A rundown of Toyota’s Woven City project and why Toyota may succeed where Google struggled. One of the most exciting news to come out of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2020 was from the Japanese car giant Toyota Corporation, which unveiled its plans to build a “city of the future,” as a testbed to experiment with its suite of AI …

Will Japan wow the world with technology or fall flat trying? The last time that the Olympic Games were held in Tokyo was in 1964. These games served as an important moment for Japan. By showcasing technological advancements like more precise timekeeping systems, LCD screens, and a new high-speed bullet train system, Japan showed that it had not just recovered …

Welcome to the uncanny valley, where hotel rooms are cheap and receptionists are unsettling in appearance. The Ginza district of Tokyo is famous around the world for being one of Japan’s most upscale shopping, dining, and entertainment areas. However, as of February 1, this swanky chunk of land will also be home to the latest location of Japan’s robot-staffed hotel …

It’s like Ex Machina but with Hatsune Miku… Last week at the third annual RoboDEX robotics expo, which was held from January 17-19 in Shinjuku, visitors got to see a very peculiar sight: a life-size robot version of the virtual pop idol Hatsune Miku. Created by a member of the Nihon University Department of Science and Engineering who goes by …

It’s like the high-tech Japanese version of Sisyphus and his rock. This past November 29 the Japan Robot Association kicked off the 2017 International Robot Exhibition at the Tokyo Big Sight expo center and among all the amazing examples of robotics and engineering that were on display at this four-day event, one little bento making robot seems to have – …

NHK fee collectors may soon be replaced by armies of robot Domo-kuns. Domo, or as he is typically called in Japan, Domo-kun (どーも くん Dōmo-kun) is that chocolate bar with a face-looking character that is the mascot of Japan’s public broadcaster NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation). He was created in 1998 in order to commemorate the 10th anniversary of NHK-BS, which …

Thanks to a Hokkaido company, farmers may soon be making use of mechanical wolves to keep their crops safe from pesky hungry wildlife. Called the “Monster Wolf,” this interesting alternative to the classic scarecrow was created by the Hokkaido machine parts manufacturing company Ohta Seiki, in an effort to help farmers dealing with animals, such as bears and deer, that …