Transcript

Hello and welcome to today’s news from TotemoTech on May 17th, 2023.

First up, Boldly, a subsidiary of SoftBank, is set to introduce Estonia-made MiCa self-driving shuttle buses in Japan, with the town of Sakai in Ibaraki Prefecture having already signed a memorandum of understanding to purchase the Level 4 autonomous vehicles.

Moving on, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) has applied to the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry to raise household electricity rates by an average of 15.9% from June 1st.

Meanwhile, a survey by Ateam has revealed that only around 18% of My Number cardholders who are aware of the online transfer reservation service have actually used it, with the most common reason for not doing so being ‘no particular reason’.

In other news, Benri Dotcom has launched an AI legal consultation chat service called the Alpha Version Chat Legal Consultation Service, which uses ChatGPT.

Additionally, pixiv has announced a policy to exclude search results for works that are not differentiated from other works, regardless of whether they are created by humans or AI.

Furthermore, Aioi Nissay Dowa Insurance and ZMP have announced the sale of a dedicated compensation plan for self-driving robots called ‘Self-driving Robot Exclusive Insurance Plan’, which corresponds to the unique risks associated with autonomous driving robots.

Finally, KDDI and JR East have announced that they will co-create a smart city called ‘Takanawa Gateway City’ adjacent to the Takanawa Gateway Station on the Yamanote Line, with KDDI moving its headquarters there and building a digital twin.

And that’s all for today’s news. Thanks for listening to TotemoTech.

Keywords - japan, tech, news