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Last Words
Cell phone-operated toy cars
by CNN via Reuters
11.06.2003
TOKYO, Japan -- Once it was just a humble cell phone. Then it offered e-mail, games, music, became a camera and later a video camera.
And now, young Japanese for whom the mobile phone has increasingly become the center of their universe have something new -- it can be the remote control for their toy car.
Japanese toy maker Takara Co and videogame producer Konami Corp have developed technology that allows consumers to add some vroom to all the other bells and whistles.
With Takara's version a small transmission unit is plugged into the phone and users steer their car by pushing the key pad.
Consumers using Konami's offering, developed with electronics giant NEC Corp, download software that enables certain handsets to control the cars using infra-red transmitters.
Takara's set is priced at 3,980 yen ($33.80) and Konami's is 6,980 yen ($63.80).
"Our miniature toy cars date back to the 1980s and when we were looking at ways to maintain the interest of customers now in their twenties and thirties, it was natural to turn to their best buddy -- the cell phone," Takara spokeswoman Terumi Endo said.
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