Europe (Page 10)

Scottish university researches discover new way to keep ice cream tasty and fresh

Early ice cream production methods date all the way back to B.C. times, and even today people are still coming up with new and improved ways to enjoy this tasty treat. In Japan, this sometimes means inventing weird ice cream flavors or combining it with other popular foods like ramen. In fact, some Japanese people even believe you can learn a thing or two about another person’s personality by watching how they eat their ice cream.

But Japan isn’t the only country with a fondness for ice cream. The United Kingdom, for example, recently ranked in as one of the top 10 ice cream-consuming countries in the world. Not only do people in the  U.K. enjoy satisfying their sweet tooth, they’re also coming up with ways to savor their ice cream longer, as a result of new research by two Scottish universities.

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Virtual reality Totoro? Project Morpheus team looking for artist with “Studio Ghibli” style

After more than a year since the last film from anime production house Studio Ghibli, the paint is rapidly drying on the writing on the wall. At the very least, it looks like animation fans are in for a long wait before the next Ghibli movie, and it may turn out that When Marnie Was There ends up being the last theatrical feature we ever see from the company co-founded by Hayao Miyazaki.

Still, that doesn’t mean that other artists, perhaps working in other mediums, won’t carry on the beloved anime studio’s spirit. As a matter of fact, if you’ve got the necessary video game production skills, that someone could be you, as a U.K.-based Project Morpheus team is looking for an artist to help add a Ghibli-like aesthetic to its game.

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Our English writer rates 15 teas from Japanese conbini, is fully hydrated for the rest of summer

Walk in to any Japanese convenience store, and you’re bound to be overwhelmed by the sheer amount of choices at your fingertips. Even taking a stroll through the drink aisle will leave you open-mouthed as you stare at the myriad interesting flavors and varieties to be tried.

Of course there’s green tea, barley tea, roasted tea and more, but how do Japan’s black and flavoured teas measure up? We decided we needed an expert’s opinion, so we turned to one of our English writers for help. With a sampling of 15 different teas, we put our parched taste-tester to work.

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These amazing Furoshiki Shoes from Vibram are designed to literally wrap around your feet!

Before we had bags in Japan, we used furoshiki — elegant cloths that come in various colors and decorative patterns that can be used to wrap and carry various items. While you don’t really see them in daily use now, furoshiki are quite useful in their own way, as they can be folded and tied in different ways and be used to wrap items of varying shapes and sizes, in addition to being eco-friendly.

But it turns out that the traditional cloths have recently served as the inspiration for a completely new and unexpected product — Furoshiki Shoes that wrap around your feet!

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EDM artist MUST DIE! attracts attention in Japan for his love of anime

EDM is easily one of most popular music genres around the world today. And we have to admit that we have a soft spot for it ourselves, especially artists like Kiyoshi Sugo. Of course, the scene is full of rising stars, but one in particular has captured the attention of Japanese Internet commenters: MUST DIE!

While dubstep hasn’t made the same inroads in Japan as it has in other countries, there is certainly still an audience for it. And MUST DIE!, an American-born and Berlin-based producer, has recently captured their attention thanks to his enthusiasm for anime and otaku culture as expressed via both social media and some of his songs, like the new track “Onii-chan.”

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Polish visitor’s perverted otaku party goes viral on Twitter

“Why did you come to Japan?”

It’s a simple question, and if you spend enough time here, you’re sure to be asked it countless times by Japanese people. In fact, Japan has a whole television show dedicated to asking foreigners this very question, called YOU wa Nani shi ni Nippon e?

For those of us who came for to learn a specific trade or study the language, or who are married to a Japanese spouse and/or have family in Japan, it usually isn’t a hard question to answer honestly. However, for those foreigners that were drawn to Japan’s shores through things like anime or manga, cosplay, robots, or schoolgirls, it can be a question that’s difficult to come up with a socially acceptable answer to.

Still, not all foreigners are ashamed of coming clean about some of the strange hobbies that brought them here, like one Polish Twitter user who is proud to be living out his some of his wildest dreams in good ol’ Nihon. After arriving in Japan, he was presented with the chance to act out one of his many perverted fantasies, leaving otaku on Twitter both amused and green with envy.
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AKB48 not just popular in Japan – Belgian politician lobbying for first European concert

The most famous idol group in Japan, AKB48, has a lot of fans all over the world. Not only do they perform to sold-out venues within Japan, but they have also held packed concerts in the US and other parts of Asia.

The group of singing female pop stars hasn’t made it to Europe yet, but one mega-fan might be influential enough to convince the AKB48 brass to take their tour bus to Belgium.

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We try dessert sushi (with a French twist!)【Recipe】

Sushi has become well known and loved the world over. Granted, a lot of what you’ll find in your home country is altered from “traditional” sushi to cater to local tastes (and would have ol’ Jiro shaking his fist), but what food doesn’t go through a bit of change when it crosses borders?

The only thing this dessert sushi has in common with its namesake is that it contains rice. But that doesn’t change the fact that it looks absolutely delicious and that you should get in your kitchen and go try making it right now!

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Photo reveals possible otaku support for Ukraine forces

As our regular readers know, RocketNews24 has been closely monitoring the unrest occurring in the Ukraine over the past year. With several journalists embedded on both sides of the conflict we have continued to bring you the most detailed coverage of this complex situation.

And now a shocking new revelation has come to light via a Twitter user. If the source is correct, this is an image of a Ukrainian soldier standing in front of a poster for the harem-comedic manga and anime Kiss X Sis. This could very well mean the Ukrainian forces have been receiving aid from otaku without UN Security Counsel approval.

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You can’t remake perfection, but Resident Evil 2 fans try anyway (and get creators’ attention)

Resident Evil 2 was released for the original Sony Playstation in 1998 and built upon the foundations of the first Resident Evil game to spawn an entire franchise of viral zombie horror games, movies, and other media. While the first game had a fairly self-contained “haunted house” type story, the second game put a Hollywood-esque movie-style spin on things, pitting players against an entire city of bloodthirsty zombies. It is Resident Evil 2 that gave birth to the Resident Evil franchise, and it is Resident Evil 2 that fans most desperately wish to see remade with modern technology.

But, while Capcom, the series’ creator, has recently been busy polishing up and re-releasing two old remakes of the original game and its prequel, an official Resident Evil 2 remake has yet to materialise. Instead, several dedicated fans from Italian indie software development studio Invader Games has taken matters into their own hands and rolled out their own version of Resident Evil 2, built using Unreal Engine 4.

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Franco-German artist is making a torii gate made of speakers

A Franco-German artist is tasked reinterpreting an iconic symbol of Japanese culture. The torii gate is usually seen outside of Shinto shrines as a marker designating an entrance into a sacred space. Benoît Maubrey is creating a more interactive version than the traditional red ones found throughout Japan.

Meriken Park in Kobe will be the site of a torii made entirely out of 300 recycled speakers. The sculpture is functional and includes a four-way channel so visitors can speak to one another through the gate using a microphone or their smartphones. When it’s not in use, the gate will emit varying kinds of white noise.

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McDonald’s France serving up a McFlurry mess, Japanese customer not impressed

McDonald’s Japan has seen its profits tumble over the last year especially, mostly due to safety concerns after tainted meat was found to be have been used in some of its products. The situation is not nearly as dire over in Europe, but if the following tweet is to believed, it seems McDonald’s staff in France could work on their food presentation skills.

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How have Russian beauty trends changed over the last hundred years?【Video】

Cut Video’s 100 Years of Beauty series has been updated with a new video focusing on Russian beauty trends. In the popular video series, we see one model transformed by a team of makeup artists into a woman representing different historical eras from the 1910s to the 2010s, all set to a great soundtrack.

It’s not just fun to see how makeup and hair trends have changed through the ages, it also serves as a lens through which to look and learn about a society at different periods in its history. The social conditions of a country are reflected in its people and the trends of the time, and Russia is particularly interesting due to its wildly fluctuating political situation which led to big changes from decade to decade.

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More lifehacks! The easiest way to keep champagne from going flat, tested

There are all kinds of urban legends and so-called old wives’ tales that proclaim the health benefits, or time-saving benefits, borderline magical properties, or terrifying dangers of doing X or Y. We’ve heard them all: Don’t eat within thirty minutes of swimming or you’ll get a cramp and literally die, bundle up when it’s cold outside or you’ll get a cold (by the way, oh my god, people, stop it with this; a cold is a virus, you don’t get it from the weather), an apple a day will keep the doctor away, a watched pot never boils, etc.

It’s almost like these old sayings and legends are the pre-Internet era equivalent of lifehacks! And since we’ve sort of been on a lifehacking streak recently, we decided to give one of these a test for ourselves: Specifically, the rumor that sticking a spoon into the neck of a champagne bottle will keep it from going flat.

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When guards attack: This is why you don’t mock the big guys with the guns!

A stereotypical scene of a visit to London includes a trip to Buckingham Palace and a touristy photo-op of a silly pose next to one of the Queen’s Guards. With their distinct, bright red coats and big poofy black hats, to many tourists they might just seem like ceremonial guards, but they are actually fully operational soldiers entrusted with an important job, and they take their job very seriously.

People seem to get a kick out of trying to get a reaction out of these guys, but you really don’t want to mess with them. Someone probably should’ve warned this kid, before he pushed a soldier a little too far and ended up staring into the barrel of his gun!

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How a Hibari Misora classic became a cowboy-themed ska song with an Irish flavor

Scientifically speaking, sounds are simply vibrations that spread through the air for anyone’s ears and brain to pick up on and interpret. Sometimes, if those vibrations are just right, they can seem to travel much farther and deeper than anyone could imagine.

In that same way, a song can spread around the world when it hits people just the right way. That’s perhaps why a Japanese folk song by the legendary Hibari Misora from the 50s ended up as a British ska tune in the late 80s. Here’s the evolution of that song based on an explanation by Tsuyoshi Sato of music website Tap the Pop.

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Swiss hotel fights food wastefulness with photos of starving children

As a child, did your parents ever try to get you to finish everything on your plate by telling you how there are starving children in the world who aren’t lucky enough to have the luxury of a decent meal? As a kid, it probably just seemed like an unfair guilt-trip, but as adults hopefully we have all now realized the truth behind those words and the importance of not being wasteful.

A particular Swiss hotel has taken similar tactics to curb the wastefulness of its guests at the breakfast buffet, after shameful amounts of food have been left partially or wholly uneaten and then thrown away. But the hotel took it a step further by including shocking photos to help drive the message home.

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U.K. gamebook’s redone cover tells you everything you need to know about Japanese fantasy RPG art

A fundamental difference in the way Japan and the west approach fantasy role-playing games is how much more optimism Japanese creators tend to apply to the genre. Consider the most common opening scenarios for the two regions. How many western RPGs start with a group of grizzled and profiteering adventurers, brought together in a shady tavern by tales of riches waiting to be claimed? About as many as there are Japanese ones that begin with some plucky, clean-cut childhood friends leaving their bucolic village on a quest to see the wonders of the world and help strangers along the way.

The gap even extends to visual designs, with much western fantasy art looking like it’s covered with a thin film of dust, blood, or mead. Japan, on the other hand, likes to believe that everything can look sleek, freshly scrubbed, and even sexy in a medieval setting.

One of the founding fathers of fantasy gaming, though, isn’t right pleased about that aesthetic.

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Man creates series of videos documenting his attempt to walk from China to Germany

You may not realize this, but the English version of RocketNews24 (there’s a Japanese site too!) has only been around for a mere five years! Believe it or not, cool and quirky things happened around Japan and Asia before we started writing about them, so there are years worth of interesting things that we didn’t get to tell you about. Sometimes, like today, we bring you stories from the past, because they are so cool, they should see the light again.

Today we take you back to a story that started on November 9, 2007, when Christoph Rehage, a 26-year-old German, started his 45,000-kilometer (27,962-mile) walk across China. He documented his adventure in various mediums, but most notably, in a five-minute time-lapse.

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Math-solving phone app is the quickest way to self-study, skip homework, and/or fail your tests

I think we can all agree that math is a pretty handy thing to understand, right? A basic concept of things like fractions and algebraic equivalents is what keeps us from getting taken advantage of by con men who make such tempting offers as trading two of their shiny monies (or even three!) for our one paper money when the latter is actually of greater value.

Still, basic math is all about following the proper procedures to arrive at the one true solution, which is why you don’t get partial credit for having the wrong answer on your math assignment just because you took a novel approach and wrote the numbers with nice penmanship. As such, you can program a machine to spit out the answer in a fraction of a second, and with a new smartphone app, all you have to do is snap a picture of the math problem, and let the app take over from there.

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