Thanks for the article... brings back fond memories of my Tokyo trip a few months ago. Totally awesome.

These pictures about Akihabara fail to show the amount of high tech electronics that you been placed on the pavement. Kinds reminds me of the dow-jones. Sells don't care where they stay their cargo as shelf space is extremely limited. Even more, what impresses me more is after it rains they will dump every since item and continue to re-fill their inventory in a moments notice. If you know how to debate, chances are you can walk away with the latest and greatest with only pennies spent. Akihabara will always continue to grow and shiver, as they have always done and this is the Japanese motto. The way of the samurai.

If you subtract "two zeros to from each price tag to get the rough US$ cost" like you've said, then the Hello Kitty robot should cost roughly $5000, not $500 as you've typed............

Ugobe is a US company. There was a profile on the Pleo in Wired a year or two ago. It's remarkably life-like, in a Blade Runner kind of way. Search YouTube foir videos of rabid Pleo fans who do silly things like take theirs to Seaworld.