edge software then allows these fond memories to be pasted into a virtual doggy diary or - what else? - to be mailed to a mobile phone.
The idea, of course, is to give notoriously cutesy-obsessed Japanese women insights into the lives of their four-footed companions. However, if the end product is anything like the sample photo shown here, then it can't be long before the Wonderful Shot gets wonderfully dumped in the bin.
