They’re clearly completely pointless, but there’s something about these daft little Kokonatchi things that we like.
The squishy bean shaped creatures sit on your desk and wobble and light up when new Tweets arrive, and messages up to 20 words (like “hello” and “good morning”) can be played back when appropriate.
Designed by students at the Universities of Tokyo and Waseda, the Kokonatchi connects to your computer via a USB lead, and lurks on your desktop ready to start wriggling and lighting up up when a new tweet enters your account feed.
Each of the bean shaped thingamambobs contain RGB LEDs which alter colour according to the context or ‘emotion’ of the tweet, and the wee fella can ‘shiver’ when it’s ‘scared’.
Robotics company Yukai Engineering reckons these all-illuminatin’, all-oscillatin’ desktop companions could prove a hit and is preparing to mass manufacture and distribute them.
Prototypes of Kokonatchi will be made available for 6,000 JPY ($70), with the first batch of 1,000 Kokonatchi st to know out for around 4,000 JPY ($45 each.
