German drone maker Helsing has enlisted Japanese e-commerce and finance firm Rakuten to help finalize a deal to sell its unmanned systems to Japan's army, a spokesperson for Rakuten said on Monday. Japan's Ground Self-Defense Force is currently testing Helsing's HX-2 strike drone, as Tokyo looks to modernize its military and counter an increasingly assertive China. The field tests will run until the end of September, the spokesperson said. Helsing struck an "initial agreement" for the Japanese government to use its systems earlier this year, a spokesperson for the Munich-based company said, adding that the move was made possible by an unnamed "local brokerage partner." Japan's Ground Self-Defense Force did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Rakuten Group is working with defense AI startup Helsing to bring the German company's military drones to Japan. The Tokyo-based online shopping mall operator served as the point of contact between Helsing and the Japanese government, according to a Rakuten spokesperson. The country's Ground Self-Defense Force will conduct field tests of Helsing drones through the end of September, he said, without providing further details. The tie-up, which would be one of Helsing's first partnerships in the Asia-Pacific region, was first reported by the Nikkei. Japan, which for decades restricted arms exports, has been stepping up defense spending, and the country's companies have followed suit. E-commerce pioneer Rakuten has shifted some of its focus to the sector: It's partnered with a Ukrainian government agency to develop defense technologies, while subsidiary Rakuten Mobile has taken part in joint U.S.-Japan military trials of mobile technologies.

Massive Attack remove music from Spotify to protest against CEO Daniel Ek's investment in AI military The band cited a'moral and ethical burden' placed on artists by revenue from their work ultimately funding lethal technologies Massive Attack have become the latest act - and first major-label one - to pull their catalogue from Spotify in protest at founder Daniel Ek investing €600m (£520m) in the military AI company Helsing. In June, Ek's venture capital firm Prima Materia led the defence tech firm's latest funding round. Helsing's software uses AI technology to analyse sensor and weapons system data from battlefields to inform real-time military decisions. It also makes its own military drone, the HX-2. Ek is also chairman of Helsing.

On the screen in front of me is a mountain range. Moving toward my troops from the top-right corner is an ominous yellow dot. I suspect it's an enemy drone, but it could be a bird or a civilian aircraft, so I ask my long-range camera to home in on it. Within seconds, it returns a snapshot of a wide-winged military drone. The incoming dot turns from yellow to red, signifying a threat.

With his 2,141 SoundCloud followers, veteran U.K. psychedelic-music producer Darren Sangita didn't exactly wound Spotify when he pulled his music from the streaming service last month. "I'm a zed-list music celebrity," he says. But he couldn't support a company whose founder, Daniel Ek, invested more than $114 million in Helsing, a European security startup that manufactures artificial-intelligence software to "keep liberal democracies from harm." "The circumstantial evidence points to a massive investment in military/AI tech," says Sangita, who runs indie label Sangita Sounds. "I was just enormously disappointed. Are there not any other alternatives that Mr. Ek could have possibly thought about investing in to make the world a more beautiful and perhaps a safer place to live?"