Robotics

Japan's Mitsubishi Heavy Industries has enhanced automation in the manufacturing of the country's next-generation rocket, looking to slash production costs by half and boost global competitiveness.

SoftBank Group Corp. has put billions of dollars into a laser-based technology that could allow cars to drive themselves and help astronauts land on distant planets. It turns out that same technology makes a pretty good vacuum cleaner.

Japanese home goods maker Iris Ohyama has chosen a hard-hit Fukushima community as a location to build a cutting-edge factory that can adapt itself to changes in supply and demand.

Japanese fashion giant Uniqlo is partnering with two robotics startups to automate the last tasks still handled by human workers at its warehouses, a process that the company hopes to complete within five years.

Japan’s Hayabusa2 probe will on Wednesday leave orbit around a distant asteroid and head for Earth after an unprecedented mission, carrying samples that could shed light on the origins of the solar system.

How might you feel if you wanted to go to Hawaii, could book a trip at home via a website and then instantly find yourself transported to a palm-fringed beach with blue sky and gentle breezes? The technology is not quite there, yet. But the day of such "Star Trek"-style teleportation is drawing ever closer thanks to a project developed by ANA Holdings, Japan's biggest aviation group, that has the immodest aim of "transcending the limitations of the human body."

The Hayabusa2 on Thursday released a robotic explorer bound for the surface of an asteroid in the probe’s final task before returning to earth, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) said.

Set in 2019, cult ’80s movie “Blade Runner” envisaged a neon-stained landscape of bionic replicants genetically engineered to look just like humans. So far that has failed to materialize, but at a secretive research institute in western Japan, wild-haired roboticist Hiroshi Ishiguro is fine-tuning technology that could blur the line between man and machine.

With flashing red eyes and a swiveling head, Yuuji Ohta’s robot wolf bares its white canines and lets out an array of ghastly growls. A matted coat of brown synthetic fur covers its life-size body.

A U.K. parliamentary committee has released a report that highlights industrial automation in Japan, calling on the government to promote automation in British industries