Web3 is a new iteration of the web driven by blockchain technology. It has the potential to form a new digital economy with a greater social impact than conventional economies, providing clearly defined benefits and secure environments for success. NTT DOCOMO will bring its expertise in telecommunications networks and digital services, as well as its experience working on society-wide issues. Accenture will help build an operational foundation for the initiatives with a view to future global expansion, leveraging the knowledge gained through its work on regional development efforts, including that with Aizu Wakamatsu City in Fukushima. Web3 is already being used in Japan to provide valuable solutions for society.

Otter.ai to Bring AI-Powered Meeting Note Collaboration Service to Japan in partnership with NTT DOCOMO Partnership includes Investment and Customer Trials of Otter's Real-Time Transcription Los Altos, CA, January 23, 2020 –Otter.ai DOCOMO made a strategic investment in Otter through its wholly-owned subsidiary NTT DOCOMO Ventures, Inc. and announced plans for its AI-based translation service subsidiary to integrate Otter's meeting note collaboration into its offering to provide highly accurate English transcripts translated into Japanese. As a part of Otter's customer engagement with DOCOMO the Otter Voice Meeting Notes application is being used on a trial basis in Berlitz Corporation's English language classes in Japan. Students use Otter to transcribe and review the content of lessons, click on sections of text, and initiate voice playback. DOCOMO, Otter.ai and Berlitz are expanding their collaboration in language education to verify Otter's effectiveness in the study of English DOCOMO is featuring Otter during demonstrations at the DOCOMO Open House 2020, taking place in the Tokyo Big Sight exhibition complex January 23 and 24, 2020.

Artificial emotional intelligence, or "emotion AI," is emerging as a key component of the broader AI movement. The general idea is this: It's all very well having machines that can understand and respond to natural-language questions, and even beat humans at games, but until they can decipher non-verbal cues such as vocal intonations, body language, and facial expressions, humans will always have the upper hand in understanding other humans. And it's against that backdrop that countless companies are working toward improving computer vision and voice analysis techniques, to help machines detect the intricate and finely balanced emotions of a flesh-and-bones homo sapiens. One of those companies is Realeyes, a company that helps big brands such as AT&T, Mars, Hershey's, and Coca-Cola gauge human emotions through desktop computers' and mobile devices' cameras. The London-based startup, which was founded in 2007, today announced a fresh $12.4 million round of funding from Draper Esprit, the VC arm of Japanese telecom giant NTT Docomo, Japanese VC fund Global Brain, Karma Ventures, and The Entrepreneurs Fund.

In my last article, I covered how 5G with Cloud technologies will transform computing by shifting the computing power from the device to the Cloud through edge computing, making high-end experiences, such as high-quality wireless VR, accessible to more people at lower cost, without the need for constant upgrades and with a lighter form factor. This transformation is pervasive, as the enhanced mobile broadband represented by 5G enables high bandwidth and low latency across all devices and sensors. The miniaturization of 5G chipsets and their integration in UHD video and depth cameras makes those truly mobile. As 5G networks are rolled out either through Fixed Wireless Access (WTTx) and mobile networks, mobile video capture, broadcasting, and consumption are made possible. WTTx has considerable impact on very high resolution capture thanks to a larger data bandwidth pipe, making not just multicast possible, but 3D capture also a reality.

One taxi driver said he had noticed a 20 percent rise in passenger traffic since using the AI prediction system. In downtown Tokyo, just like in most major cities, taxi drivers make an educated guess as to where they might find their next paying passenger. Years of experience have honed their prediction skills to pinpoint customers depending on location, the time of day and weather. But even with this knowledge, tracking down passengers is still a hit and miss science with many drivers saying they can cruise around for up to two hours without finding a fare. Japan's biggest mobile phone operator, NTT Docomo, wants to change all that.

An app offering real-time translations is to allow people in Japan to speak to foreigners over the phone with both parties using their native tongue. NTT Docomo - the country's biggest mobile network - will initially convert Japanese to English, Mandarin and Korean, with other languages to follow. It is the latest in a series of telephone conversation translators to launch in recent months. Alcatel-Lucent and Microsoft are among those working on other solutions. The products have the potential to let companies avoid having to use specially trained multilingual staff, helping them cut costs. They could also aid tourism.

Language barriers are starting to crumble. This month Japan's dominant mobile phone operator, NTT DoCoMo, introduced the world's first app for real-time voice translation. When a user with a DoCoMo smartphone places a call through the app, he speaks in Japanese and his words are promptly translated into English, Mandarin, or Korean. To complete the conversational circuit, the other person's words are translated from any of those languages back into Japanese. With this debut we've taken one step closer to building a mechanical Babel fish, the extraordinarily useful creature imagined by Douglas Adams in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

If you've ever been struggling with a foreign language dictionary abroad, wishing that you could simply speak into a machine and have your chat translated for you, NTT (News - Alert) Docomo may be ready to make your wish come true. The company, which is Japan's number one cell phone carrier is about to begin offering a new real-time speech-to-speech translation service that you can use both in person and over the phone during a call, according to Geek.com According to Japanese news services, the solution is the first automated chat translation service in the world that is available on a standard cell phone. The new product combines several cutting-edge technologies: advanced speech recognition, machine translation and text-to-speech conversion of the translated results, says Geek.com. The services to power the solution will be cloud-based, says NTT Docomo.