Japan Pitches 'Society 5.0' To Keep Its Edge In Tech and Science (nikkei.com) 21
The Cabinet Office of Japan is co-hosting an event dedicated to "Society 5.0," a future society the government believes Japan should aspire to. Defined by the Cabinet Office as "a human-centered society [helped] by a system that highly integrates cyberspace and physical space," Society 5.0 is a concept intended to broaden the discussion of innovation from science and technology to all of socioeconomic activity. Nikkei Asia Review reports: The government has also established multiple large-scale programs to encourage companies, involved in everything from health care and mobility to energy, to invest in research and development, not only at the level of pure technology but also to bring it to a pilot level. The exhibition includes some achievements from these programs, including Cyberdyne's HAL, standing for "hybrid assistive limb," which the company claims to be the world's first "wearable cyborg." A HAL exoskeleton autonomously walks on a treadmill at the venue. When worn on a leg, HAL can read faint signals sent to muscles from the brain thanks to electrodes attached to the wearer's skin, determining the wearer's desired movements. "Even if your nerves are not connected at first, they gradually recover through the wearing of HAL, and you can eventually move your own body parts without wearing it," said a person from Cyberdyne.
SkyDrive's "flying car" also attracts the attention of visitors, who can observe a full-scale model of the SD-03, which performed the first successful public manned flights of a flying car in Japan in August 2020. Co-founded by former Toyota Motor engineer Tomohiro Fukuzawa, the startup plans to offer commercial mobility service during Expo 2025, to be held in Osaka. "It is as if we are traveling to the future," said Shinji Inoue, a minister of state who heads science and technology policy, when he visited the exhibition last week. Asked by reporters how to make these cutting-edge tools an everyday reality, Inoue spoke of a need to deregulate the market when it comes to obtaining operating permits for such items. Indeed, the government acknowledges challenges in keeping up with the country's capabilities in implementing scientific progress. Digitalization initiatives, the premise for achieving Society 5.0, "could not sufficiently create new business models through data collaboration, like what we see in other countries," said a report from the Cabinet Office analyzing the previous five-year plan through fiscal 2020. Instead, the initiatives aimed at improving the efficiency of existing operations, failing to drive innovation.
SkyDrive's "flying car" also attracts the attention of visitors, who can observe a full-scale model of the SD-03, which performed the first successful public manned flights of a flying car in Japan in August 2020. Co-founded by former Toyota Motor engineer Tomohiro Fukuzawa, the startup plans to offer commercial mobility service during Expo 2025, to be held in Osaka. "It is as if we are traveling to the future," said Shinji Inoue, a minister of state who heads science and technology policy, when he visited the exhibition last week. Asked by reporters how to make these cutting-edge tools an everyday reality, Inoue spoke of a need to deregulate the market when it comes to obtaining operating permits for such items. Indeed, the government acknowledges challenges in keeping up with the country's capabilities in implementing scientific progress. Digitalization initiatives, the premise for achieving Society 5.0, "could not sufficiently create new business models through data collaboration, like what we see in other countries," said a report from the Cabinet Office analyzing the previous five-year plan through fiscal 2020. Instead, the initiatives aimed at improving the efficiency of existing operations, failing to drive innovation.
I swear (Score:2)
they missed society 4.0 and went straight to society 5.0
Re: (Score:3)
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Let's just wait for Society NT and hope we don't get the ME variant.
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Wait for Society VISTA!
Or its more successful variants, Society 7-11 for Workgroups [wikipedia.org].
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I say let's take society all the way to 11...
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They want to out-Gate Bill Gates in 6G DNA altering chips, so they are building thousands of pizza basements to conduct research.
Re:I swear (Score:4, Informative)
https://www8.cao.go.jp/cstp/en... [cao.go.jp]
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= you lost your job to an H1B because of your crappy people skills
Boondoggle risk is high (Score:2)
These big gov't sponsored get-ahead-tech initiatives are a mixed bag in most countries, including Japan.
For example, decades ago Japan's gov't tried to spur on investment in high definition TV. The problem was that by the time results started coming in, digital was replacing analog around the world such as to make most their research and patents moot.
Are they trolling us? (Score:1)
The exhibition includes some achievements from these programs, including Cyberdyne's HAL
"Terminator" and "2001: A Space Odyssey" references in one sentence?
The guys at Cyberdyne are either great movie fans or they are fishing for reactions.
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They are going for otaku cool factor, to try to attract them, pay them a pittance, whilst making billions on the patents.
The exo skeleton, what no hands, why does it look like it was more for the military to kill people, than to help the disabled, which sells better as bait to attract gullible creative otaku.
Want to make money on that exo-skeleton rebrand it as a powered feed back armature to control a remote robot, and give it bloody hands.
Japan is clearly showing signs of real socio-economic stress hidden
save you a google (Score:1)
kawaii - lovable or adorable epitomized by hello kitty
Don't worry, China's economic miracle will peter out after one generation; the children of the current hard charging generation will be raised in soft luxury and achieve less.
Wat? (Score:3)
The only link in the summary is a link to the summary itself.
If it's anything like 5th Generation Computer.. (Score:3)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Naming your company after the fictional computer that went to war with humanity, and naming your product after the fictional computer that went nuts and tried to kill everyone is possibly not the best strategy either.
Has Japan become complacent? (Score:1)