In March, Japan's largest auto parts maker, Denso Corp., was facing the urgent task of how to secure enough face masks for its workers given the mass shortage that was occurring amid the spread of COVID-19 infections. While the company, located in Kariya, Aichi Prefecture, had sufficient stocks of masks back then, executives were getting worried that if the company ran short, its production might be affected, since each factory worker needs five masks a day. At an executive meeting March 2, all eyes turned to Yasuhiko Yamazaki, 56, senior executive officer in charge of production, when he said, "How about making them ourselves?" After returning home, Yamazaki cut a mask he had with a pair of scissors, looked at its three-layered structure with nonwoven material used as a middle layer, and felt certain it could be made by Denso. The following day, he gathered seven to eight employees who were well-versed in auto parts production technology and were engaged in the designing and manufacturing of machinery and equipment.

As Japan's second female astronaut to fly up in the Space Shuttle Discovery, Naoko Yamazaki didn't expect to spend a quarter of her time dusting, feeding mice and doing other menial jobs. It can cost more than $430 million a year to keep an astronaut in orbit, according to three-year-old startup called Gitai Inc. It's only possible to keep humans alive in outer space because of the money and effort poured into ensuring their safety. One way to bring down the cost and risks is to send an avatar -- a remotely controlled robot. "There's a need for robots that can help us," Yamazaki, 49, said.

High concentration agricultural facilities such as vertical farms or plant factories considers hydroponic techniques as optimal solutions. Although closed-system dramatically reduces water consumption and pollution issues, it has ion-ratio related problem. As the root absorbs individual ions with different rate, ion rate in a nutrient solution should be adjusted periodically. But traditional method only considers pH and electrical conductivity to adjust the nutrient solution. So ion imbalance and accumulation of excessive salts. To avoid those problems, some researchers have proposed ion-balancing methods which measure and control each ion concentration. However, those approaches do not overcome the innate limitations of ISEs, especially ion interference effect. An anion sensor is affected by other anions, and the error grows larger in higher concentration solution. A machine learning approach to modify ISE data distorted by ion interference effect is proposed in this paper. As measurement of TDS value is relatively robust than any other signals, we applied TDS as key parameter to build a readjustment function to remove the artifact. Once a readjustment model is established, application on ISE data can be done in real time. Readjusted data with proposed model showed about 91.6~98.3% accuracies. This method will enable the fields to apply recent methods in feasible status.

CHIBA - With the market for business-use unmanned aircraft looking promising in coming years, a large-scale drone expo that kicked off Wednesday showed more companies are eager to get involved with the trend. Companies ranging from the small to the powerful are showing off their business solutions using drones at Japan Drone, an annual exhibition at Makuhari Messe in Chiba that features more than 200 firms and runs until Friday. Telecom giant KDDI Corp. is showcasing its "smart" drone platform connected to KDDI's mobile communication networks across the country, which allows a drone to navigate a wider swath of territory via remote control. "One merit of using our service is that drones can be remote controlled through our communication networks anywhere in Japan, unlike most drones exhibited at this event, which tap Wi-Fi networks with limited coverage," said So Yamazaki, a KDDI official. KDDI will launch the service to corporate customers in June and lists surveillance, inspection, land survey and analysis as the envisioned applications.

The year 2019 marks 50 years since the first humans landed on the moon in 1969 as part of NASA's Apollo 11 lunar mission. In an interview with Managing Editor Sayuri Daimon, former Japanese astronaut Naoko Yamazaki shares her experience in space in 2010 and her views on space development in the coming years. Former astronaut Naoko Yamazaki hopes to open Asia's first spaceport, which will serve as a hub for space planes for travelers, in Japan as early as 2021. She believes that a new age of space tourism where ordinary people, not only astronauts, will be able to travel beyond Earth is just around the corner. In July, she co-founded the Space Port Japan Association, an organization to support efforts to open spaceports in Japan through collaboration with companies, groups and government institutions.

But, technical challenges pop up. Yamazaki decided to use Clara specifically because it's an assistant that combines machine learning and human expertise. When the A.I. assistant can't decipher tricky language in an email, she automatically sends the email over to a human staffer. Clara has been known to make mistakes, such as accidentally scheduling meetings over the weekend, causing clients to email the bot directly and advising her not to work so hard or to enjoy the weekend. Yamazaki says that A.I. is far from perfect and is wary about it.

In a cramped and dark venue in a sleazy Tokyo district, dozens of middle-aged men cheer at a performer on stage: The object of their adoration is a 6-year-old girl. Decked out in makeup with ribbons in her hair, Ai is dressed like an adult but still looks very much a child. Even though Ai is so young, she is technically considered an "idol" singer. More typically, idols are in their teens. The idol phenomenon is common in Japan, where rights groups have complained that society's sometimes permissive view of the sexualization of young girls puts minors at risk.

As part of an ongoing series about artificial intelligence, the Asahi Shimbun on Jan. 11 published a story that asserts the financial industry has adopted AI more readily than any other. Because finance is a data-driven endeavor, designing AI software to do things such as read and analyze reams of economic information and project future investment performance is progressing rapidly. Moreover, voice recognition is becoming so advanced that standing clients and potential customers will no longer have to talk to humans about their financial needs. Even if a person is going to make the final decision about a transaction, most of the work has already been done. This development, however, may also hasten the end of banks.

But I would argue that those UX traits aren't disappearing; they've become requirements rather than perks. Saying that a product is "intuitive" shouldn't be necessary because that should be a given property of its functionality. If a user can't intuitively utilize a particular function, it becomes irrelevant. The merger of UX and functionality poses a tough problem for developers, especially those working on global consumer apps like Uber. Those developers have to cater to the needs of a group of users wildly diverse not only in age and ethnicity, but in terms of the languages they speak, the values they hold and the devices they use.