Chindōgu

is the practice of inventing ingenious everyday gadgets that seem to be ideal solutions to particular problems, but which may cause more problems than they solve. The term is of Japanese origin.

==Background== Literally translated, means . The term was coined by Kenji Kawakami, a former editor and contributor to the Japanese home-shopping magazine Mail Order Life. In the magazine, Kawakami used his spare pages to showcase several bizarre prototypes for products. He named these gadgets "chindōgu"; Kawakami himself said that a more appropriate translation than "unusual tool" is "weird tool". This special category of inventions subsequently became familiar to the Japanese people.