JTB and two other Japanese companies said Wednesday that they will launch services employing drones to shoot videos from the sky of customers at tourist spots. The travel agency, drone business operator Fly and Japan Airlines expect their services to help spread the attractions of tourist spots. Drones will start video-recording after customers scan quick response codes prepared at tourist spots and complete payments via a website. Customers will receive one or two minutes of video footage edited automatically by artificial intelligence about 30 minutes after recording. The services will cost 2,000 per use.

This study examines whether positive news about firms increases their stock prices and, moreover, whether it increases stock prices of the firms' suppliers and customers, using a large sample of publicly listed firms across the world and another of Japanese listed firms. The level of positiveness of each news article is determined by FinBERT, a natural language processing model fine-tuned specifically for financial information. Supply chains of firms across the world are identified mostly by financial statements, while those of Japanese firms are taken from large-scale firm-level surveys. We find that positive news increases the change rate of stock prices of firms mentioned in the news before its disclosure, most likely because of diffusion of information through informal channels. Positive news also raises stock prices of the firms' suppliers and customers before its disclosure, confirming propagation of market values through supply chains. In addition, we generally find a larger post-news effect on stock prices of the mentioned firms and their suppliers and customers than the pre-news effect. The positive difference between the post- and pre-news effects can be considered as the net effect of the disclosure of positive news, controlling for informal information diffusion. However, the post-news effect on suppliers and customers in Japan is smaller than the pre-news effect, a result opposite to those from firms across the world. This notable result is possibly because supply chain links of Japanese firms are stronger than global supply chains while such knowledge is restricted to selected investors.

With generative artificial intelligence rapidly gaining traction around the world, Japanese firms ranging from SoftBank to Hitachi are developing or incorporating the technology into their businesses. At the same time, the government is working toward crafting a national AI strategy. Following the public debut of Microsoft-backed OpenAI's ChatGPT last November, global tech giants such as California-based Google and China's Baidu have rolled out their own AI-powered chatbots, but Japanese firms have been conspicuous in their absence. Still, the nation's companies are beginning to make their presence felt, with SoftBank's mobile unit declaring earlier this month that it will develop a Japanese equivalent of ChatGPT. This could be due to a conflict with your ad-blocking or security software.

SoftBank Group Corp. said Wednesday its group net profit in the April-June period jumped more than threefold to a record ¥1.12 trillion ($10.6 billion) from a year earlier -- marking the best quarter for a Japanese firm since 2004 -- boosted by a special profit from selling part of its stake in Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. SoftBank Group said its operating profit fell 3.7 percent to ¥688.82 billion in the three months that ended June 30 on sales of ¥2.34 trillion, up 2.8 percent on a consolidated basis. The company logged the largest group net profit on a quarterly basis among 400 major firms listed on bourses operated by Japan Exchange Group Inc. since Nomura Holdings Inc. started compiling such data in 2004. The investment giant said it booked a one-time gain of ¥1.22 trillion in the quarterly period following the completion of the partial sale of the stake in Alibaba. The company's profit was also boosted by gains from investments in technology startups made by its Vision Fund, through which SoftBank made investments in 81 companies as of the end of June. "It is remarkable for us to mark a (group net) profit of more than ¥1 trillion in a quarter for the first time," said Chairman and CEO Masayoshi Son at a news conference in Tokyo.

In hopes of luring skilled workers both at home and form abroad with a chance to reside in Japan's ancient capital of Kyoto, Line Corp., a popular messaging app service, opened a new development base in the heart of the city in June. The firm plans to raise the number of engineers to 3,000, from around 2,100, in the near future. At present, the Kyoto office has 19 engineers of which 10 are from overseas. While more tech staffers are needed, "we won't lower our hiring bar," said Ryohei Miyota, who oversees the hiring of engineers at Line's Kyoto branch. Still, Line has shown it is willing to be flexible with other conditions.

Results from Fanuc Corp. and Komatsu were a mixed bag Monday. Factory-automation giant Fanuc reported an 8.4 percent drop in fiscal first-half operating income and saw its shares rise, while construction-equipment-maker Komatsu posted an 80 percent profit surge that was rewarded with a stock decline. Put that perplexing share reaction down to the topsy-turvy world of machinery-makers, where investors tend to view dismal earnings as a sign that a company is nearing the bottom, and good results as a warning that it's close to the top. The overall picture, though, is that concerns sparked by U.S. bellwether Caterpillar Inc. last week of late-cycle cost pressures and a deteriorating China outlook have been overdone, at least as far as the Japanese firms are concerned. China's faltering economy has been a key focus. Fanuc's sales in the country, already shrinking, fell a further 42 percent in the quarter through Sept. 30, compared with the previous three months.

NEW DELHI – Japanese companies are looking to tap India's medical market with funding and technological solutions to make health care more accessible in the world's second-most populous country. Japan-based venture capital firms like Spiral Ventures and India Japan Partnership Fund LLP are either funding local health tech startups or exploring new investment opportunities in the health care sector, and electronics giant Panasonic Corp. is offering solutions to improve rural health care. India has a huge health care gap between rich and poor and mismatches between doctors and patients. The situation is made worse by low government spending on health care at 1.3 percent of gross domestic product, the lowest among the BRICS grouping of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. Spiral Ventures has invested in four health tech startups that offer digital solutions for the local market and is scouting for more such startups in which to invest, according to a top company official.

Changing the channel on your television with only a spoken command will soon be possible for the owners of a new range of Toshiba televisions. Starting in 2019, the Japanese firm's OLED, 4K HDR, and Full HD Smart TV products will boast access to Amazon's Alexa voice assistant. Viewers will be able to request channel changes, volume increases and decreases and more by starting their spoken command with'Alexa'. This signals to the always-listening voice assistant that you are about to issue an instruction, which is recorded and parsed in the cloud by Amazon. Toshiba sets will have access to all 45,000 skills already available for Alexa, allowing television viewers to control smart lightbulbs, buy items from Amazon, order takeaways, and check the latest news and weather updates.

OYAMA, JAPAN (THE YOMIURI SHIMBUN/ASIA NEWS NETWORK) - An information technology company is developing a drone-based "flying umbrella" that users do not have to hold. Essentially a small unmanned aircraft, the umbrella utilises artificial intelligence to hover above users as they walk. The technology is the work of Asahi Power Service, a company based in Oyama, Tochigi Prefecture, that develops telecommunication systems, among other services. The company is currently working on upgrades to a prototype while conducting indoor test flights, with the aim of putting the product into practical use as early as the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics. Company President Kenji Suzuki, 40, proposed the project three years ago after thinking it was "bothersome to open an umbrella when your hands are full".

Pedestrians walk along a sidewalk in Tokyo. Japan is responding to a government campaign to get the country's chronically overworked populace to leave the office by 3 p.m. on the last Friday of every month and go spend some cash. They call it Premium Friday. Japanese companies have long been known for their widespread practice of overtime, with employees toiling late into the night after the official end of the business day. Japanese drone startup Blue Innovation has offered a technological solution, a special drone called T-Frend designed to reduce overtime by flying around the office after hours, playing loud music and taking pictures of any staff who are still working and reporting them to management.