Robotics

Smooth talking is an important part of finding a prospective marriage partner. However, many Japanese are said to lack confidence in their conversational abilities. What if you could get someone to do the talking for you? Or, perhaps, a robot?

Tokyo Electric Power Co. Holdings will use a survey robot to make direct contact with the radioactive fuel at its Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant this week, the first such attempt since the meltdown eight years ago in March.

As Mitsubishi Estate's employees start heading home in the early evening, robots get ready for work.

The owner of the wrecked Fukushima No. 1 power plant is trying this week to touch melted fuel at the bottom of the plant for the first time since the disaster almost eight years ago, a tiny but key step toward retrieving the radioactive material amid a ¥21.5 trillion ($195 billion) cleanup effort.

“Smart farming,” which brings together cutting-edge robotics and artificial intelligence, could hold the key to an agricultural resurgence in a nation of graying farmers and workers reluctant to toil in soil.

In a few years, perhaps for some the most dreaded household chore may be taken over by robots.Robot startup Mira Robotics unveiled Thursday a machine that performs a range of laundry duties while controlled remotely.

Japan is joining the international race to add artificial intelligence and drones to its defense capabilities, driven by a need to deploy its forces more effectively as population decline thins their ranks.

Toshiba Corp. unveiled a remote-controlled robot with tongs on Monday that it hopes will be able to probe the inside of one of the three damaged reactors at the tsunami-hit Fukushima nuclear plant and grip chunks of highly radioactive melted fuel.

Toshiba Corp. unveiled a remote-controlled robot with tongs on Monday that it hopes will be able to probe the inside of one of the three damaged reactors at Japan’s tsunami-hit Fukushima nuclear plant and grip chunks of highly radioactive melted fuel.

Decades ago, small family operations dominated Japan’s agriculture industry, but today, the gradual shift to large-scale farming is creating many new challenges.