Japanese education services company Benesse will offer a new service to help elementary school students with their research projects using generative artificial intelligence during the summer break. The service, which will be provided for free on its website for parents, will make suggestions and offer tips to help students search research themes and compile their findings, the company said in a recent press release. For example, if one asks "How can I study the biology of dinosaurs?" the AI would give such advice as "How about finding out what they ate?" without giving exact answers, the company said. This could be due to a conflict with your ad-blocking or security software. Please add japantimes.co.jp and piano.io to your list of allowed sites.

When roboticist Ayanna Howard was a little girl, she was inspired by TV to pursue a career in science. Growing up in the 1970s, she was particularly captivated by the TV show The Bionic Woman. "I wanted to be the bionic woman," she said. "The rest of my life has been about figuring out what that means." Today, the focus of her work is the way humans and robots work together to augment each other's capabilities.

How do virtual assistants like Alexa affect children's learning experiences? Some experts say easy answers delivered by technology can hurt the development of problem-solving skills in kids. How do virtual assistants like Alexa affect children's learning experiences? Some experts say easy answers delivered by technology can hurt the development of problem-solving skills in kids. A 6-year-old boy recently asked that question in a video, which went viral on Twitter with more than 8.5 million views.

A plush, robotic duck may soon become a fixture in the world of children who have cancer -- a social robot that can be silly, happy, angry, scared or sick just like them, and help them cope creatively with their illness through the power of play. The duck, developed by robotics expert Aaron Horowitz and his company, is undergoing testing and is expected to be widely distributed by the end of this year. Horowitz said he was diagnosed as a child with human growth development deficiency and had to give himself daily injections for five years. The experience, he said, made him want to help other children with illnesses, which led to his co-founding of the Rhode Island-based company Sproutel with a partner he met at Northwestern University. Health care facilities from children's hospitals to nursing homes have been experimenting for more than a decade with the use of robots for social companionship and emotional health.

A plush, robotic duck may soon become a fixture in the world of children who have cancer - a social robot that can be silly, happy, angry, scared or sick just like them, and help them cope creatively with their illness through the power of play. The duck, developed by robotics expert Aaron Horowitz and his company, is undergoing testing and is expected to be widely distributed by the end of this year. Horowitz said he was diagnosed as a child with human growth development deficiency and had to give himself daily injections for five years. The'social robot' can be silly, happy, angry, scared or sick, and help them cope creatively with their illness through the power of play. Revealed at CES in Las Vegas, it could be on sale later this year.

A plush, robotic duck may soon become a fixture in the world of children with cancer. The social robot can be silly, happy, angry, scared or sick just like them, and help them cope with their illness through the power of play.

The robot duck is modeled after the mascot for the insurance company Aflac, which paid for its development and is branding the duck with its name. Aflac spokesman Jon Sullivan said the ducks -- plush on the outside with sophisticated robotics hidden beneath a washable cover -- will be given free to children diagnosed with cancer in the U.S. The duck is expected to be featured Monday at the CES gadget show in Las Vegas. Sullivan said the company intends to continue covering costs of the duck for kids, with no plans for hospitals or insurers to pay for them -- unlike Jerry the Bear, which can be purchased directly online.

Hoffman, an assistant professor at Cornell University who studies human-robot interaction, partnered with Google to develop the robot to watch YouTube clips alongside children with autism. These children often have trouble understanding how to react emotionally to social situations. Using machine learning, Hoffman and the team at Google are working on designing ways for Blossom to act during different videos to help autistic kids learn key social cues. The project is still in its infancy, and the team hasn't shared many details. But the idea is a touchstone in Hoffman's 14-year quest to build softer, gentler robots–ones we might even pass down to our children and grandchildren one day.

A new artificial intelligence-powered virtual assistant that helps people on the Autism spectrum organize their lives and stay employed will be available in iOS and Android app stores next month, according to Identifor CEO Cuong Do. Do was one of more than a dozen speakers at the Intelligent Assistants Conference, a two-day event held Sept. 12-13 at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco. Called Companion, the app includes a virtual assistant named Abby. Abby is designed to identify an individual's interests and needs and to support a person on the Autism spectrum throughout the day. The virtual assistant uses artificial intelligence to learn the routines of users and keep their work, school, and social life on track.

Robots could be used to help kids diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), according to a new research project carried out jointly by a university and a robotics startup. Researchers at Spain's Universidad Miguel Hernández and the Spanish Aisoy Robotics company are collaborating to investigate how the latter group's pint-size educational Aisoy robot can enhance the effectiveness of therapy sessions at the UMH University Clinic -- particularly related to developing children's emotional, social, and cognitive skills. As an example, the robot will express emotions a child can then identify, or suggest playing certain games. Over the course of their time together, the idea is that kids will build up emotional attachments with the robot, and the interaction will aid with therapeutic adherence. "We already have an Emotional OS, called Airos, which includes an emotional engine, a cognitive engine, and a decision engine," José Manuel del Río, Aisoy's CEO, told Digital Trends.