You owe it to yourself to watch this video!

I don't think most people in America are really aware of how strong consumer retail spending is in Japan. Everyone thinks the whole country's broke or something. Actually, it's quite the opposite. Japanese people (in my opinion) are crazy about shopping, and love to buy high quality brand name goods no matter what the price!

Don't believe me? Click through to see the opening day of Apple's first flagship store in Tokyo (in the Ginza area). It was the biggest opening Apple ever had anywhere in the world. If you want to understand how powerful the retail experience is in Japan, watch the entire video from start to finish. All it does is follows the peaceful line of customers waiting to get into the Apple store on its first day.

I have never seen anything like it in San Francisco or New York.

Click here to see the movie: http://homepage.mac.com/hsk/applejapan.html
(Alternate link just in case the main one above is down: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TyR3fyLO_I&search=ginza%20apple%20store)

Sony's newest humanoid robot, QRIO, walks on two legs, has incredible balance, dances, recognizes people's faces and voices, and can carry on a conversation. He can communicate with people based on his own judgments, expressing his feelings through movements, conversation and the use of lights.

QRIO is also Internet-ready, so it can read you your e-mail, do online research for you, and post pictures it takes through its camera eyes to the Internet. Of course, without good security firewalls, robots connected to the Internet could potentially be taken over by hackers and used to spy in a home. But I guess that's a problem all Japanese robots will have to solve if they're ever to go international.

Anyway, Sony is emphatic they'll never give up commercializing humanoid robots. QRIO's project director even said, "What we expected of AIBO (Sony's earlier robot dog) was for it to take on the role of a pet. QRIO, on the other hand, might exist on the level of a child."

Sounds good. But just remember that even if these robots can't communicate well with people yet, it doesn't mean they won't learn to communicate well with each other. (Just kidding! I think QRIO's cute!)

See QRIO in action here: http://www.sony.co.jp/SonyInfo/QRIO/ Watch the English version. It has several sections in Flash.