Cellphone radio control toy cars are displayed at a toy fair in Tokyo June 11, 2003. Japanese Toy maker Takara Co and videogame producer Konami Corp have developed remote control technology for their toy cars.

Once it was just a humble cellphone. Then it
offered e-mail, games, music, became a camera and later a video camera.



And now, young Japanese for whom the mobile phone has increasingly
become the center of their universe have something new -- it can be the
remote control for their toy car.

Japanese toy maker Takara Co and videogame producer Konami Corp have
developed such a new technology.

With Takara's version a small transmission unit is plugged into the
phone and users steer their car by pushing the key pad.

Consumers using Konami's offering, developed with electronics giant
NEC Corp, download software that enables certain handsets to control the
cars using infra-red transmitters.

"Our miniature toy cars date back to the 1980s and when we were
looking at ways to maintain the interest of customers now in their
twenties and thirties, it was natural to turn to their best buddy -- the
cellphone," Takara spokeswoman Terumi Endo said.