Hobonichi Earth Ball App


The Hobonichi Earth Ball is a new type of globe. Use this app and hover your device over the Earth Ball to view information about the world. You can see what the world looks like at night or during the day. You can see mammoths, dinosaurs, and even stray cats in a particular town. The information available in the app is always growing, so come see what’s new to discover!
*This app is only for interacting with the Hobonichi Earth Ball (sold separately).
*This app is currently only available with Japanese content.





Things to discover through the Hobonichi Earth Ball

1. Countries of the world
Basic information is available for every country, and each national flag appears over its country on the map. You can learn about a country’s population and area, major languages, and all kinds of key information.

2. The Earth during the day and night
You can see what the Earth looks like from outer space. During the day, you can make out the planet’s blue seas, green forests, and brown deserts. At night, you can see the lights of the world’s largest cities. The lights sparkling on the ocean are actually the lights of fishing boats! With this Earth Ball, you can explore what the Earth looks like from above.

3. Discover the World! NHK Video Collection
We’ve gathered a special video collection from popular NHK series, such as “Series World Heritage 100,” “Somewhere Street,” “Darwin’s Animal Encyclopedia - Hello! Animal”, and “World Cat Walk with Mitsuaki Iwago.” There are 8 videos from each of the series, for a total of 32 videos to guide you along World Heritage sites, everyday streets and scenes around the world, animals in the wild, and cute street cats.

4. Shogakukan NEO Field Guide “Dinosaurs”
You can read about 50 species of dinosaurs from this excerpt of the Shogakukan NEO Field Guide about dinosaurs. It includes beautiful and detailed illustrations generated from the latest research, now in the palm of your hand.

5. A Look at World Icons
The Earth Ball is filled with little icons that you can tap to view. Through illustrated text, you can learn about all kinds of things around the world, including architecture, ancient ruins, wildlife, transportation, and more.

6. Tell me, Mr. Elephant
If you can’t find a country or a city, ask Mr. Elephant. He’s knowledgable, but a little vague, so he’ll tell you the general whereabouts.

7. My World
You can project images from your smartphone or tablet onto the Earth Ball. It’s actually really fun!