Engineers at Tokyo-based company Seven Dreamers started developing a laundry-folding robot called Laundroid in 2005, and now, there is finally a robot to show off at CES 2018. We haven't seen it in person yet, but we spoke with Seven Dreamers CEO Shin Sakane for a preview. The idea is: You drop clean, dry clothes into a box in a pretty home appliance, and then several hours later you can collect the folded, sorted items. "Soft material like clothing is one of the hardest problems for AI even now," Sakane says. "Laundry folding seems like an easy task but it's actually very hard, so that's why no one has ever done it before."

Chief executives of highly innovative companies must figure out how to take bold risks while being stable enough to sustain an enterprise over the long term. Achieving this balance is even more difficult in Japan, where lifelong employment is a strong tradition, than elsewhere. Shin Sakane, founder and CEO of the Japanese startup Seven Dreamers Laboratories, has built the company's identity around resolving that conflict. Sakane is a member of a prominent Japanese business family, perhaps best known as the founders and owners of the I.S.T Corporation, a global producer of composite materials made from glass fiber and fluorine resin. After completing a Ph.D. in chemistry and biochemistry at the University of Delaware, he returned to Japan in 2000, joining I.S.T as a managing director. He succeeded his father as CEO in 2003. In 2008, I.S.T acquired Super Resin, a company making components for the aerospace, industrial, automotive, and semiconductor industries.

I was standing off to the side of the showroom at CES while engineers worked in hushed voices, fussing over a $16,000 artificial intelligence-powered laundry-folding machine. The machine wasn't giving back the T-shirt I put in, and for one brief, terrifying second, I really thought I broke it. I had brought my own Verge T-shirt to try out a prototype of Laundroid, and I had to coax Seven Dreamers CEO Shin Sakane into letting me drop my shirt in, instead of the demo shirts they had prepared. As he expected, it didn't work. After about 15 minutes, the Laundroid opened up to reveal nothing but an empty drawer.

When I heard that not one, but two laundry-folding robots would be on display at the CES tech show in Las Vegas, I initially ignored them. After all, I assumed they were vaporware. Foldimate, whose consumer-focused robot is expected to sell for $980, only had a mockup on display, and customers who order now won't get their robot until late 2019. And, although the $16,000 (!) Laundroid actually folded clothes on the show floor, the refrigerator-sized device was big enough that, theoretically, a human could've been inside doing all the work. It's not that robots will never be folding your laundry.

Today's vision of a smart home has more to do with what's technologically possible than what people really need. Thus the endless parade of internet-connected wine openers, water bottles, meat thermometers and refrigerators, and a dearth of automation that would clean and fold our laundry, pick up things around the house or assist aging people as their physical strength wanes. Not that some tinkerers aren't trying to come up with life-changing tools, often while trying to persuade consumers to share their routines and shopping habits to make all this work -- and potentially opening the doors to hacking or surveillance in their homes. The annual CES gadget show, which opened in Las Vegas on Tuesday, is a showcase of the latest innovations from big corporations and tiny startups. Some of these inventions could soon be useful to consumers. Others look outlandishly impractical -- or maybe it's too soon to tell.

I was standing off to the side of the showroom at CES, while engineers worked in hushed voices fussing over a $16,000 artificial-intelligence powered laundry-folding machine. The machine wasn't giving back the t-shirt I put in, and for one brief, terrifying second, I really thought I broke it. I had brought my own Verge T-shirt to try out a prototype of Laundroid, and I had to coax Shin Sakane, CEO Seven Dreamers, which makes the device, into letting me drop my shirt in instead of the demo shirts they had prepared. As he expected, it didn't work. After about 15 minutes, the Laundroid opened up to reveal nothing but an empty drawer.

Today's vision of a smart home has more to do with what's technologically possible than what people really need. Thus the endless parade of internet-connected wine openers, water bottles, meat thermometers and refrigerators, and a dearth of automation that would clean and fold our laundry, pick up things around the house or assist aging people as their physical strength wanes. Not that some tinkerers aren't trying to come up with life-changing tools. The annual CES gadget show, which opened in Las Vegas on Tuesday, is a showcase of the latest innovations from big corporations and tiny startups. Some of these inventions could soon be useful to consumers. Others look outlandishly impractical -- or maybe it's too soon to tell.

Folding laundry may be among the most abhorred household chores. But, the task could soon be a thing of the past – at least, for humans. At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, high-tech laundry robots are already beginning to make a buzz, including Seven Dreamers' Laundroid. The firm demonstrated what it claims is the'world's first fully automated laundry folding robot,' revealing it can even distinguish between different types of clothing to find the best folding style. At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, high-tech laundry robots are already beginning to make a buzz, including Seven Dreamers' Laundroid.

A Tokyo-based startup recognized for its laundry-folding robot has gained entry to an international competition for venture firms, and hopes to represent Japan as a country of innovation. Seven Dreamers Laboratories Inc. was chosen as Japan's entry for the Startup World Cup on Wednesday night in Tokyo, beating out nine other competitors in a business presentation contest. The Startup World Cup was launched last year by Silicon Valley-based Fenox Venture Capital with the aim of connecting more startups and investors worldwide. The final round in this year's competition will be held in San Francisco in May, and will feature 32 firms that have each won their regional preliminary rounds. The overall winner will receive a $1 million (about ¥113 million) investment.

The Japanese inventor received ¥6 billion ($53 million) from partners, including Panasonic Corp., last month to advance "the Laundroid" -- a robot Sakane is developing to not only wash and dry garments, but also sort, fold and neatly arrange them. The refrigerator-size device could eventually fill the roles of washing machine, dryer and clothes drawer in people's homes. Sakane, whose earlier inventions include an anti-snoring device and golf clubs made of space materials, said the funding will bring closer his dream of liberating humanity from laundry. Among his inspirations for the project is the 1968 Stanley Kubrick sci-fi film classic "2001: A Space Odyssey." Laundroid was designed to resemble the mysterious objects in the film that brought technology to prehistoric humans, and the project was originally code-named "Monolith."