Japan

U.S. tech giant Microsoft has opened its first Japanese research and development center in Tokyo, focusing on combining robotics with artificial intelligence, with an inauguration ceremony taking place on Nov. 18, NHK reported. The R&D center, called Microsoft Research Asia Tokyo, is the latest in a series of technology labs Microsoft has opened around the world. The lab is understood to plan to focus on the application of so-called embodied AI in manufacturing, healthcare and other industries, and will also work with major Japanese companies and universities. Microsoft said the company was impressed with Japan's expertise in robotics. Microsoft ...

According to the Yomiuri Shimbun on 25th, a 25-year-old Hayashi man was sentenced by the Tokyo District Court to three years' imprisonment and four years' probation for misuse of generative AI to create a computer virus, marking the first time in Japan that there has been a criminal conviction for misuse of generative AI. According to the judgment and other documents, on March 31 last year, this man created a ransomware-like computer virus at his residence in Kawasaki City using a computer and a smartphone with a malicious program design (source code) obtained by Generative AI. In addition, he posed as another person and fraudulently obtained...

Many people want to find a partner through the Internet, but they are afraid of experiencing personal privacy leakage or fraud. In response, Japan's Tokyo Metropolitan Government has stepped in with an officially endorsed artificial intelligence matchmaking system designed to help Tokyo residents find suitable partners. According to a 2021 Tokyo government survey, 67% of 3,267 Tokyo residents want to get married someday, but 69.3% of them have yet to take the first step toward finding a potential partner. The system, called "Tokyo Knot," was officially launched on Sept. 20 for unmarried people over the age of 18 who live, study or work in Tokyo. ...

Recently, Sakana AI, an AI research and development company headquartered in Tokyo, announced the successful completion of a round of A financing of more than $100 million. The main investors in this round of financing include New Enterprise Associates, Khosla Ventures and Lux Capital, and NVIDIA also participated. Sakana AI's goal is to promote AI research through nature-inspired intelligence and foundational models, especially in the areas of evolutionary optimization and sparsity. Sak…

Preferred Networks (PFN), a Japanese AI chip "unicorn" company, announced today that it has formed a capital and business alliance with Japanese financial giant SBI Holdings for the development and productization of PFN's next-generation AI semiconductors. According to the agreement signed between PFN and SBI Holdings, the two companies plan to jointly develop PFN's next-generation AI semiconductors and work together to promote chip productization, and cooperate in the packaging and testing process of the chip. In addition, SBI Holdings' parent company...

According to Kyodo News, Japanese robot innovation company "Human-Robot Integration" and Ritsumeikan University publicly displayed their latest humanoid robot on the 1st. The robot is remotely controlled by humans and can automatically maintain body balance and operate safely without knowing the surrounding environment in advance. According to reports, the company strives to put it into use in dangerous places such as high places within 5 years. The main information of the robot is as follows: In terms of parameters, the robot is about 2 meters high, about 70 centimeters wide, and weighs about 90 kilograms. In terms of operation, the robot is controlled by humans using a joystick to control the movements of its hands and feet, and the camera on the body…

Sakana AI, a startup in Tokyo, Japan, has introduced two new image generation models - Evo-Ukiyoe and Evo-Nishikie. The pictures are from Sakana AI official. These two models can be found on the Hugging Face platform. Their main purpose is to generate Ukiyo-e style artworks through text or image prompts. As we all know, Ukiyo-e is a traditional art form popular in Japan from the 17th to the 19th century, depicting many themes such as historical scenes, natural scenery and sumo wrestlers. Sakana AI has launched two new image generation models - Evo-Ukiyoe and Evo-Nishikie. The pictures are from Sakana AI official. These two models can be found on the Hugging Face platform. Their main purpose is to generate Ukiyo-e style artworks through text or image prompts. As we all know, Ukiyo-e is a traditional art form popular in Japan from the 17th to the 19th century, depicting many themes such as historical scenes, natural scenery and sumo wrestlers

Recently, the Japanese publishing industry has issued serious warnings about AI-driven search engines, believing that these emerging technologies are eroding the foundations of the news industry. The Japan News Publishers and Editors Association said that AI search engines are exploiting news media content without fair compensation, a phenomenon known as "free riding." In other words, AI systems borrow news content to make profits, but do not support the creation of content and the news ecosystem. Some experts point out that as generative AI systems continue to develop, new copyright laws may emerge to address potential infringement issues. These…

According to a Bloomberg report on Monday, Loverse, an AI dating app developed by a Japanese startup Samansa, has more than 5,000 users. The most obvious feature of this one-year-old app is that users are only allowed to interact with generative AI. The report mentioned the experience of a 52-year-old employee named Shimoda. He divorced two years ago and confessed: "I returned to an empty home. I really hope to get married again." In two months, he exchanged personal information with five or six potential partners, but he finally chose the above...

According to Kyodo News, the Japan News Association issued a statement on the 17th saying that AI search engines provided by US IT giants such as Google and Microsoft are likely to infringe copyright. The association pointed out that services such as AI search often use news reports as information sources without authorization and generate answers similar to news reports, and asked US IT giants to obtain permission from news media to use them. Image source: Pexels From the statement, the Japan News Association described the service as "combining a web search engine with generative artificial intelligence (AI)", that is, "a search-linked generative AI service...

Researchers at the University of Tokyo in Japan have made a new breakthrough in collaboration with Alternative Machine, developing a humanoid robot system called Alter3 that can directly map natural language commands to robot actions. Its background model uses GPT-4 technology to complete a series of complex tasks, such as taking selfies or playing ghosts. This is one of a growing number of research results based on combining basic models with robotic systems. Although these systems have not yet reached scalable commercial solutions, they have promoted the development of robotics research in recent years and demonstrated...

Japanese generative AI startup Sakana AI is about to receive a major new investment that will value the company at about 180 billion yen (about 8.3 billion yuan), the Asahi Shimbun reported on Saturday. Driven by the global AI investment wave, this means that a new "unicorn" company will be born in Japan. A "unicorn" is an unlisted company with a valuation of more than $1 billion (about 7.276 billion yuan). According to the report, in July last year, Google's artificial intelligence researchers set up Sakana AI in Tokyo....

According to a Reuters report today, a Japanese startup, Carelogy, and Nihon University have developed an app called "CatsMe!" that is trained to recognize 6,000 pictures of cats and has had more than 230,000 users since its release last year. The app can tell when a cat is in pain, reducing the amount of stress users have to go through in trying to figure out when they need to take their cat to the vet. The developers say the app has an accuracy rate of more than 95%, and as the AI recognizes more cat faces, its accuracy...

According to NHK, on Friday local time, the Tokyo District Court of Japan ruled on whether AI-invented devices can be patented. On the grounds that "the inventor must be human", it ruled not to grant a patent. According to reports, the plaintiff living in the United States applied for a patent for a device invented by AI, but the inventor's name was "DABUS, the AI who invented this product independently". As early as three years ago, the Patent Office had rejected the application, and it had clearly stated at the time that "the inventor must be human". The plaintiff was dissatisfied and filed a lawsuit to revoke the decision. Image source Pexe…

A joint research team from various companies and organizations in Japan released the Fugaku-LLM large model yesterday. The most distinctive feature of the model is that it was trained on the Arm architecture supercomputer "Fujitake". The development of the Fugaku-LLM model was initiated in May 2023, with initial participation from Fujitsu, the owner of the Fujitsu supercomputer, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tohoku University and RIKEN. And in August 2023, three other partners -- Nagoya University, CyberAgent (also a gaming company Cy...

The Eureka Alpha system developed by Anaut, a startup headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, has recently begun to be put into practical use. Through AI analysis of endoscopic images, it can assist surgeons in real time during surgical operations, improve surgical accuracy, and reduce surgical difficulty. Anaut applied to the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare of Japan for approval in June 2023 and was approved on April 12 this year. The Eureka Alpha system can be used in surgery. The company has currently sold the system to more than 100 hospitals in Japan. In the endoscope…

According to Kyodo News, Yokosuka City in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan, announced yesterday that it will try to use generative AI to create a virtual avatar of the mayor of the city, Katsuaki Uechi, so that he can introduce the outline of the regular press conference and release information in fluent English. Katsuaki Uechi said at the press conference: "I don't speak English, but I can convey my thoughts through AI. If I can release information like I am speaking, it will be a great tourist guide." It is reported that this "virtual mayor" first needs to use generative AI to learn the mayor's real expressions, timbre, movements, etc., with the goal of creating a virtual mayor that is similar to the original mayor...

According to the Nikkei, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry of Japan will provide subsidies totaling 72.5 billion yen (currently about 3.4 billion yuan) to five Japanese companies to build artificial intelligence supercomputers, aiming to reduce technological dependence on the United States. The report pointed out that from the perspective of economic security, the development of AI is crucial, and high-performance computers are also crucial for the development of AI and generative AI that require massive data learning. At the same time, Japan's computing infrastructure is very scarce. ▲ The Arm-based supercomputer jointly developed by RIKEN and Fujitsu...

According to a Nikkei News report today, major Japanese automotive companies have been using generative AI in the development of new models, including Toyota, Mazda, Subaru, Honda and other car companies. It is reported that AI can improve efficiency by exporting combinations of parts and components, etc., and is expected to halve the time required for planning and design. Specifically, the actions of each automaker are as follows: Toyota: has begun using image-generating AI at its U.S. research and development subsidiary Toyota Research Institute (Toyota Research Institute, TRI), with the AI calculating air resistance based on the car's exterior design drawings,...

As the Japanese population ages, the elderly have become one of the main victims of telecommunications fraud. Criminals often pretend to be relatives of the elderly and instruct them to use ATMs to complete transfers over the phone, claiming that they are in trouble and it is inconvenient for them to show up. According to CCTV News, the Japanese police have installed AI recognition systems in some ATMs to warn potential victims. In simple terms, when AI recognizes that a user is using an ATM while on the phone, it will automatically play a warning video in which the police officer played by singer Keita Tachibana will point his finger at the user with a finger magnified several times and say: …

Japan's ruling party will propose that the government introduce a new law regulating the generation of artificial intelligence (AI) technology by 2024, the Nikkei Shimbun reported on Thursday. To address issues such as disinformation and copyright infringement around AI, Japan's Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) AI project team will draft preliminary rules, including criminal statutes, for basic model developers (OpenAI, etc.). With the explosion of generative AI, China, the U.S., and the EU are currently exploring regulation of AI. According to IT Home's previous report, China has pushed for relevant management last year, and seven departments such as the State Net Information Office jointly announced the Generative...

To encourage developers and service providers of generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to comply with the Guidelines, the Government of Japan will consider new measures to mitigate the risks of generative AI. These measures may include the establishment of a third-party certification system and increased regulation of industries and organizations that are considered high-risk. Image source note: Image generated by AI, image license provider Midjourney The move comes after the Group of Seven (G7) advanced economies agreed on an international code of conduct for generative AI developers. The government proposed on Tuesday at the AI Strategy Board, comprised of AI experts and government officials, how to reduce...