The new robot from Japanese automaker Toyota Motor Corp. can't do much but chatter in a high-pitched voice. But the 390, 4-inch-tall, doll-like Kirobo Mini -- whose name comes from "kibo," or "hope," and "robot" -- supposedly has the smarts of a 5-year-old. Fuminori Kataoka, general manager in charge of the project, says its value is emotional, going from home to car to the outdoors as a faithful companion, although the owner must do all the walking and driving. Preorders start later this year. Shipments are set for next year.

East Japan Railway Co., on Monday started a pilot project under which a humanoid robot serves visitors in English, Chinese and Japanese. Placed in front of the travel service center at the Marunouchi north exit, the 90-cm, 15-kg Emiew3 can respond questions on directions on trains leaving and arriving at the station as well as shops and restaurants within the station. It can also provide information on tourist attractions around the station. The robot, developed by Hitachi, Ltd., will be in service on weekdays through Oct. 28, for JR East to test its ability to comprehend questions and whether it can recognize people's voices in a crowded, noisy environment. Emiew3, which can also show maps through a screen on its back, is also being tested at Haneda airport.

Never mind cancer research or climate change: IBM is finally bringing its Watson AI technology to bear on one of the real challenges still facing human civilisation – regulatory compliance. Big Blue has announced plans to snarf up Promontory Financial Group, a risk management and regulatory compliance consultancy, and combine the firm's expertise with Watson's cognitive capabilities in order to address the growing burden of regulation and risk management requirements. Promontory has about 600 workers in 19 offices across North America, Europe, Asia Pacific and the Middle East, and these are set to form the stout-hearted core of a new Watson Financial Services portfolio within IBM's Industry Platforms business. If all goes well, the transaction is expected to close before the end of 2016, but financial details of the deal have not been disclosed. According to IBM, more than 20,000 new regulatory requirements were created last year alone, and the complete catalogue of regulations is projected to exceed 300 million pages by 2020.

Dr R.V. Parameshwaran, head of the department of Nuclear Medicine at Manipal Hospitals, is a close friend of mine--more to my own good fortune and not so much the good doctor's! Apart from being a brilliant physician, Param is possessed of an insatiable curiosity with all things technical, and passionately believes that technology can be harnessed by the medical profession in order to better serve the sick. He and I have collaborated on assessing investments in start-ups that are focused on the healthcare space in India. He recently passed on an article to me which was focused on the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in medicine--from the website Futurism; founded last year, it is focused on emerging technologies, and attempts to take complex content and break it down into components that are easily understood. It has an unusually large following on Facebook--over 2 million followers.

In Episode 7 of "The Twilight Zone," a convicted prisoner falls in love with a humanoid robot while serving his sentence on an abandoned asteroid. In Spike Jonze's drama "Her," the introverted Theodore Twombly becomes emotionally attached to an artificial intelligence named Samantha. In another story, set in the present day, an automotive company designs a robotic baby and markets it toward childless mothers. On Monday, Toyota Motor Corp debuted Kirobo Mini, a robotic companion small enough to fit in a cupholder. With big eyes and a high-pitched voice, Kirobo is designed to trigger a maternal response from its owner.

Driving can sometimes be a solitary affair, heading from place to place with only the road and the radio for company, but that could change with Kirobo Mini. It's a small robot developed by Toyota that's designed to act as a virtual companion, listening to and responding to chat from people in a car or just about anywhere. At 10 centimeters tall, its small size means it can easily be carried around. The technology behind it is quite simple. Audio is sent from Kirobo's microphone to a smartphone running a companion app. The phone passes the audio on to a Toyota cloud service that runs voice recognition and helps to determine the appropriate response.

Joseph Sirosh, Corporate Vice President of the Data Group at Microsoft, offers a surprising story about how machine learning, population data, and the cloud are coming together to reimagine eye care in India.

A palm-sized robot that can hold conversations will go on sale in Japan next year, developer Toyota has announced. Kirobo Mini, who was 10cm (4in) high, had been designed to provide companionship, the company said. And it could tailor conversations to include comments about journeys based on data from its owner's vehicle. It also has childlike attributes, but a robotics expert told the BBC a robot could not be a substitute for a child. "He wobbles a bit, and this is meant to emulate a seated baby, which hasn't fully developed the skills to balance itself," Fuminori Kataoka, Kirobo Mini's chief design engineer, told the Reuters news agency.

Technology has been good to 1-800-Flowers. The company has long pioneered new ways of retailing, a toll-free number, direct sales via the internet. So when, in 2009, it opened its online store on Facebook the company was expecting another tech-based success. Like many others they found Facebook was a tough sell. "We were one of the first to actually have a Facebook store, and we did have big expectations, but it turned out to be not very successful," recalled Jon Mandell, vice-president of marketing at the flower and gift seller.

Singapore is pushing for businesses to develop an autonomous wheelchair that'll convey people around without instruction. The announcement came from Mark Lim, the official in charge of the country's digital services and commercial development division. According to GovInsider, the project is going to run until March 2017 and will harness computer vision, robotics and machine learning to ferry patients around hospitals. The report quotes Lim saying that "we have limited health care workers," and that "nurses are more precious in doing their work [...] than pushing them around in the wheelchair." Singapore GDS is building autonomous wheelchairs!