Information & Communications Technology

Ahead of World No Tobacco Day on Friday, smokers who have been fighting a lonely battle against nicotine addiction were given another option in their quest to kick the habit.

Line and Alibaba Group Holding are among five major internet businesses from Japan and China that will standardize QR codes that are scanned to make payments via smartphones in Japan, Nikkei has learned.

Japanese industrial robot maker Fanuc plans to spend 3.5 billion yen ($28.3 million) on a new plant it hopes will help it capture business opportunities related to 5G smartphones and self-driving cars.

The Group of Twenty Agriculture Ministers Meeting concluded Sunday with calls to feed a growing global population and promote sustainable agriculture through new technologies, such as artificial intelligence, robotics and drones, and to increase cooperation among farmers, nonfarm businesses and academia.

Telecommunications carrier SoftBank Corp. said Wednesday it will make Yahoo Japan Corp. a consolidated subsidiary.

As dissatisfaction grows with how technology giants use personal data, Japanese businesses are offering a solution in the form of "information banks" that compensate customers for providing it.

Nippon Telegraph and Telephone will launch a preventive medicine business as early as 2020, Nikkei has learned.

Japan's Daikin Industries will invest 100 billion yen ($896 million) to double its output of fluoropolymers, a material used in semiconductor production equipment, in anticipation of chip demand growing with the spread of 5G communication.

SoftBank and Google are joining forces to set up an airborne wireless base station 20 km above ground, in a move that promises to expand high-speed mobile access in remote areas.

Japanese mobile carrier KDDI and newcomer Rakuten Mobile have both signed on to a government initiative to ensure reliable network coverage nationwide within the next five years -- even in remote, depopulated areas.