NEWSWORTHY
Chinese 'gait recognition' technology identifies people by how they walk
Chinese authorities have begun deploying a new surveillance tool: "gait recognition" software that uses people's body shapes and how they walk to identify them, even when their faces are hidden from cameras. Already used by police on the streets of Beijing and Shanghai, "gait recognition" ...
Fukuoka enlists artificial intelligence in fight against organized crime
Advances in artificial intelligence have come along in leaps and bounds in recent years, prompting police in Fukuoka and Kyoto to look into ways of using the technology to tackle organized crime. The Fukuoka Prefectural Police in Kyushu face a particularly daunting task, with some ...
Algorithms and charting the great unknown
Researchers tend to cluster and mine the same familiar territory. AI can overcome that tendency and point to new questions.
Japan is among the biggest users of robots in the world, with 303 per 10,000 employees in 2016 — the fourth-highest globally — according to the International Federation of Robotics. But despite such adoption — or perhaps because of it — belief in the ...
Sharp Corp.'s RoBoHon, a small humanoid robot with artificial intelligence features, will accompany tourists in taxis in Kyoto and offer sightseeing guidance in Japanese, Chinese and English starting Sept. 22, the service providers said Tuesday. Sharp, Kyoto-based taxi operator MK Co. and travel agency JTB ...
World's biggest Bitcoin-mining rig maker Bitmain eyes move into AI
The 1980s cyberpunk novels that predicted today's internet failed to conceive of anything as outlandish or contradictory as Bitcoin: A digital currency that's spent nowhere, a commodity that's used for nothing, and a libertarian dream that is effectively run by elites. Now, after its 66 ...
An outbreak of ethics in Silicon Valley?
The employees of the high-tech firms that are creating AI-based surveillance technologies are no longer on the sidelines.
'Plum Rains' is entertaining, provocative and eerily plausible
In this complex sci-fi novel, Andromeda Romano-Lax weaves in issues of robotics, kamikaze pilots and Japan's dependence on foreign healthcare workers.
Japan's economy needs AI and robots to offset graying population: white paper
Japan's graying society will require more investment in technologies such as artificial intelligence and robots to make up for a decline in the labor force and its effect on economic growth, according to a government report released Friday. The world's third-largest economy is on a ...
Two Japanese national research institutes have succeeded in using artificial intelligence to identify early stage stomach cancer with a high accuracy rate. The breakthrough may help extend the lives of patients in Japan, where stomach cancer is one of the leading causes of death. According ...
Stay fresh and ahead of the game
Summer activities: a gadget to keep an eye body odor, plus smartphone apps to enhance mahjong and fishing.
