French music-fashion label Kitsuné has made the leap to Japan! Taking into account their whole look and feel, it’s a perfect fit. Check out the Japan side of their site now at http://www.kitsunejapon.jp.

The Kitsuné boutique in Harajuku will actually be a pop-up shop that’ll showcase some exclusive-t0-Japan wares from February 11 to March 7. The casual, French-sailor-on-holiday goods will find a good home on stylish Japanese backs, I think.

The whole Boutique Kitsuné project is a cool one, as they’re working to produce these goods locally, with knits, canvas bags and sneakers being manufactured in places like Fukuoka and Okayama with Japanese fabrics and materials. Look for the Boutique Kitsuné in other cities around the world — it’s an international affair, folks!

The Lotta cell phone (“a lot of fun”? That’s not a question mark as in ‘is that the tag line?’ because it is, but more as in ‘Really? Really?’) is a new cell phone from Japanese company iida. No word yet on whether this phone is set up for stateside use as the Lotta is still ‘coming soon.’

I’m definitely interested once this is released, though. It looks so sleek and usable, you can tell that the designers have really given thought to the feel of a device (both physically and emotionally speaking) rather than just its specs, which is crucial for a daily-use item that people become attached to like a mobile phone. The colors strike a good balance, too, between the minimalist and the eye-catching. It’s not weighted too heavily one way or the other and looks the kind of phone you’d be proud to leave lying around.

I came up through high school listening to Sigur Rós, drawn in by their chilly arrangements, fascinated by that lilting voice that seemed to be speaking in tongues. Now that voice has gone solo – Jónsi, guitarist and singer for the band, is doing his own thing, and he’s doing it in English. 59 Productions is crafting his live show and going the full nine yards. Lighting, projection and animation – I can’t wait to see how this comes together.

The cardboard mockup of the stage set gives you a very limited preview of what’s sure to be a full-on, knock-out affair. Check out the song Boy Lilikoi at Jónsi’s site and keep up with studio video updates as the album release date comes closer. Also from the site, check it out below. This was filed under “Live Inspiration.”

The idea of a $700-800 computer tablet had thrown me before – more than anything, I didn’t give it much thought. But it’s on now. Apple’s in there like swimwear (we think, as of 11:40 EST). Apple? Tablet? Applet? The technology has a lot of potential applications – video, photo display, etc. – but it’s garnered a bulk of the attention based around what it could do for the e-book market.

What’s the deal with this, though, anyway? The guy at HP uses Star Trek as an example – on the show, slate computers were de riguer. The thin tablets were all around, their touch screens ready to input or display information sans keyboard. Sci-fi is now sci-reality.

On that note, consider this offering from BookBook. Currently, it’s meant for a Macbook but, if we’ll all have tablets around the house within a few years in lieu of worn-in hardcovers, it’d be nice to wrap them up in something that looks this familiar.

This beautiful contraption spotted on Benedict Radcliffe’s site. I had to do some digging and, in the process, uncovered this great post by Animal New York (pictures theirs and Radcliffe’s) on the event in which it was featured – Joyride, an art event included in the Bicycle Film Festival.

Two cultures that seem to intermingle as it is (biking and graffiti) now have a tangible symbol of their alliance. Careful using that on the street, though, cause ‘graffiti bike’ brings one incident in particular to mind – this Wired article from 2007 gives a good rundown.

In summary, kid makes chalk-spraying bike. Kid starts website (BikesAgainstBush.com). Kid is a mad genius, apparently, designing the website so that users could submit messages, which would transmit to his laptop via cellphone, which would transmit to his chalk-spraying device, which would spray said messages on the ground while he rode it during the Republican National Convention. None of it played out this way, though, because he got arrested in what amounts to a really messed-up situation. Bummmmmmout.

I’m intrigued by this image and the accompanying write-up from Wired Magazine’s Gadget Lab. So Polaroid is back at it? In there like swimwear? What does this mean for The Impossible Project, and will it work with the OG Polaroid film they’re busting ass to resurrect? Until some answers surface (and I need ANSWERS, folks), I’ll content myself with gazing longingly at this wood-panel design.