After Google Glass and Apple Watch, Japan offers wearable tomatoes

As the world’s electronic companies scramble to set the agenda for wearable devices, one Japanese vegetable juice maker went one better Thursday — unveiling a wearable tomato machine.

The Tomatan is a backpack that can be loaded with six mid-sized tomatoes.It looks like a small humanoid robot — with a tomato for a head — and sits snugly on the athlete’s shoulders.

Tugging a tiny lever in the foot moves the arms to catch a tomato from the dispensing shoot. The arms then rotate the fruit over the runner’s head and hold it in front of his mouth.

“We used about 100 tomatoes to complete this machine,” said Novmichi Tosa, of Meiwa Denki, the company that devised the device and is known for its off-the-wall machines and musical instruments.

Despite its 8 kilogram weight, Kagome’s Suzuki said he will don the device for a 5 km fun-run on Saturday.

“I will run by his side carrying my tools, just like an F1 mechanic,” Tosa said.

In Sunday’s full Tokyo Marathon, a runner from Kagome will participate with a lighter wearable tomato machine — the Petit-Tomatan — which weighs only about 3 kilograms, Suzuki said.

The Petit-Tomatan has a delivery tube attached to a mini-tomato holster worn on the runner’s back, and even a timer that prevents the user from over-indulging and depleting their supply too quickly.

source : The Times Of India