Cellphone radio control toy cars are displayed at a toy fair in Tokyo June 11, 2003. Japanese Toy maker Takara Co and videogame producer Konami Corp have developed remote control technology for their toy cars.

Once it was just a humble cellphone. Then it offered e-mail, games, music, became a camera and later a video camera.

And now, young Japanese for whom the mobile phone has increasingly become the center of their universe have something new -- it can be the remote control for their toy car.

Japanese toy maker Takara Co and videogame producer Konami Corp have developed such a new technology.

With Takara's version a small transmission unit is plugged into the phone and users steer their car by pushing the key pad.

Consumers using Konami's offering, developed with electronics giant NEC Corp, download software that enables certain handsets to control the cars using infra-red transmitters.

"Our miniature toy cars date back to the 1980s and when we were looking at ways to maintain the interest of customers now in their twenties and thirties, it was natural to turn to their best buddy -- the cellphone," Takara spokeswoman Terumi Endo said.

(Agencies)