Don't go to Akihabara if you're looking to buy an Aston Martin with twin machine guns, or a pen that shoots poisoned darts. Aside from these, though, there's enough exotic spy goodies there to keep 007 -- or even the most discerning otaku -- supplied for years to come.
Available for around 60,000 yen is a kit that lets you track the movements of someone's car. Other devices, costing 7,000 yen to 17,000 yen, enable you to "plant" a similar bug on someone's person. Receivers allow you to monitor local police and fire communications. There are receivers to pick up foreign TV signals; cleverly concealed eavesdropping equipment resembling alarm clocks, calculators and electric plugs; gas masks and bullet-proof Kevlar vests; cell-phone signal jammers and infrared scopes so you can see in the dark. For 58,000 yen, you can get a microphone that penetrates concrete walls
To know what's hot and what's not, just turn to the "bible" of Japan's electronics hobbyists: Radio Life, a monthly magazine whose 200,000 readers, according to editor Takashi Kamiura, are mostly salarymen in their 20s and 30s.
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