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Domain: the-japan-news.com
Stories and comments across the archive that link to the-japan-news.com.
Stories · 4
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Automated Warehouse In Tokyo Managed To Replace 90 Percent of Its Staff With Robots (qz.com)
Japanese retailer Uniqlo in Tokyo's Ariake district has managed to cut 90% of its staff and replace them with robots that are capable of inspecting and sorting the clothing housed there. The automation also allows them to operate 24 hours a day. Quartz reports: The company recently remodeled the existing warehouse with an automated system created in partnership with Daifuku, a provider of material handling systems. Now that the system is running, the company revealed during a walkthrough of the new facility, Uniqlo has been able to cut staff at the warehouse by 90%. The Japan News described how the automation works: "The robotic system is designed to transfer products delivered to the warehouse by truck, read electronic tags attached to the products and confirm their stock numbers and other information. When shipping, the system wraps products placed on a conveyor belt in cardboard and attaches labels to them. Only a small portion of work at the warehouse needs to be done by employees, the company said."
The Tokyo warehouse is just a first step in a larger plan for Uniqlo's parent company, Fast Retailing. It has announced a strategic partnership with Daifuku with the goal of automating all Fast Retailing's brand warehouses in Japan and overseas. Uniqlo plans to invest 100 billion yen (about $887 million) in the project over an unspecified timeframe. (The Japan News reported that it costs about 1 billion to 10 billion yen to automate an existing warehouse.) Uniqlo believes the system will help it minimize storage costs and, importantly, deliver products faster around the world. The company has set a target of 3 trillion yen (about $26.6 billion) in annual revenue. Last year its revenue was about 1.86 trillion yen (pdf). -
G-7 Leaders At Hiroshima To Urge More Visits to Nuclear Bombsites (voanews.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Sunday leaders from the G-7 countries gathered in Hiroshima Sunday, a gesture which the Japanese government hopes will send a message of peace and nuclear nonproliferation. The seven world leaders will first honor the dead at Hiroshima Peace Park and visit an atomic bomb museum, which the Associated Press calls "a dream come true for many surviving victims, who have for decades campaigned to bring leaders of nuclear states to Hiroshima to see the damage." In addition, Japan hopes that the world leaders will also issue a "Hiroshima Declaration," which reportedly will call for more transparency about stockpiles of nuclear weapons, but also more visits to Hiroshima and Nagasaki by both world leaders and young people. -
Japan To Begin Testing Fingerprints As 'Currency' (the-japan-news.com)
schwit1 quotes a report from The Japan News: Starting this summer, the government will test a system in which foreign tourists will be able to verify their identities and buy things at stores using only their fingerprints. The government hopes to increase the number of foreign tourists by using the system to prevent crime and relieve users from the necessity of carrying cash or credit cards. It aims to realize the system by the 2020 Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games. The experiment will have inbound tourists register their fingerprints and other data, such as credit card information, at airports and elsewhere. Tourists would then be able to conduct tax exemption procedures and make purchases after verifying their identities by placing two fingers on special devices installed at stores. The Inns and Hotels Law requires foreign tourists to show their passports when they check into ryokan inns or hotels. The government plans to substitute fingerprint authentication for that requirement. -
Japanese AI Program Wrote a Short Novel, Almost Won a Literary Prize (digitaltrends.com)
An anonymous reader cites a Digital Trends article: A Japanese AI program has co-authored a short-form novel that passed the first round of screening for a national literary prize. The robot-written novel didn't win the competition's final prize, but who's to say it won't improve in its next attempt? The novel is actually called The Day A Computer Writes A Novel, or "Konpyuta ga shosetsu wo kaku hi" in Japanese. The meta-narrative wasn't enough to win first prize at the third Nikkei Hoshi Shinichi Literary Award ceremony, but it did come close. Officially, the novel was written by a very human team that led the AI program's development. Hitoshi Matsubara and his team at Future University Hakodate in Japan selected words and sentences, and set parameters for construction before letting the AI "write" the novel autonomously.