Akihabara News (Tokyo) — SkyTaxi (also known as SoratobuTaxi Co.), a company that was formed last year by the Daiho Taxi Group, has decided to take the lead in bringing South Korean eVTOLs (flying cars) into the Japanese market.

In an agreement signed earlier this month, it was decided that Osaka-based SkyTaxi would acquire fifty units of the Plana hybrid eVTOL CP-01, which is currently under development.

The pact calls for the first ten aircraft to be delivered in 2030 and the remaining forty over the succeeding decade.

Commenting on the agreement, SkyTaxi CEO Takuto Hojo stated that “this collaborative project between Plana and SkyTaxi will have a huge impact on the global advanced air mobility industry by players from Asia. We are committed to developing the best business with Plana so that we can be a model case for one of Asia’s leading advanced air mobility industries.

The joint statement issued by the partners explains that “they are preparing to launch air routes that will connect Osaka’s city centers, including Umeda and Namba, world heritage, and sightseeing destinations all over Japan, as well as Kansai and Kobe airports.”

The fact that the Plana aircraft uses a hybrid and not entirely electric propulsion system is expected to set it apart from some of its potential rivals. It is anticipated that it will have a much longer flying range.

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Akihabara News (Tokyo) — Japan space robotics startup Gitai is experiencing success in attracting funding for its technology development and expansion into the United States, boasting ambitious plans to provide robot labor beyond the confines of the Earth.

The Tokyo-based firm this week reported financing totaling ¥4 billion (US$30 million).

This includes an extension of its Series B funding round, which has so far raised around ¥1.8 billion (US$13 million) over two years.

According to the company, this money will be used to improve technologies for its two-meter long inchworm robotic arm and a lunar rover.

Another part of the proceeds will be used to further extend Gitai’s activities into the United States. To this end, it wants to build out its American workforce and expand its manufacturing and testing capacity.

The company is reportedly in talks with other space industry firms regarding the testing of its lunar rover’s ability to assemble equipment on the Moon’s surface.

According to Gitai Founder and CEO Sho Nakanose, the startup “will provide the most labor for the Moon and Mars, and build infrastructure such as solar panels, communication antennas, fuel generators, and habitation modules.”

A major demonstration is expected to take place in 2026.

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Akihabara News (Tokyo) — Fully autonomous vehicles are now driving Japanese public roads for the first time. From May 28, this will become a regular shuttle service for local residents.

This is the first initiative of its kind within Japan’s public transport system, and it has only become possible due to regulatory changes implemented from the beginning of April.

The cart-like vehicle is running in Eiheiji town, Fukui Prefecture, a rural municipality with a population under 20,000 people.

The shuttle services take place on weekends and public holidays along a two-kilometer route. The seven-seat vehicle needs about ten minutes to complete its journey, moving at a top speed of 12 kilometers per hour.

The self-driving vehicle was developed by a consortium led by Yamaha Motor Company.

The Eiheiji town project itself is supported by the national government, which plans to launch similar services in fifty other municipalities over the next two years.

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Akihabara News (Tokyo) — Japan Airlines (JAL) has reached an agreement which aims to bring another prominent international flying car firm—Wisk Aero—into the Japan market.

The Wisk Generation 6 eVTOL features a fixed-wing design upon which are mounted six electric turbines. It is being designed for a flight range of over 140 kilometers. This aircraft is expected to transport four passengers per trip and possess additional capacity for carry-on luggage items.

Catherine MacGowan, Wisk’s director for the Asia-Pacific region, explained that “Japan represents a large, densely populated market where air taxi services can provide real, positive impact for local communities. We look forward to further pursuing the potential introduction of our self-flying, all-electric air taxis in Japan, and are encouraged by the growing interest within the broader Asia-Pacific region for these types of services.”

Wisk CEO Brian Yutko added, “We are excited to be partnering with Japan Airlines.”

Included in the agreement is an understanding that JAL will assist Wisk in its effort to gain “type certification” from the national authorities, which will allow the aircraft to be operated within Japan.

The announcement states that Wisk will be working closely with JAL Engineering (JALEC) in particular on issues related to operations of the air taxi service, including maintenance.

No timeline for the introduction of the Wisk eVTOL was provided, but the companies did specify that they are now working on the “development of a path to a demonstration flight in Japan.”

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Akihabara News (Tokyo) — Despite its lander lying as rubble on the surface of the Moon, Tokyo-based startup ispace still presented its historic project to the public as a success.

Late last month, the lander Hakuto-R proved unable to control its descent to the surface of the Moon, denying, at least for now, the Japanese company a place in the record books for the achievement of the first successful Moon landing by a private company.

Nevertheless, the public reaction of the firm was quite upbeat, even to the point of making the mission sound like a victory.

“This is a great leap forward to future lunar exploration and an important milestone to advance space development by the private sector toward the next level, not only in Japan but also the world,” the official announcement proclaimed.

ispace insisted that the Hakuto-R Mission 1 had gathered valuable data and know-how which will allow future missions to achieve their goals.

The positive spin came from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and some other industry observers as well. They also asserted that the mission was a step forward for international space exploration.

Over the next two years, ispace plans to make further attempts at Moon landings.

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Akihabara News (Tokyo) — A major Japan-themed festival in Germany brought hundreds of thousands of people out onto the streets last weekend.

Japan Day 2023 took place in Dusseldorf, a large industrial city, and attracted over 650,000 visitors from Germany and other countries.

The festival featured over seventy booths related to Japanese culture, including traditional clothing and street foods.

There was also a sports stage upon which martial arts exhibitions and other entertainments were performed.

Attendees had the opportunity to test their skills at kyudo, a 16th century form of archery.

Anime fans were also not forgotten. There was a cosplay competition and manga drawing displays.

To enhance the celebratory mood, there was also the drinking of sake and a fireworks show.

Dusseldorf is known for its Little Tokyo, where over eight thousand inhabitants of Japanese origin reside. It is the largest Japanese community in Europe.

Almost six hundred Japanese companies are based in Little Tokyo.

The Japan Day festival is held on an annual basis.

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Akihabara News (Tokyo) — The proportion of wind and solar power within the global energy mix has reached a new record, demonstrating some progress toward reducing carbon emissions. It is not clear, however, if the energy transition is occurring quickly enough to prevent a climate cataclysm in future years.

According to Climate Campaign Ember’s Global Electricity Review, more than 12% of the world’s electricity is now being generated by solar and wind power alone. Of the 78 countries surveyed, around three-quarters achieved a value above the 10% mark.

More broadly, green energy sources (including nuclear power) are approaching 40% of all energy being generated around the world.

In view of the high prices and insecurity associated with fossil fuels such as coal and natural gas, many countries are accelerating their focus on renewables.

The world leader in the use of renewable energies is Norway, where energy generation now produces almost no greenhouse gases.

Also ranking high in renewables use are New Zealand and Brazil.

Contrary to wind and solar power, however, some renewable energy sources have suffered a decline in recent years. For example, global hydropower has fallen to its lowest level in over thirty years, mainly as a consequence of droughts which have reduced the flow of rivers in many parts of the world.

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Akihabara News (Tokyo) — A bilateral agreement with France will help Japan put into effect its revived goal of advancing nuclear energy, allegedly as part of its decarbonization strategy.

This agreement, which aims to deepen mutual nuclear cooperation in the areas of research and development, was reached earlier this month, according to the French Ministry of Ecological Transition.

Emphasis is placed on the safe continued operations of existing nuclear power plants, as well as the development of new types of advanced reactors.

In addition, France will assist Japan in its ongoing effort to decommission the disaster-struck Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant.

The pact upgrades a Japan-France nuclear agreement signed over five decades ago.

In recent years, the Japanese government has reemphasized the role of nuclear energy, which it now argues is needed as part of its strategy to reduce carbon emissions and to allow the country to achieve its climate crisis targets.

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Akihabara News (Tokyo) — Sony’s increased focus on entertainment is paying off for them: gaming, film, and music brought the company great financial success over the past year.

Sony booked over ¥11.5 trillion (US$85 billion) in sales in FY2022, an all-time high.

Leading the charge was Sony’s Game & Network Services division, which includes consoles and other video games, producing ¥3.6 trillion (US$26.5 billion) in sales. At the backbone of this success was the PlayStation 5 console which recorded more than 19 million units sold.

Sony Music Entertainment remains an important revenue source for the company. It is one of the three largest music labels and holds the rights for the works of Michael Jackson, Shakira, and Beyonce, among others.

Music division sales came in at around ¥1.4 trillion (US$10.5 billion) over the course of the year.

Also contributing strongly was Sony’s movie division.

Spider-Man: No Way Home, produced by Columbia Pictures, a division of Sony Pictures, played a huge part. Bullet Train also did quite well for the company.

Overall, the film division booked sales of over ¥1.3 trillion (US$9.5 billion).

Finally, the anime platform Crunchyroll, which Sony purchased nearly two years ago, now boasts around ten million paid subscribers.

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Akihabara News (Tokyo) — The animated film The Super Mario Bros. Movie has broken box office records both worldwide and now in Japan.

Since it began to be released in some countries’ theaters seven weeks ago, the Super Mario movie has grossed over US$1 billion, making it the most successful film so far this year.

It is already one of the fifty highest-grossing films of all time.

The film raked in US$377 million globally on its opening weekend alone and overtook Disney’s Frozen 2 for the highest opening income for an animated film.

It is possible that it could capture the all-time sales record among animated films, snatching the crown from the remake of The Lion King before the global pandemic.

Despite being based on a theme with roots in a Nintendo game and Japanese culture, the release in this country came relatively late.

It arrived a couple weeks ago and has been a local sensation as well, grossing over US$13 million on its opening weekend.

Both the production company, Santa Monica-based Illumination Entertainment, and distributor Universal Pictures are celebrating this blockbuster success.

Notably, some movie critics are less than enthusiastic about the film, arguing that it doesn’t really break any new ground, but no one doubts that it has emerged as a real crowdpleaser.

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Akihabara News (Tokyo) — Virtual YouTubers (VTubers) are gaining ever-greater visibility within Japan. In addition to their growing number of viewers and subscribers on the internet, they are now being commonly utilized as “ambassadors” for the tourism industry and other public relations gigs.

VTubers are web video producers who appear as computer-animated avatars.

Kizuna AI is often cited as the world’s first VTuber, launching seven years ago and gathering over three million subscribers on YouTube.

A lot has happened since then. Today there are thought to be more than thirteen thousand VTubers who have collectively vacuumed up more than two billion views.

The ten most popular VTubers boast a combined subscriber base of over twenty million fans.

The current leader of the pack is Gawr Gura with 4.3 million YouTube subscribers.

Like most VTubers, she is a female anime character who mainly delights her fans with livestreams of games such as Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, Minecraft, or Grand Theft Auto V.

The rise of VTubers has been recognized by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government. Governor Yuriko Koike appointed the three VTubers–Miko Sakura, Mori Calliope, and the aforementioned Gawr Gura–as official tourism ambassadors for the capital city.

Their future activities are expected to include appearances in PR videos and participation in tourism promotion events organized by the metropolitan government.

Television appearances by VTubers also signify how they are gaining increased recognition within the country. At the end of last month, a new music show featuring VTuber Oozora Subaru was launched by Nippon TV.

For her part, Kizuna AI made her television debut five years ago.

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Akihabara News (Tokyo) — The potential use of chatbots for cheating on academic assignments can be unfair to learners and even deny them a proper education, according to our survey of the opinions of university students in Germany.

“Whomever uses ChatGPT for larger tasks is cheating,” asserted one university student we spoke to.

Another student added that it is “unfair to other students who work without tools” whenever such AI technology is employed.

These students are particularly concerned about cheating on graded assignments such as tests, term papers, and theses.

Moreover, some students also suggested that chatbots can not only cheat the teachers and other students, but can also wind up cheating oneself.

“Anyone who doesn’t want to take something away from their studies should not and will not use them,” noted a third student. He added that he doubted that the use of chatbots corresponds “to the basic core of studying [and] the application of the knowledge you have learned.”

One student went even further to say that “you don’t learn anything just by typing in keywords in chatbots.”

Despite these generally negative assessments of using ChatGPT for assignments, some students do admit that they have at least experimented with using them.

One female university student found ChatGPT to be limited in its usefulness to her even when she did employ it.

Another student acknowledged that she is considering the use of ChatGPT for future homework assignments or parts of her bachelor thesis, but only “insofar as it is legal.”

Our sample was small and related data remains scarce; it is not clear what proportion of university students are now utilizing or considering the use of chatbots in their studies.

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Akihabara News (Tokyo) — Twitter owner and Tesla founder Elon Musk has had enough with lying chatbots.

Taking a shot at OpenAI and its ChatGPT during a recent Fox News interview, Musk declared that “they’re training the AI ​​to lie.”

According to Musk, OpenAI programmers are not so open when it comes to providing answers and analysis which company officials deem to be not politically correct.

In order to combat what he sees as a troubling trend, Musk is advancing what he calls “TruthGPT,” an alternative platform which will be a “maximum truth-seeking AI.”

Musk has yet to provide any details about his project, but two months ago he founded a start-up company called X.AI.

Also, Musk has poached two researchers from the UK-based company DeepMind, which is specialized in AI programming; and he also purchased 10,000 graphics processing units (GPUs), which will convert data into graphics in an optimal manner.

Although he was a cofounder of OpenAI, Musk has long been wary about this technology’s downside risks. He has even gone so far as to suggest that, at some point, AI devices could outnumber humans, outsmarting and eventually replacing humanity.

He recently led an initiative calling for a six-month pause on new AI technology public rollouts in order provide government regulators a chance to legislate the necessary safeguards.

There is no indication, however, that such a pause will actually be implemented. Instead, ChatGPT is quickly growing in popularity with over 100 million active users.

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Akihabara News (Tokyo) — Japanese have reacted positively to recent major developments in Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies, but that doesn’t mean they are without concern about potential negative impacts.

The recent emergence of chatbots–computer programs designed to simulate conversation with humans–are opening up new possibilities, and promise wider applications throughout society. From writing poems to solving math problems, they are capable of many things, performing with ever-greater sophistication and accuracy.

The use of chatbots is rapidly gaining popularity within Japan as it is globally.

ChatGPT, developed by OpenAI, already boasts more than 100 million active users worldwide, and that figure has been expanding exponentially.

According to a survey conducted last month by Line Research, Japanese have a generally positive attitude towards ChatGPT. Around two-thirds of those surveyed stated that they might or definitely want to try out the chatbot’s services in the near future.

“Japan is certainly one of the centers of the world, first with image generation and now with ChatGPT,” declared OpenAI CEO Sam Altman earlier this month after meeting with the prime minister.

Altman added that his firm is exploring the possibility of opening an office in Tokyo.

Some Japanese firms are already working with chatbots. Indeed, LayerX, a startup promoting digital transformation in various industries, has announced that it will make it mandatory for new recruits to have knowledge of ChatGPT and Notion AI.

But this enthusiasm for the technology’s potential is tempered by a recognition that it could also come with risks.

The government has put the issue of AI regulation on the agenda at the upcoming G7 summit.

Moreover, the Ministry of Education is drawing up guidelines for the use of chatbots in schools. Some have argued that frequent use of chatbots could exercise a negative impact on children’s writing skills.

Universities, too, are grappling with their internal policies about how chatbots should be used–and not used–by students.

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Akihabara News (Tokyo) — The Kishida administration has decided to approve a license to build Japan’s first major casino resort in Osaka, aiming for a grand opening in 2029.

“The Integrated Resort will attract many tourists and have an economic impact,” Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said today. “It’s an important initiative for promoting ourselves as a tourism-oriented country.”

The official decision is expected to be announced tomorrow after a meeting with related government ministers.

With the pro-casino Japan Innovation Party (Nippon Ishin) winning another double victory in the gubernatorial and mayoral races last Sunday, the final political hurdle was crossed.

Also quite helpful for the project is that voter exit polls in Osaka revealed that a clear majority of the prefecture’s residents now favor the project. Local polling in earlier years had shown inconclusive results.

The plan calls for the construction of a ¥1.08 trillion (US$8.1 billion) facility owned and operated by a consortium led by MGM Resorts International and the Orix Corporation. The construction site is on the manmade island of Yumeshima in Osaka Bay (which will also host the 2025 World Expo). Once open, the casino resort is expected to draw in about 20 million visitors annually and strengthen Osaka’s tourism revenues.

The legislation authorizing the establishment of casino resorts, the Integrated Resort (IR) Implementation Act, was pushed through the National Diet by the Shinzo Abe administration over fierce opposition.

In January 2020, the Japan Casino Regulatory Commission was set up with a staff of about 160 people.

The fate of the other casino resort project that has applied for a license–which would be located next to the Huis Ten Bosch theme park in Sasebo city, Nagasaki–remains unclear. Reporting suggests that a final decision on that project will come at some later date.

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Akihabara News (Tokyo) — Toshiba last month agreed to a ¥2 trillion (US$15 billion) takeover bid from a Japanese consortium led by Tokyo-based Japan Industrial Partners (JIP). This event was the result of numerous scandals and poor decisions by Toshiba management which stretched over a period of decades.

Eight years ago, an accounting scandal thrust Toshiba into global headlines. The company had deliberately overstated its earnings by over ¥220 billion (US$1.7 billion) over the fiscal years 2008-2013.

This scandal led to a financial pinch involving layoffs for nearly 10,000 employees.

But the largest underlying problem for Toshiba was the failure of its nuclear power business. The Japanese firm purchased, at a premium price, US manufacturer Westinghouse Electric as a strategic investment in the industry. However, massive cost overruns in the US market and the sharp change in global public opinion in the wake of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in 2011 saddled Toshiba with heavy losses in this sector.

US subsidiary Westinghouse was thus allowed to go into bankruptcy in 2017.

At the end of the same year, Toshiba received a US$5.4 billion infusion of funds from more than thirty foreign investors. But what was supposed to become a new lifeline for Toshiba turned out to be another headache.

The main issue was that these foreign investors and the Japanese management had starkly different views about the best strategies going forward. This led to a number of unseemly and often very public feuds between the investors and management, further damaging the firm’s reputation.

With the JIP takeover, Toshiba is hoping for a more successful rebirth.

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Akihabara News (Tokyo) — A lander built by a private Japanese company has entered orbit of the Moon ahead of its scheduled touchdown in about a month’s time.

The Hakuto-R Mission 1 is a project developed by the Tokyo-based startup ispace.

This firm has ambitious plans to pioneer the discovery and development of lunar resources, with a clear objective of creating a permanent human presence on the Moon.

Mission 1, as the name suggests, is a vital early step.

After landing next month in the Atlas Crater on the rim of Mare Frigoris in the northeastern quadrant of the lunar surface, the mission is designed to create a steady telecommunications link and a power supply to support surface operations in the future.

Most notably, it is delivering a lunar rover called Rashid to the Moon, which has been developed by the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre in Dubai. This rover is equipped with microscopic and thermal imaging cameras.

ispace expects that Mission 1 will help validate the performance of its technology and enable the firm to make necessary changes for future missions.

It was a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket which delivered the Japanese lander into space last December.

ispace plans to increase the frequency of its lunar landings in future years, ultimately allowing for swarms of rovers to operate on the lunar surface

Should the mission touch down safely next month, it will become the world’s first private-sector lunar module to successfully land on the Moon.

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Akihabara News (Tokyo) — The science fiction manga Cyberpunk: Peach John is the world’s first manga created entirely with image-generation Artificial Intelligence (AI).

The author, known only by his pseudonym Rootport, used the Midjourney program to create the images for the work. Midjourney is an AI program created by a San Francisco-based independent research lab.

Rootport has never drawn a manga by hand and, according to their own statements, is not proficient as an artist.

Rootport provided characters with particularly eye-catching features, such as dog ears or pink hair, because the Midjourney program is not able to display characters with different facial expressions or in a wide variety of poses. The character designs were, in fact, compiled by the AI based upon verbal descriptions offered by Rootport,

The production of the manga, which runs a little over one hundred pages, took only six weeks to complete.

Hand-drawn manga of a similar length routinely take several months or even years to produce.

One challenge to the spread of AI-generated manga is the issue of copyright. The images are likely to be based upon large datasets of existing works.

Another question is whether or not AI-generated manga will meet with fan acceptance. For example, many anime fans became upset when it was revealed that AI had been used to compose the entire background setting for a short Netflix film called The Dog and the Boy.

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Akihabara News (Tokyo) — Meta, the parent company of Facebook, is working with Mastodon on a longshot bid to take on Twitter.

Last October, Tesla and SpaceX entrepreneur Elon Musk completed a controversial takeover of the social media platform Twitter, an event which drove many long-time users off the network in protest. Since that time, there has been headline after headline criticizing Musk’s decisions and his heavy-handed management style.

Last November, Musk himself raised the possibility that Twitter could go bankrupt by the end of 2023.

Twitter has always struggled with profitability, but it nevertheless established itself firmly as a leading social media platform for journalists, policymakers, and political discussions. At a government level, it exercises an outsized impact in relation to its size as measured by its number of users.

Since his takeover, Musk has been ruthless in regard to staffing and personnel issues. More than 50% of Twitter’s workforce has either been fired or driven to resign from the company.

This has included engineers and others who were critical to the technical operation of the platform. As a result, problems have routinely appeared in its daily operations and user services.

This, in turn, has only heightened criticism of Musk’s leadership.

The Twitter alternative which gained the most attention at the end of last year was Mastodon, a decentralized platform utilizing the ActivityPub protocol. This enables data exchange and communication between independent servers.

Due to the spike in interest, Mastodon, as of this month, has about 6.5 million users, but only about 1.3 million are regarded as being “active users.”

In comparison, Twitter boasts hundreds of millions of active users. The exact figure is disputed, but most accounts put it above 400 million people.

Meta has yet to release a name for its potential Twitter challenger, but it is known that it aims to utilize the same ActivityPub protocol as does Mastodon. This platform will in some way carry Instagram branding.

As should be apparent, whatever the problems of Musk-run Twitter have been, Meta faces a formidable challenge in trying to capture this market.

There will be little leeway for mistakes, either technical issues or public relations fiascos. This could include controversies over platform moderation; a matter which has tripped up more than one social media platform. This is especially true because public opinion on free speech is itself deeply divided.

Another major challenge will be marketing. Even possessing the advantage of operating the Facebook and Instagram platforms, Meta will need to generate enough public interest to convince large numbers of people to register and to begin using an entire new social media platform.

Since this platform will be similar to what Twitter already offers, this could prove to be a tall order.

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Source: Akihabara News – Meta’s Longshot Bid to Take on Twitter