Next up is the artwork of Toshio Saeki, the 63 year old godfather of Japanese erotica. You can find a rather large collection of his work here and here (very not work safe). He studied art at school, and after graduating pursued a career in graphic design. At the age of 24 he left his hometown of Osaka and traveled to Tokyo where, using the money he saved up, he rented a tiny apartment and began working as an illustrator and erotic artist. Famous for his images which revolve around both sex and death, Saeki says that he is not a violent person but that he just loves to entertain and shock people.

Only in Japan would a restaurant kitchen be run by robots. You can watch them do their thing (serving up delicious bowls of Ramen) on YouTube. Apparently the benefits of using the robots in such an environment is that they can perfectly time boiling the noodles, and are capable of precise movements in adding toppings, so that the temperature and taste is consistent from bowl to bowl. They also spin plates and carry out mock duals in the downtime!

Moving away from the Japanese theme, we have some terrific interactive design in the form of these screenshots of the Xerox Star 8010 interface. Introduced in 1981, it was the first commercial personal computer to implement a graphical user interface. Not to mention the mouse, Ethernet networking, file servers, print servers and e-mail! Screenshots of the interface such as this one and this one show the level of detail required in designing a cohesive feel for the system. You can read about (and see) the progression the interface took here.