What’s popular these days? Tablets, tablets, tablets! How do you get people’s attention? Why, weird mascots of course! One particular Japanese tech company has decided to quite literally put those two things together and the result is, well, see for yourself.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNRJ8BLP8SQ

Toshiba has announced TabletMan, their new global communication character! Or mascot, if you want to put it that way. Aimed to raise brand awareness and promote Toshiba’s line of tablets, TabletMan was unleashed to the wild in a recent trip to Singapore. There he walked around in all his LED glory and recorded voices for people. Instead of simply being a walking fingerprint-magnet, TabletMan asked the public to record short voice messages that they would deliver to the “future you”.

As of writing, TabletMan’s Facebook page has garnered almost 80,000 likes. While it isn’t a revolutionary product announcement that’s going to make Toshiba a serious contender for tablet market dominance anytime soon, it’s certainly got people talking. And in the end, isn’t that what TabletMan was meant to do?