PSFK covers Takahiro Yamaguchi’s “Urbanized Typeface: Shibuya 08-09,” and interactive installation that presents a typeface he created by riding his GPS-equipped bike. It’s presented as part of the ICC’s yearlong “Open Space 2009” exhibition.

So get this, as if an injured spine wasn’t enough, now I get diagnosed with a kidney stone. Luckily it’s a relatively small one (2-3mm) so is supposed to disintegrate by itself, but along with the waiting process goes a lot of water drinking and some very painful interludes — pain medicine for the win.

But all of this, mixed with some serious stomach issues, means that I’m going ahead and cancelling next week’s PauseTalk — I just don’t have the energy or drive for it. Apologies to everyone who was hoping to attend, it should be back in November.

The next film from Mamoru Oshii (Patlabor, Ghost in the Shell, Sky Crawlers) is Assault Girls, a live-action sci-fi flick starring Meisa Kuroki — who I must admit I have a crush on — and Rinko Kikuchi. It’s a follow-up to a planned trilogy that started with the short “Assault Girl ‘Hineko the Kentucky,’” below. Via Warren Ellis.

Ian Lynam is teaching the Typography 101 class again this semester at Temple University Japan — today (September 29) is the last day you have to enroll, with the class starting tomorrow. Ian describes the class in this post over at META no TAME, and you can sign up here.

SHOTYPE‘s Kunihiko Okano covers on the Tokyo-based foundry’s blog the Kinshachi font project, an interesting new endeavor that looks to create a new city-specific typeface for Nagoya — it’s part of the larger Cityfont Project, developed by Type Project’s Isao Suzuki.

Hokkaido’s Terashima Design is currently holding a web exhibition of posters that were produced in-house. It goes offline after September 30. Via Spoon & Tamago.

Following yesterday’s Atelier Bow-Wow studio tour, now we get a look at one of their latest projects: Four Boxes Gallery, a building for Danish college Krabbesholm Hojskole. There’s more to see at Designboom.

• French-Cameroonian designer Serge Mouangue is hosting the “WAfrica: A Dialogue with Japanese Culture” event (October 3-23) at the French Institute in Tokyo, with the intent of “[introducing] Japan to Africa in previously unimagined ways.”
• The Tokyo Game Show starts today at Makuhari Messe with two business days, but Saturday and Sunday (September 26-27) are open to the general public.

Nendo is designing the exhibition space for the upcoming “The Current State of Kanazawa Crafts” show, to be held at the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, October 13-25. The exhibition acts as a Kanazawa World Crafttriennial 2010 pre-event.

If you’re into the web and design, there’s a very good chance that you already know about Information Architect‘s annual Web Trend Map poster. Going one step further this year, iA teamed up with Craig Mod to create an online web app version of the map. The way it works is that when you populate a map with Twitter feeds, the system looks at all the links that are posted, and creates a “Trending Links” list, which appears in the sidebar on the left. It’s an awesome way to get a quick heads-up on what people — or “micro curators,” as iA and Craig describe them — are linking to and talking about. You need to have an account in order to create a map (and to do that, you need to purchase the original Web Trend Map poster), but anyone can access the maps already created.

My contribution comes in the form of my “Gamingsphere” map, which I describe thusly: “Tweeting games by people who play them, write about them, talk about them, and just plain love them.”

I’ve long had an obsession with the work spaces of creators, and so I’m absolutely delighted to finally get to look inside Atelier Bow-Wow‘s studio, courtesy of a video shot by 0300tv. Via Core77.

Ryue Nishizawa (SANAA) has designed a bulging front window for the recently opened Nagai Garou gallery space in Ginza. Via Spoon & Tamago.

Time to get your robot groove on, thanks to Vstone’s new Robovie-Nano, the company’s new entry-level humanoid robots. Designboom posts a few more details and photos, including a video of the Robovie-Nano in action.

Ever since I first saw a trailer for Fez at a PauseTalk a couple of years ago — when Polytron‘s Jason DeGroot (6955) was still living in Tokyo — I’ve been anxiously waiting to get my hands on a controller to bring that little Gomez to life myself. Well, I finally got my chance this past Friday. Jason is in town for a few weeks, carrying with him a demo version of the game on his laptop. So yes, despite my “current situation,” Jason was kind enough to come on over to my place, plug up that laptop to my TV, and I was then holding an Xbox 360 controller, playing through the demo level.

I won’t go into details, but let me just say that what I played was an absolute blast. If the idea of constantly rotating a world in order to maneuver through a level sounds like a chore, quite the opposite, it becomes quite natural, and you’ll quickly find yourself jumping, rotating, and then jumping again in no time. The 8-bit inspired visuals are indeed a treat, and Jason’s music fits the game’s atmosphere perfectly. Fez‘s release sometime next year cannot come soon enough.

In a related note, Polytron’s Phil Fish will be talking about his upcoming iPhone game (in collaboration with Infinite Ammo), Power Pill, at PechaKucha Night in Montreal (Vol. 13) next week — I posted more details on PechaKucha Daily earlier today.

From Tokyo brand Rezon comes the Eco Warrior Bag — the idea is that you flip it over and place it over your head when you spot non-eco behaviour. Via Dezeen.