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September 17, 2024
 

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ROBOTS

Despite current limitations, the progression toward practical humanoid robots is anticipated, driven by advancements in technology and artificial intelligence.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Sep 1, 2024
The future of robots is coming on two legs
Unlike traditional robots, which have already transformed industries with their transport capabilities, bipedal robots are still in the early stages of deployment.
A remote-controlled BurnBot RX1 prototype produces a containment line during a prescribed burn operation in Paicines, California, on Aug. 12.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Aug 30, 2024
Robots are starting (good) fires in California
BurnBot's robot keeps combustion within its burning chamber, where propane torches and air blowers bring flame temperatures up to 1,000 degrees Celsius.
A humanoid robot developed by Ex-Robots winks at the World Robot Conference in Beijing on Aug. 21.
ASIA PACIFIC / Society
Aug 26, 2024
China robots conference spotlights the changing face of humanoids
"The robot industry has broad prospects and huge market potential," said Chinese Premier Li Qiang.
The government is expanding subsidies for the use of robotics by nursing care facilities to reduce the burden on care staff amid a chronic labor shortage.
JAPAN / Society
Aug 25, 2024
Japan to expand nursing care robot introduction support
The government is working to reduce the burden on care staff while maintaining the quality of care services by utilizing robots.
A boy pushes a biped robot developed by LimX Dynamics at the World Robot Conference in Beijing on Wednesday.
BUSINESS / Tech
Aug 23, 2024
China's robot makers chase Tesla to deliver humanoid workers
The Asian giant's push into the emerging industry draws from the formula behind its initial electric vehicle drive more than a decade ago.
A Mitsubishi Electric employee prepares a robotic arm for a demonstration of the firm's artificial intelligence technologies.
BUSINESS / Companies
Aug 23, 2024
Mitsubishi Electric fights to keep up with AI data center demand
The Tokyo-based maker of factory automation is a key supplier of optic fiber communication devices that link servers to one another.
An Apple Store in New York on July 29
BUSINESS / Tech
Aug 15, 2024
Developing new tabletop home device, Apple pushes ahead with robotics shift
The company now has a team of several hundred people working on the device, which would offer a twist on products like Amazon’s Echo Show 10 and Meta Platforms’s Portal.
While Japan’s media may influence global perceptions of robots as friendly and lovable, the near-future robots will likely not match the capabilities or roles depicted in TV show's like "Sunny."
COMMENTARY / Japan
Jul 25, 2024
Japan isn't the 'robotopia' Apple TV's 'Sunny' portrays
One of the reasons we still see relatively few robots doing the menial jobs is that human labor is cheap.
Artificial intelligence is transforming various business sectors and the economy. But concerns about humanoid robots replacing all jobs are unfounded, as human dexterity will remain essential for the foreseeable future.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 23, 2024
AI is making robots smarter. They’ll need boundaries.
Where AI meets the physical world — and creates the potential for conflicts — is in manufacturing and logistics.
A researcher at the University of Tokyo shows a face mold covered in human skin tissue at its lab.
JAPAN / Science & Health
Jul 18, 2024
Say cheese: Japanese scientists make robot face 'smile' with living skin
Researchers at the University of Tokyo grew human skin cells in the shape of a face and pulled it into a wide grin, using embedded ligamentlike attachments.
A humanoid robot to be used by West Japan Railway for maintenance operations
BUSINESS / Companies
Jul 5, 2024
Japan deploys humanoid robot for railway maintenance
The machine can use various attachments for its arms to carry objects, hold a brush to paint or use a chainsaw.
An employee works on a laptop next to a drone at SD Guthrie's Sungai Linau estate in Selangor, Malaysia, on June 6.
BUSINESS / Tech
Jun 29, 2024
Robots are stepping into one of Asia’s dirtiest farm jobs
With global stockpiles of palm oil set for the first back-to-back decline in more than 40 years, Malaysia is pushing for automation to boost production.
GMO Internet Group is making a foray into the artificial intelligence and robot business to spread the use of such tech products and services in Japan.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jun 19, 2024
Japan’s GMO takes aim at labor shortage with AI and robotics company
It will focus on matching robot and drone manufacturers and AI developers with businesses.
Mitsubishi Electric's TOKUI Fast Accurate Synchronized Motion Testing Robot solves a Rubik's Cube
JAPAN
May 27, 2024
Japanese robot solves Rubik's Cube in record time
Guinness World Records recognized the 0.305-second time achieved by Mitsubishi Electric's machine as a new world best, beating the previous record of 0.38 seconds.
A cardboard cut-out of a cyborg is on display in the Hofburg, the former imperial palace in Vienna, during a conference on regulating autonomous weapons systems often referred as "killer robots," in the Austrian city on Monday.
WORLD / Science & Health
Apr 30, 2024
AI faces its ‘Oppenheimer moment’ during killer robot arms race
Governments worldwide have taken steps to collaborate with companies integrating AI tools into defense
Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, during the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference in Cupertino, California, on June 5, 2023
BUSINESS / Companies
Apr 4, 2024
Apple shifts focus from EV to home robotics as ‘next big thing’
Apple’s pursuit of the "next big thing” has been an obsession since the Steve Jobs era, but it’s hard to envision a product that could match the iPhone.
Activists opposed to lethal autonomous weapons, or so-called killer robots, protest in Berlin in March 2019.
COMMENTARY
Mar 27, 2024
Don’t fear AI in war, fear autonomous weapons
It’s not the algorithmic intelligence in our weapons and nukes but automaticity that poses an existential risk.
Jacky Im, Elizabeth Chan and Kate Maco are the founders of Neptune Robotics, a firm building robots that remove debris from the hulls of ships to improve fuel efficiency and reduce emissions.
BUSINESS / Tech
Mar 27, 2024
Underwater robots offering practical route to greener shipping
Technology that removes the algae, barnacles and debris that accumulate on ships' hulls can reduce drag and improve fuel efficiency.
An unmanned robot navigates across a street during a demonstration of Uber Eats' robot delivery service in Tokyo on Tuesday.
BUSINESS / Tech
Mar 6, 2024
Uber Eats Japan begins deliveries with self-driving robots
The company has rolled out the service in Tokyo's Nihonbashi area and plans to introduce it in other places as well.
Jeff Bezos — the world’s second-richest person, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Ranking — is investing in a business that’s developing human-like robots.
BUSINESS / Tech
Feb 24, 2024
Bezos and Nvidia join OpenAI in funding humanoid robot startup
The startup Figure AI is raising about $675 million in a funding round that carries a pre-money valuation of roughly $2 billion.
Japan's elderly population grows to record 36.25 million
The proportion of people aged 65 and over has risen since the 1950s and is expected to hit 34.8% by 2040, when the second baby boomers (born 1971-1974) will join that group.
'Shogun' becomes first non-English-language winner of best drama Emmy
Japanese actress Anna Sawai, winner of the outstanding lead actress in a drama series award for "Shogun," and Japanese actor Hiroyuki Sanada, winner of the outstanding lead actor in a drama series award for the show, pose in the press room during the 76th Emmy Awards in Los Angeles on Sunday.
Japan jumps to No. 2, from sixth place, in Best Countries index
Pedestrians cross an intersection in the Shibuya district of Tokyo. Japan has experienced a postpandemic travel boom, with tourists pouring back in after restrictions closed the country’s borders to travelers.
South Korea is facing deepfake porn crisis
Activists hold up symbolic eye masks during a protest against deepfake porn in Seoul on Aug. 30.
Second assassination attempt on Trump is latest jolt in chaotic campaign
U.S. Secret Service and Homeland Security agents check a former home of a Ryan Routh, a suspect in an alleged assassination attempt on former U.S. President Donald Trump, in Greensboro, North Carolina, on Sunday.
‘Shogun’ and the painstaking art of ‘getting it right’
Hiroyuki Sanada and the cast and crew of "Shogun" accept the award for best drama series at the 76th Primetime Emmy Awards in Los Angeles, California.
Japan’s schools battle to keep kids cool, with or without AC
Students sit under a misting system during recess at Hikarigaoka Haru no Kaze Elementary School in Nerima Ward, Tokyo, on Sept. 6.
Chris Broad's new bar puts cocktails first, YouTube second
A self-proclaimed lover of great cocktails, YouTuber Chris Broad says his new Shibuya watering hole is more a place to get yourself a solid drink than it is anything related to his social media career.
In LDP presidential poll, three kingmakers hold all the cards
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida speaks at the Liberal Democratic Party headquarters in Tokyo in January as former Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga (left) looks on.
How China’s dominance of solar and batteries is impacting Japan’s energy transition
Solar panels and wind turbines at a power plant in Hami in China's Xinjiang region. The U.S. and other countries have described China’s actions against Uyghurs in the Xinjiang region, a key cog in the cleantech supply chain, as a genocidal campaign aimed at erasing an entire culture.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

A store clerk tries to cool things down in front of their shop by spraying a hose.
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By Alex K.T. Martin

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