While this summer's Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics took place without being hit by major incidents such as a terrorist attack thanks to the unprecedented scale of security operations by police and the Games' organizing committee, an expert touted the use of cutting-edge technologies, including a facial recognition system, as well as public-private cooperation as a legacy from the events. The Tokyo Games organizing committee formed a joint venture of 553 security service companies from around Japan, with up to 14,000 personnel mobilized per day to guard the athletes village and competition venues. About 59,900 police officers were gathered from police departments from across the country, including those belonging to Tokyo's Metropolitan Police Department. A facial recognition system was used for the first time in Olympic and Paralympic history for personal identification of athletes and staff officials entering the athletes village, match venues and other places related to the Tokyo Games. More than 300 face recognition devices for the system, developed by Japanese electronics giant NEC Corp., were installed.

Japan plans to use facial recognition technology, originally intended for security purposes, to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus when it hosts the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics next year, government sources said Wednesday. The technology was initially intended to ensure security identification of personnel involved in the games and the media, and detect suspicious persons. But virus countermeasures have become an urgent concern for the government in its hope of staging a successful Olympics, which has already been delayed by a year due to the pandemic. According to the sources, one plan is to station security cameras equipped with the technology at stadiums and venues to record spectators' faces and body surface temperatures, and to see if they are wearing masks. The recorded data is expected to help prevent cluster infections in case an individual at a game is discovered to be infected later, by helping pinpoint possible virus carriers, tracing their routes and notifying those who were in close contact.

Railway operators in the Tokyo area are in the final stages of preparations for the Olympics and Paralympics this summer. East Japan Railway Co., or JR East, is scheduled to open a new station on its Yamanote Line for the first time in 49 years in March. Takanawa Gateway Station, located close to a public viewing event site for the Olympics, is expected to be used by many passengers during the quadrennial sports event. JR East touts Takanawa Gateway as a "future station" that showcases cutting-edge Japanese technologies such as an autonomous security robot and a convenience store without shop assistants. By the end of this month, all train cars for the Yamanote Line will have space available for wheelchair users.

TOKYO (Reuters) - Miniature remote controlled cars have proved to be a crowd pleaser at track and field throwing events, but for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics Toyota Motor Corp is upping the game with a hi-tech way to fetch javelins and hammers: pint-sized, self-driving A.I. robot cars. The Japanese automaker on Monday unveiled a prototype of its next-generation field support robot, a miniature shuttle bus-shaped contraption based on its "e-Palette" ride-sharing vehicle under development, to be used at the Tokyo Games. The vehicle, roughly the size of a toddler's ride-on toy car, can travel at a maximum speed of 20 kilometers per hour and sports three cameras and one lidar sensor which enable it to "see" its surroundings. Draped around the top of its body is a band of LED lights which illuminate when the vehicle uses artificial intelligence to follow event officials toward the equipment hurled by athletes onto the pitch during shot put, discus throw, hammer throw and javelin events. After the equipment, which can weigh as much as eight kilograms for hammers, is loaded into the vehicle by the official, a press of a button located toward its front sends the car zipping back to athletes for later use.

Miniature remote controlled cars have proved to be a crowd pleaser at track and field throwing events, but for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, Toyota Motor Corp. is upping the game with a hi-tech way to fetch javelins and hammers: pint-sized, self-driving AI robot cars. The automaker Monday unveiled a prototype of its next-generation field support robot, a miniature shuttle bus-shaped contraption based on its "e-Palette" ride-sharing vehicle under development, to be used at the Tokyo Games. The vehicle, roughly the size of a toddler's ride-on toy car, can travel at a maximum speed of 20 kilometers per hour and sports three cameras and one lidar sensor which enable it to "see" its surroundings. Draped around the top of its body is a band of LED lights that illuminate when the vehicle uses artificial intelligence to follow event officials toward the equipment hurled by athletes onto the pitch during shot put, discus throw, hammer throw and javelin events. After the equipment, which can weigh as much as eight kilograms for hammers, is loaded into the vehicle by the official, a press of a button located toward its front sends the car zipping back to athletes for later use.