Japan’s first robot bartender has begun serving up drinks in a Tokyo pub in a test that could usher in a wave of automation in restaurants and shops struggling to hire staff in an aging society. From a report: The repurposed industrial robot serves drinks in is own corner of a Japanese pub operated by restaurant chain Yoronotaki. An attached tablet…
Tag: tokyo
An AI Epidemiologist Sent the First Warnings of the Wuhan Virus
An anonymous reader shares a report: On January 9, the World Health Organization notified the public of a flu-like outbreak in China: a cluster of pneumonia cases had been reported in Wuhan, possibly from vendors’ exposure to live animals at the Huanan Seafood Market. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had gotten the word out a few days earlier,…
NBC’s New Peacock Streaming Service Is Just One Big Ad-Injection Machine
Comcast’s NBCUniversal is launching a new streaming service in April called Peacock. With three pricing tiers from free to $10 per month, Comcast wants Peacock “to be an ad delivery system to destroy all others in its path,” writes Ryan Waniata via Digital Trends. From the report: In a shockingly long investor call, NBC revealed its big new strategy for delivering…
Toshiba Touts Algorithm That’s Faster Than a Supercomputer
It’s a tantalizing prospect for traders whose success often hinges on microseconds: a desktop PC algorithm that crunches market data faster than today’s most advanced supercomputers. Japan’s Toshiba says it has the technology to make such rapid-fire calculations a reality — not quite quantum computing, but perhaps the next best thing. From a report: The claim is being met with a…
Fast Retailing, the World’s Third-Largest Retailer, Says It’s Cracked the Final Barrier To Full Automation
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Los Angeles Times: There was only one job that robots could not do when Fast Retailing, the owner of Uniqlo, replaced 90% of its workers with robots at its flagship warehouse in Tokyo last year. But now, with the help of a Japanese start-up called Mujin, the world’s third-largest retailer says it has cracked…
Paving the way for spintronic RAMs: A deeper look into a powerful spin phenomenon
Scientists at Tokyo Institute of Technology (Tokyo Tech) report a new material combination that sets the stage for magnetic random access memory based on spin, an intrinsic property of electrons. The innovation could outperform current storage devices. Their breakthrough, published in a new study, describes a novel strategy to exploit spin-related phenomena in topological materials and could spur several advances in…
Sony Can’t Make Image Sensors Fast Enough To Keep Up With Demand
Sony is working around the clock to manufacture its in-demand image sensors, but even a 24-hour operation hasn’t been enough. From a report: For the second straight year, the Japanese company will run its chip factories constantly through the holidays to try and keep up with demand for sensors used in mobile phone cameras, according to Terushi Shimizu, the head of…
Uniqlo’s Tokyo Warehouse is 90% Robotic
Japanese fashion retailer Uniqlo has managed to automate 90 percent of its flagship Tokyo warehouse, the Financial Times reports, adding that the facility includes a two-armed robot that can fold and box T-shirts, a job previously reserved for human staff. From a report: The industrial T-shirt folders come from Japanese robotics startup, Mujin. Uniqlo’s parent company, Fast Retailing, partnered with Mujin…
Bringing community astronomy to rural Africa
Ideas discussed at last month’s IAU symposium in Tokyo last month included projects using smartphones and low-cost battery-powered equipment. Source: https://earthsky.org/human-world/iau-symposium-diversity-inclusion-astronomy…
Fukushima Melted Fuel Removal Begins 2021, End State Unknown
Japan’s economy and industry ministry said Monday that it will start removing melted fuel from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in 2021. The milestone step of debris removal is considered the most difficult part of cleaning up the crisis-hit facility. ABC News reports: Nearly nine years after [the Fukushima nuclear power plant was wrecked by a massive earthquake and tsunami],…