World's smallest karaoke machine starts them young

Agence France-Presse

TOKYO - A Japanese
toy maker will launch
a karaoke machine
measuring a mere
seven centimeters
(2.8 inches) this year,
letting pop star
wannabes --
particularly children --
hone their skills on
the go.

Tomy Co. Ltd. said it
would begin sales of
the world's smallest
karaoke machine in
October in Japan,
targeting those who
are too young to
enter the karaoke
parlors that dot the
country's cities.

The Hi-kara machine
comes with headsets,
meaning that only the
users can hear the
music.

"Absorbed in the
music from the
headphones, I found
myself singing in an
embarrassingly loud
voice," Tomy
spokeswoman Mei
Kudo said.

The machine, which
can also be used with
a second set of
headphones or put on
speaker mode,
targets elementary
school girls who adore
pop stars.

"Their mums and dads
are also from a
generation who grew
up with karaoke," she
said.

Tomy plans to sell the
Hi-kara abroad as
well, but no date has
been set for that
launch.

The machine will be
priced at 10,000 yen
(100 dollars). Players
will have to buy a 2
,000-yen cartridge
that holds 10 pre-
installed songs or
they can download 10
songs over the
Internet from a choice
of 3,500 titles.

Karaoke has turned
into a multibillion-
dollar industry since
being invented in 1971
by Daisuke Inoue, a
Japanese club
keyboardist looking to
provide music for a
customer who wanted
to sing on a company
trip.

A new trend in Japan
is "hitokara" --
literally "lone karaoke"
-- which means going
out to sing karaoke
alone.

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