Name: 3R-VT101 "Vitiny" Digital Microscope
Category: digital imaging device
Price: JPY29800
Release date in Japan: Late August, 2008

The 3R-VT101 (aka "Vitiny") is a pocket-sized digital microscope from Fukuoka-based 3R Systems, offering zoom magnification from 7x to 108x. With its flat body and embedded screen, it looks a bit like a compact digital scanner, which in effect it is. The 70-gram Vitiny lights up its tiny subjects with a white LED lamp, reads the image with a 300,000-pixel CMOS sensor, and displays the output on a 1.8-inch TFT screen. Built-in effects, such as negatives, greyscale, embossed edges, and side-by-side image comparisons, help reveal fine details as needed. There's 2MB of built-in flash memory for saving up to 60 images, which can be downloaded to a PC via USB. The unit runs on power from three AAA batteries or via USB (PC or wall adapter).

Who would use this pocket digital microscope? Its modest magnification isn't for microbiologists, but might aid in student research projects, quality control inspections, counterfeit detection, beauty clinic skin analysis, and other investigative work. Order from one of 3R's several online shops (such as http://store.shopping.yahoo.co.jp/3r-shop/index.html ) from late August.

More info: http://cf.3rrr.co.jp/products/vitiny/vitiny.cfm (Japanese)

Name: Quicktionary 2 Kanji Reader
Category: handheld scanner/dictionary
Price: Open price (about ¥30,000)
Release date in Japan: April 10, 2008

Thick kanji dictionaries have disappeared from many a desk, replaced by computers (often weighing less than the dictionaries) whose built-in software, or access to Internet search, makes tracking down a character's reading much simpler. But what to do when you come across an eye-stopping character in dead-tree text, with no guess at pronounciation to let you search online, and no access to a helpful human at the moment? Time to dust off the Nelson or Spahn/Hadamitzky tomes and try to recall how to count radical strokes, right?

It's Quicktionary 2 Kanji Reader to the rescue. You can call the handheld scanner by its nickname, "Kanji-kun", though the full name is likable enough. (It's clearly not a SONY device, or we'd have to call it the Q2-KR500SCN or such.)

Kanji-kun is a version of the WizCom Technologies Ltd. (Massachusetts USA) Quicktionary 2 line of pen-shaped scanners/translators. Quicktionary II appears in a variety of English-to-foreign language configurations; run the pen-like scanner tip over a single word or line of text, and the device's OCR software shows a target-language translation in the small embedded display. (You can get a text-to-speech reading of the English, as well.) WizCom partners with a number of foreign-language dictionary providers for its Quicktionary variants, including Taishukan Publishing for its Genius English-to-Japanese dictionary.

Quicktionary 2 Kanji Reader is a Quicktionary II with Japanese-language OCR, co-developed and sold by Tokyo-based purveyor of overseas technology Japan21 Inc. Run the tool over those questionable kanji, and wait two seconds - voila, Kanji-kun offers a text reading. Dictionary functions are of course built-in as well, thanks to three Sanseido Daily Concise dictionaries: English-Japanese, Japanese-English, and Japanese. Japan21 says Kanji-kun will read Romaji text, hiragana, katakana, all 2965 JIS Level 1 kanji, and about 20% of the 3388 JIS Level 2 kanji. (Text-to-speech output remains limited to scanned English text only.) Japan21 warns that Kanji-kun prefers nicely printed text; don't expect much when scanning trickier originals like handwriting or faxes.

I wonder how much my old kanji dictionaries will fetch at Book Off.

More info: http://wizcomtech.jp21.jp/product/qt2j.html (Japanese)