Activist fund Palliser Capital has taken a stake in Japanese washlet maker Toto, and is urging the company to boost promotion of its little-known chip parts business. Activist fund Palliser Capital has taken a stake in Japanese washlet maker Toto and is pushing the firm to ramp up promotion of its little-known chip parts business in a bid to unlock value from the artificial intelligence boom. The U.K.-based fund sent a letter to Toto's board last week calling for more disclosure about its advanced ceramics segment. The segment produces electrostatic chucks used in the manufacturing of NAND memory chips, and Palliser views the toilet maker as "the most undervalued and overlooked AI memory beneficiary," the documents show. A representative for Toto declined to comment. Insatiable demand for AI infrastructure has sent memory prices skyrocketing in recent months, boosting shares of chipmakers such as Kioxia Holdings to record highs.

University of Tokyo professor recommended for U.N. panel on AI Yutaka Matsuo, professor of the University of Tokyo's graduate school of engineering, has been named among 40 experts to sit on a U.N. panel on AI. | JIJI NEW YORK - Yutaka Matsuo, professor of the University of Tokyo's graduate school of engineering, has been named among the 40 experts who have been recommended by the United Nations' head to sit on the new Independent International Scientific Panel on Artificial Intelligence. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres announced on Wednesday the list of the 40 experts recommended for the panel set up under a General Assembly resolution that passed last August. The selection is expected to be approved by the General Assembly soon. Guterres said the panel would be the first global, fully independent scientific body dedicated to helping close the AI knowledge gap and assess the real impacts of AI across economies and societies. At a time of deep geopolitical tension and growing technological rivalry, we urgently need common ground, he said. That is what this panel can help deliver.

BERLIN - German technology firm DeepL, known for its artificial intelligence-powered translation software, plans to release a Japanese-language version of its real-time interpretation software by the end of this year, a senior company official has said. The age of machine interpretation has arrived, said Leonardo Doin, head of engineering and research for real-time voice translation service DeepL Voice, in a recent interview. You can just wear an earpiece and ... you can just hear it (foreign-language speech) in your language anytime, Doin said. The interpretation software will integrate DeepL's speech recognition and machine translation technologies, and speech synthesis technology that mimics the tones of the speakers' voices. It will be able to handle multiple languages and speakers, he said, with the software's use in online meetings of multinational companies in mind. DeepL plans to roll out the software on smartphones as well.

Police have arrested a 27-year-old male host on suspicion of violating the amusement business law by using a dating app to solicit female customers to a host club in Tokyo. The arrest marked the first crackdown in the country on cases involving soliciting customers to restaurants and pubs through dating apps, according to the capital's Metropolitan Police Department. The suspect, Takuto Takeoka, remained silent during questioning, people familiar with the investigation said. Takeoka allegedly contacted two women, ages 27 and 28, through a matching app between May and July last year while posing as an information technology industry professional. He then promised them romantic relationships, later disclosed his job and urged them to come to his host club, where male companions entertain women, in the Kabukicho district in Tokyo's Shinjuku Ward.

A Mos Food Services employee places an order via a microphone at an artificial intelligence drive-thru facility, which was unveiled to members of the media in Yoshikawa City, Saitama Prefecture, on Wednesday. The Japanese hamburger chain aims to improve store management efficiency by automating part of customer interaction with conversational AI amid a serious labor shortage. The company plans to introduce the new AI system at multiple outlets in fiscal 2026, which begins in April. In a media demonstration held at a store in the city of Yoshikawa, Saitama Prefecture, a Mos Food employee acting as a customer spoke into a microphone to place a drive-thru order. The AI system took the order after making suggestions such as, We recommend a limited-time avocado burger. Once the system is introduced, store employees will prepare food based on customer orders transmitted from the AI system.

Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings (Tepco) said Saturday that an alert system did not work during a test operation held the day prior as part of the restart of the No. 6 reactor at its Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant in Niigata Prefecture. The company is working to identify the cause of the problem, but failure to resolve it soon may affect its plan to restart the reactor on Tuesday. According to Tepco, the problem was confirmed at 12:36 p.m., and it stopped the test operation. The alert system is designed to activate when a control rod is being pulled out of the reactor while another rod is already out. The Kashiwazaki-Kariwa reactor would be the first of Tepco's nuclear reactors to be restarted since the March 2011 accident at its tsunami-crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant.

Japanese internal affairs minister Yoshimasa Hayashi (center) poses for a photo with ministers from ASEAN member states in Hanoi on Thursday. HANOI - Japan and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations have agreed to work together on developing new artificial intelligence models and preparing related laws. The AI-sector cooperation was included in a joint statement adopted at a meeting of digital ministers from Japan and ASEAN member states in Hanoi on Thursday. The statement was proposed by Japanese communications minister Yoshimasa Hayashi, who attended the meeting. Japan and ASEAN aim to join hands at a time when the United States and China are boosting their presence in the AI sector.

Malaysia's tech regulator said on Sunday that the country suspended access to Elon Musk's chatbot Grok over AI-generated pornographic content. AFP-JIJI - Malaysia suspended access to Elon Musk's chatbot Grok over AI-generated pornographic content, the country's tech regulator said on Sunday. The decision follows global backlash after it emerged that Grok's image creation feature allowed users to sexualize pictures of women and children using simple text prompts. On Saturday Indonesia became the first country to deny all access to the tool, which has been restricted to paying subscribers elsewhere. The Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission said in a statement it had directed a temporary restriction on access to the Grok artificial intelligence for users in Malaysia with immediate effect. This action follows repeated misuse of Grok to generate obscene, sexually explicit, indecent, grossly offensive and non-consensual manipulated images, the regulator said.

North Korea's Kim Yo Jong urges South Korea to investigate drone incidents Kim Yo Jong, sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, arrives at the Vostochny Сosmodrome before a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un, in Russia's far eastern Amur region in September 2023. Seoul - North Korea's Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of leader Kim Jong Un, urged South Korea to investigate recent drone incidents for detailed explanations, in a statement carried by state media Sunday. Kim said she personally appreciates Seoul for making a wise decision to announce its official stance that it has no intention of provocation, warning that any provocations will result in terrible situations, the official Korean Central News Agency said. Drones were flown from South Korea into North Korea earlier this month, after another intrusion in September, North Korea's military said on Saturday, which was soon followed by South Korea's response that they were not operated by the military. South Korea also said there would be a thorough investigation of a civilian possibly having operated the drones, making clear its stance of having no intention of provocation. Clear is just the fact that the drone from the ROK violated the airspace of our country, Kim said.

Having made colossal profits as well as losses on previous investments, founder Masayoshi Son has pivoted SoftBank toward artificial intelligence. Japanese tech investor SoftBank said Wednesday that its stake in OpenAI is now around 11% after completing the second stage of a $41-billion investment in the maker of ChatGPT. Having made colossal profits as well as losses on previous investments, flamboyant founder Masayoshi Son has pivoted SoftBank toward artificial intelligence. SoftBank had announced in April its planned investment of up to $40 billion in Open AI, and on Wednesday it said that the second tranche of $22.5 billion was completed. The final investment reached $41 billion and includes $30 billion from SoftBank's Vision Fund plus $11 billion from other third-party co-investors, it said.