Hello Kitty Adorns Laptop Anew

The Associated Press reports that NEC Corporation, a Japan based Information Technologies Company, has decorated a pink laptop with Hello Kitty, Japan's famous cat. This was done in an effort to attract more working women. Shinya Hashizume, the company's spokesman, said that they are hoping to attract women with the product since PC users are mostly men.

The Laptop was developed with the help of Sanrio Co., the creator of Hello Kitty. Dubbed as the La Vie G Hello Kitty Model, the laptop features Hello Kitty with a pink bow and crown in the middle, surrounded by four hearts on top of the notebook, all decorated with 299 Swarovski crystals from Austria.

Hello Kitty's History

Hello Kitty is a fictional character in Japan created by the Sanrio co. in 1974. She appeared in the US in 1983 as US children's ambassador for UNICEF. Hello Kitty's rise to prominence in the US came in the late 1990s when celebrities like Mariah Carey adopted her as a fashion statement. Hello Kitty now adorns every product imaginable from stationery, stickers, jewelry, purses, posters, cosmetics, food, computers, cars, and even passenger jets. Products featuring Hello Kitty can also be found almost anywhere.

Appearance in laptops

This is not the first time that Hello Kitty has been featured in a notebook. In 2006, Epson, another Japanese company, featured her in their Epson Endeavor NA101 notebooks, 20 of the lovely cat's mug were on the cover of the laptop. This Hello Kitty Endeavor laptop has a 1.06 Ghz Celeron M 42 processor, 512MB of RAM, a 12.1 inch display, DVD-ROM / CD-RW drive, 40GB hard drive, has 3 x USB 2.0 ports, Ethernet, IEEE 1394, and runs on Windows XP Home Edition.

The La Vie G Specs

On the other hand, the La Vie G Hello Kitty has a Windows Vista operating system, 100 GB hard disk drive, 1 GB of memory, and is powered with a 1.4 GHZ AMD Mobile Sempron 3400 processor. It also has ATI Radeon Xpress 1100 graphics, DVD super drive, a card reader, and a 1280 x 800 WXGA display. It weighs around 3.3 kg and measures 360×260×36.6~48mm. The La Vie G went on sale last Wednesday with a price tag of $1,650. It is only available through internet order in Japan.

Other characters in laptops

Other characters also featured in other notebooks are some Disney characters like Mickey Mouse, Winnie the Pooh, and Tinkerbelle. They appeared also on Epson's NT2800 and NT3500 Endeavor series.

SOURCE:

Yuri Kageyama, NEC releases pink Hello Kitty laptop, Associated Press. URL (http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=hello+kitty&yhdr_submit_button=Web+Search&fr=ush-news)