The one precious thing you bring with you every day, aside from your smartphone, is your wallet. This little thing basically houses all your precious and important cards, cash, and even IDs. So, how can we ensure we never ever lose it?

Volterman makes it easy with their high-tech wallets.

Pictured above is the Volterman Travel, designed to fit passports, boarding passes, and every important thing you need for your jet setting. This is just one of the many Volterman wallets offered (there’s a smaller bifold and an even more compact card holder).

These wallets look stylishly classic and are very well made. Look at it completing this dapper look!

What’s so special about these Volterman smart wallets? First of all, they can wirelessly charge your phone. The Volterman Travel, pictured below, has a whopping 5000mAh power bank.

The wallet connects to your phone and allows tracking wherever you are. You get alerts every time your wallet is opened and there’s even an alarm function to ensure you never leave your wallet again. As an added feature, there’s also a Wi-Fi hotspot feature which means more hassle-free connections wherever you go.

As for the ultimate feature… see that tiny black bar near the wallets flap? That’s a camera. If despite all the features you still manage to lose your wallet, or if some evil persons decide to steal from you, they won’t be getting away that easily. Once you turn on lost mode, this camera will take a photo (and hopefully capture the perpetrator’s face) and automatically send your phone an image. Talk about adding on some safeguards.

You can check out Volterman’s Indiegogo page here.

I finally found them: The smartphone case I’ve always wanted but never found. For years, I scoured store after store looking for a case that will keep cards and some cash all the while looking stylishly good. I never found one in the time I’d been using an iPhone religiously.

Now, years later and a number of Android phone reviews under my belt, I discover Rakuni leather wallet cases.

Cases for the iPhone XS Max, iPhone XS, and iPhone 6s

You read right: These fashionable cases double as wallets so you never have to fumble with purses or wallets again. These iPhone cases come in a number of colors and there are versions for the latest Apple devices.

The cases are stitched so you can make sure that these don’t only look great, they’re also pretty durable. Ready for your everyday use and with the added phone protection.

The highlight of these cases is the mini wallet at the back of each one.

In total, there are two card slots and another pocket on the outer fold to house cash, IDs, or even a metro card.

Even with the cards, the case isn’t that bulky. There’s a matching leather strap for each one as an added carrying bonus.

This is just a godsend for clumsy folks who keep dropping their phones!

They fit perfectly in the palm of my hands and depending on what color you pick out, you can go from fun with the pink/berry case pictured above…

Or you can opt for a more classic look with this tan number.

Or even go a little more subtle with blue accents. There are even more designs and colors to choose from! Imagine the accessory possibilities.

Until they make these for Android phones, these are cases that actually make me want to go back to my iPhone ways.

You can get them in Japan here.

I have recently been introduced to the art of Purikura by my good friend Japanese tech journalist Ayano Tominaga. In my last trip to Japan, she led me through an arcade to a photo booth that not only took cute photos of us, it also allowed us to edit and even add cute stickers to our shots. The resulting prints are as follow:

If you’re going to say something bad about the exaggerated face edits, I’m going to stop you right there. It’s part of the fun and if you don’t like it, don’t add it on when you take your own photos.

Because I had so much fun with the edits and printouts, I decided I’d try my hand at DIY Purikura. My weapon of choice? Canon’s new mini printer.

This pocket-sized printer is light and small enough to be in your purse, you know, in case you have a printing emergency or ever feel compelled to print something off your phone right then and there.

Canon Mini Photo Printer with cat for scale

It prints on Zinc paper that goes inside the printer. Canon’s printing paper also doubles as stickers which means you can stick the fun everywhere!

It works in tandem with your smartphone and the Canon Mini Print app. You can print not only photos from your camera roll, you can also get images straight from Facebook, Instagram, or Dropbox (without having to even download first).

Now on to the fun part! You can edit your photos with photo filters, funny face filters, and even add frames. There are a number of cute stickers to choose from and you can even scribble on your photo or add text.

If you want to showcase more than one photo, you can set it to collage mode where you can lay out as many as nine photos.

The app is pretty straightforward and simple to navigate. Admittedly, I took way more time working on this photo than I should have — time flies when you’re having fun! 😅

Without further ado, my final product:

All that’s left to do now is print the photo! Although, you can also just save your masterpiece to the camera roll if you aren’t so sure you want to immortalize your artwork just yet.

Because this is a new printer (which I’m using for the first time), I was prompted to connect my phone and the device via Bluetooth. The process was seamless and it only took a few seconds.

Hit print photo and you’re done!

I think I did pretty well, all things considered. Here’s a quick side by side.

All in all, the Canon Mini Photo Printer proved a worthy adversary. Of course, Purikura machines are still a whole different experience but this is a very good substitute to the cute printouts if you’re nowhere near Japan and are aching for these cute novelty photos.

The fun photo experience will cost you, though. The Canon Mini Photo Printer retails for PhP 9,900 in the Philippines and a pack of photo paper with 20 pieces will set you back PhP 550.