Robotics

Household chores are something that people often don’t enjoy doing. But a robot may soon liberate you from tidying up your messy home.Preferred Networks, Inc., a Tokyo-based start-up, has developed a new system that enables a robot to collect things and put them in the right place, meaning you could have a pair of socks picked up and dropped into the laundry basket.

At lunchtime, the Sushiro restaurant near Tokyo's Ogikubo train station is packed with families, couples and business people, but one thing is missing: staff.

SoftBank Group on Monday launched an office-use vacuum robot powered by artificial intelligence, envisioning the product as a key to expanding its robotics operations.

A humanoid robot drove a car in a demonstration event held on Friday in Toyota, Aichi Prefecture. The Toyota city government and a University of Tokyo laboratory have been conducting research on developing a robot capable of driving a car. They developed a new robot named Musashi, which is about 1.6 meters tall and is able to move its fingers and toes. Cameras mounted in its eyes and sensors inside the body enable the robot to recognize its own posture and detect vibrations.

SoftBank Group Corp. is introducing a new robot that, unlike the talkative Pepper, skips the chit chat and just mops the floor.Whiz, an autonomous floor-cleaning machine for businesses, will go on sale in Japan in February, the company announced Monday.

Over 80 percent of people in Japan hold positive views about receiving nursing care from robots, according to a survey by nursing care service provider Orix Living Corp.

Alphabet, the holding company behind Google, will cease development of bipedal robots, giving up on the prospect of early commercialization. The company is expected to dissolve the project later this year and relocate employees involved in development to other departments within Alphabet or help them find jobs elsewhere.

Japan Post Co. on Wednesday began transporting documents by drone in Fukushima Prefecture, the first operation of its kind in Japan, following easing of regulations to cope with labor shortages in the transport industry.

Amid China’s military expansion and assertiveness in regional waters, Japan plans to develop a large underwater drone that will automatically navigate the ocean to collect information, a government source said Sunday.

In the hills between Kyoto, Osaka and Nara prefectures, surrounded by technology companies and startups, Spread Co. is preparing to open the world’s largest automated leaf-vegetable factory.