The inhabitants of Tokyo’s cramped apartments have found the iPad to be invaluable in helping them to create more space.
The residents of Tokyo are eagerly buying services to scan their books into PDF files so that they can make more room in their apartments, according to a recent Bloomberg report.
A cottage industry of companies has mushroomed up to satisfy the demand.
“The iPad’s release is the biggest factor in making this business possible,” Yusuke Ohki, a founder of Tokyo-based BookScan, told Bloomberg.
The company has 12,000 customers who face a four-month wait for the service.
The demand for the service is so bottled-up that a Fujitsu subsidiary that makes scanners had to charter flights to fly more of them into Japan for its customers.
Sarah Lai Stirland is from the gadget and status-crazed island of Hong Kong, where even sampan drivers enjoy showing off their latest gizmos. Sarah’s work has appeared in Congress Daily, National Journal, POLITICO, Portfolio.com, Red Herring, The Village Voice, and Wired.com, among other places. She now lives with her husband, cat and her young gadget-obsessed, button-pushing daughter in San Francisco. Follow Sarah on Twitter at @LaiStirland
