Countless flowing green wigs risked spontaneous combustion on a 36-degree Melbourne evening as thousands of J-pop fans queued outside John Cain Arena on Friday night. But the heat was irrelevant to the night's headline pop attraction, Hatsune Miku. Miku, as she's known to fans, is a 157cm-tall avatar of a teenage girl with green pigtails. She represents a digital bank of vocal samples created by the ominous-sounding Crypton Future Media using Yamaha's Vocaloid voice synthesiser technology. Users input lyrics and melodies which are "sung" by the bank's sampled voice (Hatsune Miku is voiced by the actor Saki Fujita); some Vocaloid producers "tune" the software to be especially convincing, while others embrace its artificiality.

Like many people juggling long hours at work, Chiharu Shimoda sought companionship via a dating app. For two months, he exchanged messages with five or six potential partners, but it wasn't long before he was seeking out just one -- a 24-year-old named Miku. Three months later, they got married. The catch: Miku is an AI bot. And Shimoda knew that from day one.

When looking into the world of content creation we find ourselves drawn toward the personality and relatability of those we watch. We follow these people through good times and bad because of that human connection we share. Unbeknownst to some though, there is a wide variety of AI posing as people to do jobs like reporting the news. One of these jobs is content creation with robots starting to become more prevalent in many spaces online taking over many communities once occupied solely by humans. This is not an overnight phenomenon either, it has been a gradual rise in popularity as the technology has become more accessible for companies to implement.

In almost every way, Akihiko Kondo is an ordinary Japanese man. He's pleasant and easy to talk to. He has friends and a steady job and wears a suit and tie to work. There's just one exception: Kondo is married to a fictional character. His beloved, Hatsune Miku, is a turquoise-haired, computer-synthesized pop singer who has toured with Lady Gaga and starred in video games.

This was the year we all began social distancing. But the ensuing isolation was already the norm for a rapidly growing population – and a major opportunity for many businesses. And as isolation has engulfed the globe like the virus itself, the business of loneliness is booming. Even before the pandemic, loneliness had been deemed an official epidemic in several countries. Rates of loneliness in the US have doubled over the past 50 years.

We've come a long way from baby monitors that just let you listen in on your child's coos and cries. The Miku Smart Baby Monitor is great example of how cutting-edge video technology and artificial intelligence are being used together to give parents more information about their sleeping bundles of joy. In addition to now-standard capabilities such as sound and movement (and non-movement) detection, the Miku tracks your child's breathing patterns and aggregates all this data in digestible sleep analysis reports. Though some hiccups I encountered during testing suggest there's still some room for improvement, the Miku has the all the makings of a great baby monitor. The Miku is attractive, with a white matte finish and silver trim.

Relying on its self-developed full-stack end-to-end AI technology, Xmov has opened the process of intelligent characterization from intelligent modeling to AI performance animation technology which drives facial expressions, eyes, body and finger movements, and generating short videos or real-time broadcasts to realize interaction and commercialization of virtual intelligent property (IP). Ling's team will generate content around such characteristics as the national essence of Peking Opera and the combination of classic and modern fashion on social platforms like Weibo, Instagram, and TikTok, Xmov said in a statement. With commercial programming, the 3D virtual figure will engage in business endorsements, live broadcasts, and participate in online and offline activities. CEO and Xmov founder Chai Jinxiang said virtual IP value will be released at the maximum level via livestreaming and short videos. The emerging virtual idol sector, backed by China's younger generation, has been on the fast development track in recent years, with more domestic internet firms increasing investment in this nascent sector.

Technology develops differently in Japan. While US tech giants have been grabbing artificial intelligence headlines, a business AI sector has been quietly maturing in Japan, and it is now making inroads into America. Today we sit down again with Miku Hirano, CEO of Cinnamon, and we talk about how exactly this happened. Interestingly, Cinnamon did not start out as an AI company. In fact, when Miku first came on the show, the company had just launched an innovative video-sharing service. Today, we talk about what lead to the pivot to AI and why even a great idea and a great team is no guarantee of success. We also talk about some of the changing attitudes towards startups and women in Japan, the kinds of business practices AI will never change, and Miku give some practical advice for startups going into foreign markets. It's a great discussion, and I think you will really enjoy it. Welcome to Disrupting Japan, straight talk from Japan's most successful entrepreneurs. Today, we're going to sit down and talk about artificial intelligence with Miku Hirano of Cinnamon. Now, Cinnamon is actually a great example of a successful Japanese startup pivot. When we first sat down with Miku four years ago, she had an innovative micro-video sharing company called Tuya and really, you should go back and listen to that episode. I've put a link on the show notes and it was really a good one.

Global management firm Boston Consulting Group has just employed a'digital human' as an advisor to its internal teams. 'Miku' the digital employee under training, however, had her first public interaction on stage. This was at the recent IBM THINK in Sydney, where BCG managing director Miguel Carrasco showed how Miku is working with BCG's PTO (Predictability, Teaming and Openness) facilitators. "I help the PTO coaches to support teams by giving advice on work-life balance issues and sharing our top tips on project management," explains Miku. She then asks Carrasco, "Speaking of which, have you had a busy week? I can set up a few reminders on your calendar to prioritise some downtime."

LAS VEGAS - Every year, the CES gadget show brings more devices promising to make life a little bit easier for harried parents. Sure, the kids might love them too: Who wouldn't want a computerized Harry Potter wand that also teaches coding? The Las Vegas show's growing "family tech" sector encompasses products that range from artificially intelligent toys and baby monitors to internet-connected breast pumps. Their common thread is an appeal to parental anxiety about raising smart kids, occupying their time, tracking their whereabouts and making sure they're healthy and safe. Some also come with subtle trade-offs.