gizmo

ポテトチップスを食べてながら、パソコンのキーボードをさわるのは何かしら違和感があります。こういう経験は多くの人が共有するようで、そこで登場したのがこのgizmo！太郎君も早速、試すのではないかなと思います。（軽井沢からもどってきたgacha）
Snack tongs beat greasy fingers hands down
BY KENTARO YAMAYOSHI THE ASAHI SHIMBUN
Whether you call them chips or crisps, people have been reaching into bags and bowls to grab these ubiquitous potato snacks for decades. The residue of oil and salt or other flavorings on the skin or a similar snack was merely a nuisance. This worked fine until the electronic age, before our digits started coming into daily contact with keyboards, touch-screens and other gadgets. Then it became a new kind of nuisance.
But a solution is at hand.
At Tokyu Hands in fact, among other places. In March, the retailer's Nagoya branch started selling tongs specially designed to pick up potato chips so they can be eaten without the mess.
The Potetongs, priced at 399 yen ($4.75), became an instant hit, selling about 2,000 units in five months at the store. The 18.5-centimeter-long gadget has a comfortable grip and versatile skid-proof tips that can also snatch up other types of munchies, whether they are shoestring thin or fat and puffy. It can even manage Japanese pickles and umeboshi preserved plums. The chip gripper was developed by Yuko Mita, 30, who is in charge of kitchen items at the Nagoya branch.
Last year, Mita was surprised when a male friend said he was eating potato chips using chopsticks because he didn't want his keyboard or game controller getting greasy. He said disposable wooden chopsticks were better than the lacquered kind because they had more grip. Mita asked male colleagues and checked blogs and found that many people favored using disposable chopsticks. She then asked Kawashima Industry Co., a kitchen tool maker in Seki, Gifu Prefecture, to produce the tongs. In May, the Potetongs went on sale at all Tokyu Hands outlets across the country. Kawashima Industry has shipped about 50,000 units. The factory is running at full capacity now that sales have expanded nationwide. Mita touts the Potetongs as an eco-friendly solution.
"With this handy tool, you don't need disposable chopsticks," she said. "People who preferred using their fingers won't need to use up tissue paper anymore."
In June, toy maker Tomy Co., based in Tokyo's Katsushika Ward, came up with its Potechi no Te, a rough transliteration of "potato chip hand."
Tomy's product sells for 699 yen and measures 18 centimeters, almost the same as the Potetong. It will clutch a potato chip with just enough pressure to avoid breaking it no matter how hard the button is pressed.
The gizmo has a unique feature. Push the button back and forth, and the hand rubs its fingers together to shake off the salt or flecks of seaweed and other flavorings.
Tomy surveyed 1,200 men and women in their 20s and 30s and found that 20 percent of the respondents eat potato chips using chopsticks.
Some said a snack-grabber would allow more use of their dominant hand, while others said it is something that should have been invented years ago.
Takara, which has shipped 85,000 units, is increasing production. The sales goal for the first year is 500,000 units.
Calbee Foods Co., the nation's largest potato chip maker, says consumers have always been concerned about how oil and salt stuck on their fingers.
"We hope these tools will help solve the problem and bolster demand for potato chips in workplaces," a company official says.
http://www.asahi.com/english/TKY201009060244.html