Osaka-based robotics startup PLEN Project established a joint venture named PLENGoer Robotics with Chinese home appliance manufacturer Goertek (SHE:002241) back in March. In a promotional video released to coincide with the announcement, the firm had implied a launch of its first product within 2016.
As it had noted, PLENGoer Robotics last month unveiled a personal assistant robot PLEN CUBE as its first products, along with detailed information including functions, photo and specs. Although PLEN CUBE is still under development, the firm is exhibiting and demonstrating at CES 2017 in Las Vegas.
PLEN CUBE has a rectangular parallelepiped form which has one side at about 7.5cm; it is equipped with camera, display, speaker and microphone, and various functions such as face-tracking and voice / gesture recognition are included. Without any special setting, users can give orders to PLEN CUBE to photograph still images / moving images, save, distribute and share online.
Since the product is still incomplete, the firm is going to improve it based on feedbacks gained at the CES 2017 exhibit and to implement crowdfunding, aiming to compete using a product version and starting to sell on a full scale in summer of 2017.
PLEN Project had previously launched a human-shaped robot named PLEN2. In contrast with PLEN2’s concept focusing on open source and customization by users, PLENGoer Robotics focuses on development of more practical service robots targeting common household / individual users and actually emphasizes practical functions, camera or computer vision in its first product PLEN CUBE.
Translated by Taijiro Takeda Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy
This guest post is authored by Mark Bivens. Mark is a Silicon Valley native and former entrepreneur, having started three companies before “turning to the dark side of VC.” He is a venture capitalist that travels between Paris and Tokyo (aka the RudeVC). You can read more on his blog at http://rude.vc or follow him @markbivens. The Japanese translation of this article is available here. With the first full year of Brexit implementation, French elections, the inauguration of President-elect Trump, and a start to the baseball season with the Cubs as the reigning world champs, the world could not feel more unpredictable. In 2017, entropy feels more palpable than ever before. ‘Tis therefore the season to invite some of my colleagues in VC to offer some predictions for the upcoming year. These talented individuals are much smarter than I am, so it’s an honor to solicit their wisdom during this period of chaos. Claire Houry, Ventech, Paris For 2017, I see e-tailers going offline, reinventing the offline world and merging the physical and digital world to create an immersive environment. We shall see augmented and virtual reality booming in marketing applications, data-driven indicators and online analytics entering the offline world…
This guest post is authored by Mark Bivens. Mark is a Silicon Valley native and former entrepreneur, having started three companies before “turning to the dark side of VC.” He is a venture capitalist that travels between Paris and Tokyo (aka the RudeVC). You can read more on his blog at http://rude.vc or follow him @markbivens. The Japanese translation of this article is available here.
With the first full year of Brexit implementation, French elections, the inauguration of President-elect Trump, and a start to the baseball season with the Cubs as the reigning world champs, the world could not feel more unpredictable. In 2017, entropy feels more palpable than ever before.
‘Tis therefore the season to invite some of my colleagues in VC to offer some predictions for the upcoming year. These talented individuals are much smarter than I am, so it’s an honor to solicit their wisdom during this period of chaos.
For 2017, I see e-tailers going offline, reinventing the offline world and merging the physical and digital world to create an immersive environment. We shall see augmented and virtual reality booming in marketing applications, data-driven indicators and online analytics entering the offline world and intelligent apps (virtual customer assistant) performing some of the functions of a human assistant. Be ready to see internet of things invading all types of products.
Geopolitical views: With the world’s biggest start-up campus to open in Paris in April 2017, I also see France getting high attention in the tech world. Ventech supports the project and will launch its ParisPOC program for its foreign portfolio companies, willing to expand into the French and the European market.
The list of winners in machine learning will shift from including only those who can gather the biggest dataset for training to also include those who develop training methods that rely on fewer and fewer data points. In the past years we have made huge progress in Artificial Narrow Intelligence (automation, optimisation, prediction etc.) but, thanks to the increase in computational power, the next years will begin to build towards Artificial General Intelligence, where computers get closer to human-like intelligence.
2017 will see the rise of new interfaces. While today’s dominant human-computer interaction is done through the display and visualisation, mostly on mobile, new interfaces like voice, audio, messaging etc. will start seeping into everyday life. More data will be collected, structured and analysed by machines which will deliver the results to humans through conversational interfaces.
Increase in cross-border M&A – The US startup ecosystem is ripe for consolidation and most corporates in Asia are currently cash rich but innovation poor. We are already starting to see the beginning of this trend with our own portfolio companies, where we are receiving inbound interest from international companies looking for new business lines, tech IP, or an entry point into the US.
Edtech goes mainstream – Education technology has incorrectly been identified and relegated to a niche market. However, the combination of the economic and political turmoil we’re seeing in all corners of the world, and a rapidly accelerating rate of technological progress (self driving cars are very real now), jobs are going to be in focus. Tech related and tech enabled training will no longer be a nice to have, but instead a critical need for the health of individuals, corporations, governments, and society as a whole.
Adizah Tejani, Former Level 39 Fintech Accelerator, now at Token.io, London
Over the last few years, finance has undergone change as technology shifts the landscape on what is possible.
With the up and coming PSD2 changes across Europe, I think the move to platform banking driven by an API economy will start to become clearer in 2017. Banks and technology companies will continue to adjust through collaboration to navigate this change.
I like to quote Yogi Berra, “It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.”
With this caveat in mind, one doesn’t have to be a wizard to predict that it will be easier for European companies and academic institutions to recruit top talent from the US.
See the original story in Japanese. A holographic virtual assistant created in Japan has been unveiled. It’s called Gatebox, displaying 2D characters in hologram image and allowing you to be one with, has finally been brought forth. The developer Vinclu launched pre-orders on its official website last week and will send them out within December of 2017. The price was set at 298,000 yen (about $2,500) and the shipping destinations are limited to Japan and the US. The firm has been accepting pre-orders since December 14 and will until January 31 of 2017 for the first production lot of 300 items. The product size is 220mm in width, 360mm in depth, 520mm in height and the weight is 5kg. The projection area for the hologram corresponds to 1280×720 pixels, realizing a visual experience with virtual appearance by projecting images on the panel from the rear portion of the case body. I actually tried a product and found that the projection area was surrounded by the case body in order to support visual recognition even in a bright place. A girl named Azuma Hikari was adopted as Vinclu’s original character contributed by Taro Minoboshi who were in charge of the character…
A holographic virtual assistant created in Japan has been unveiled. It’s called Gatebox, displaying 2D characters in hologram image and allowing you to be one with, has finally been brought forth.
The developer Vinclu launched pre-orders on its official website last week and will send them out within December of 2017. The price was set at 298,000 yen (about $2,500) and the shipping destinations are limited to Japan and the US. The firm has been accepting pre-orders since December 14 and will until January 31 of 2017 for the first production lot of 300 items.
The product size is 220mm in width, 360mm in depth, 520mm in height and the weight is 5kg. The projection area for the hologram corresponds to 1280×720 pixels, realizing a visual experience with virtual appearance by projecting images on the panel from the rear portion of the case body. I actually tried a product and found that the projection area was surrounded by the case body in order to support visual recognition even in a bright place.
A girl named Azuma Hikari was adopted as Vinclu’s original character contributed by Taro Minoboshi who were in charge of the character design of a dating simulation game Tokimeki Memorial.
Touch buttons, camera and microphone are equipped on the main body to enable conversation with the character, and it recognizes owner’s movement and makes the character follow by combining information from implemented motion sensors. Using a mobile app available for Android and iOS, users can enjoy online communication with the character linked via Wifi or wired LAN.
Enough spec explanation, let’s see the actual use video. According to Vinclu CEO Minori Takechi, this video was shot using a device and an image actually used for products.
Well, how was it? To be honest, I suppose the road will divide whether you felt a sense of future in it or just a pricey Otaku gadget.
But those are completely different from Takechi’s purpose. What his team is pursuing is not these rational services. They do not want to develop merely a device just to ask for shopping services to an insipid mechanical box.
Indeed, the application of Gatebox is still limited though. As you see in the above video, it only exists to communicate or to turn on the light from when the owner wakes up and till bedtime arrives at night. In other word, I think they are crazy to have launched the product focusing only on these functions. Although you can purchase Amazon Echo only for about $200 now, how many people in the world will pay $2,500 for it?
No, some people on this planet may dare to desire this existence due to the limitation of functions conversely. In fact, the viewcount of the promotion movie on Youtube exceeded 300,000.
Gatebox has an interesting feature: an external input. It enables projection of original images from user PCs via HDMI. There must be requests from users to project their own original characters. Takechi recognizes these high demands and will meet them in the future.
This product can be said to be an approach related to “center of home” which is unique to Japan, and how will it be evaluated by the world.
Translated by Taijiro Takeda Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy and Masaru Ikeda
This is a guest post by Joey Ho Nihei, a volunteer supporter for Kyoto-based hardware startup accelerator Makers Boot Camp as well as a student from National University of Singapore (Department of Global Studies). The accelerator holds the Monozukuri Hub Meetup event in Kyoto on a monthly basis. Additionally, all photos in this article were taken by professional photographer Kengo Osaka. Makers Bootcamp is Japan’s leading hardware accelerator and the organizer of the wildly successful Monozukuri Hub meetups. These meetups aim to build, support and inspire a community of makers by acting as a platform for international collaboration and knowledge exchange. In the latest edition of 2016 Monozukuri Hub meetup titled “The Power of Storytelling”, Makers Bootcamp has brought together some of the tech industry’s most seasoned storytellers, investors and start-up founders for an evening packed with insights on how to build and leverage on compelling stories for startups. This meetup largely revolved around the theme of how powerful and effective storytelling is quintessential to startups in every single way — from picking investor’s initial interest to effectively projecting a startup’s value to consumers. Simply put, storytelling is a powerful tool that must be harnessed by startups in order to secure not only investments…
This is a guest post by Joey Ho Nihei, a volunteer supporter for Kyoto-based hardware startup accelerator Makers Boot Camp as well as a student from National University of Singapore (Department of Global Studies). The accelerator holds the Monozukuri Hub Meetup event in Kyoto on a monthly basis.
Additionally, all photos in this article were taken by professional photographer Kengo Osaka.
Makers Bootcamp is Japan’s leading hardware accelerator and the organizer of the wildly successful Monozukuri Hub meetups. These meetups aim to build, support and inspire a community of makers by acting as a platform for international collaboration and knowledge exchange.
In the latest edition of 2016 Monozukuri Hub meetup titled “The Power of Storytelling”, Makers Bootcamp has brought together some of the tech industry’s most seasoned storytellers, investors and start-up founders for an evening packed with insights on how to build and leverage on compelling stories for startups.
This meetup largely revolved around the theme of how powerful and effective storytelling is quintessential to startups in every single way — from picking investor’s initial interest to effectively projecting a startup’s value to consumers. Simply put, storytelling is a powerful tool that must be harnessed by startups in order to secure not only investments but also its survival.
Three main perspectives dominated the evening’s presentations: the perspectives of the story consultant, the investor and the startups. The beauty of this meetup was in seeing the storytelling process from these closely related yet distinct perspectives.
The evening was kicked-off by Sabrina Sasaki from Makers Bootcamp who succinctly introduced the art of storytelling and its significance to a startup’s growth to get everyone warmed up for the magic that was about to happen in the following presentations. Her presentation served as an easily digestible introduction to those unacquainted to the art of storytelling (myself included). One key message that she conveyed in her presentation was how stories play a crucial role in a startup’s marketing and how it is no less important than building a revolutionary product.
The first speaker for the evening, Storymaker‘s Björn Eichstädt, offered the perspective of the consultant, sharing snippets from his vast experiences managing a story-oriented communications consulting, PR and digital communications firm. He spoke about how having a powerful story to communicate a company’s identity and value is increasingly important in a world constantly bombarded with a multitude of information, and how originality (instead of jumping onto trends) is the only real way ahead. One of his sharings that left a particular impression on his audience was when he drew parallels between a story and dashi (Japanese soup stock), saying “a story is just like dashi – it can only be made with the right ingredients, and this dashi can be expressed in so many different ways. If customers and the media like it, they will retell it”.
James Riney, Head of 500 Startups Japan, followed Björn’s sharing by presenting the investor’s perspective to story-telling: What are investors really looking out for when they listen to pitches? One theme that he constantly emphasised on was the need for simplicity when presenting their idea and value and the need to earn trust and confidence quickly in the little bit of time they have to present to investors. The best way to do this, he advices, is to highlight the key strengths of the startup either in terms of traction, team, target market, media coverage or fundings from highly sought-after investors and funds. Simply put, all you need to do is to convey “why this? why now? And why you?” and just KISS (Keep-it-simple-stupid). He also highlighted the importance of keeping things simple when startups ask for funding — just share with investors how much you need, what you will use it for, and how long this is going to last you.
The second half of the presentations saw Atsushi Nakanishi (AT) and Shota Takase sharing the stories of Dfree and Blincam respectively. Their stories were living proof of how startups can effectively leverage on powerful stories in order to propel their startups forward.
Dfree CEO Atsushi Nakanishi has pooped his pants before — and he’s not ashamed to share it with the world because that was exactly what inspired the world’s first wearable device that aims to maintain every human’s dignity by using ultrasound to monitor changes in the body to predict toilet timings. His product’s vision to create “a world where nobody has to soil their pants” was as revolutionary as the way he presented his story — he began by asking the audience if “anyone pooped their pants before?” ensuing in a roar of laughter. Such personal, relatable anecdotes peppered with embarrassing examples have proven to be a key element in storytelling which values originality and surprise elements. To close his presentation, he shared Dfree’s future trajectories — a trajectory that would vastly change the way everyone lives in the future by “predicting everything” from toilet timings, appetites, menstrual cycles, aging and even one’s lifespan.
The last presentation for the evening was by Shota Takase, CEO & Founder of Blincam. Blincam’s story started by coincidence at a Startup Weekend session and has since been fueled by Shota’s strong desire capture natural and beautiful photographs of his family. The key inspiration behind Blincam was how Shota could never take candid photographs of his daughter because she would always make funny faces at the camera when she knew her photo was being taken. This desire to capture candid, beautiful pictures of our own children resonated with many people and this vision-turned-startup was what Blincam was all about: A wearable, hands-free camera that captures candid pictures with a blink of an eye. Shota then carried on to share every step of his journey from starting up in a garage all the way to securing a whopping 2640% of funding in Makuake and another 150% in Indiegogo just recently.
This event saw some of the most insightful stories and had some of the industry’s most seasoned storytellers and listeners (investors). Makers Bootcamp would once again like to extend our warmest regards to every single person who participated and we hope this meetup enriched you as much as it did for us! We hope to see everyone again soon!
Click here if you would like to check the presentation deck from all speakers, with detailed information about each one.
See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based Polyglots has been developing a English-language learning app for Japanese under the same name as well as Mondo, a Japanese-language learning app for non speakers. The company announced on Tuesday that it has secured a series A round. While the amount of the funding remains unknown, it is said to be in the upper tens of millions of yen (tens of thousands of dollars US). Robert T. Huang, founder of Synnex (NYSE: SNX), a major supply chain management company for IT companies, led this round, and four individual US investors including Huang participated in this round. Huang is an active supporter of entrepreneurs and an entrepreneurship center was set up with his name at his alma mater of Kyushu University. This round follows a seed round in March and December of 2015 in which Polyglots secured funds from both East Ventures and Hitomedia (about 35 million yen ≒ $300,000 US from East Ventures, with the total amount secured unknown). The company launched the Polyglots app in 2014 and followed it up in July of 2015 with the launch of the Mondo app. The ability to learn a language through current events by cooperating…
Tokyo-based Polyglots has been developing a English-language learning app for Japanese under the same name as well as Mondo, a Japanese-language learning app for non speakers. The company announced on Tuesday that it has secured a series A round. While the amount of the funding remains unknown, it is said to be in the upper tens of millions of yen (tens of thousands of dollars US). Robert T. Huang, founder of Synnex (NYSE: SNX), a major supply chain management company for IT companies, led this round, and four individual US investors including Huang participated in this round. Huang is an active supporter of entrepreneurs and an entrepreneurship center was set up with his name at his alma mater of Kyushu University. This round follows a seed round in March and December of 2015 in which Polyglots secured funds from both East Ventures and Hitomedia (about 35 million yen ≒ $300,000 US from East Ventures, with the total amount secured unknown).
The company launched the Polyglots app in 2014 and followed it up in July of 2015 with the launch of the Mondo app. The ability to learn a language through current events by cooperating with BBC and various news media is one of their merits. In the past year “Mondo” has seen an increase in Japanese language learners from the Philippines and China, etc. and is looking to use the funds secured this time to strengthen promotion efforts, especially in Southeast Asia.
The Key to Monetization
Polyglots released a function that leads to monetization about six months ago. This feature is called “HandShake” and it connects Japanese language learning users with foreign-language learning Japanese users in the same way Tinder does.
Junya Yamaguchi, Founder and CEO of Polyglots, explained:
Most Japanese people go about learning by quiet self-study. Lots of (Japanese language learning) foreigners want to communicate (with Japanese people).
With the HandShake function, a mutual connection is established between users of “Mondo” and “Polyglots” only when each separate user happens to hit OK, but with “Super HandShake” requiring an in-app purchase, paying users can let the other user know they are requesting a connection.
He continued:
It’s not like Tinder because you can see whether the other users are studying a language or not on their profile. It’s not like dating apps; people who aren’t studying will not succeed. […]
We have the data on which articles users are most interested in, so users that want to find connections based on this can do so with recommendations produced by our algorithm. And, the Cupid bot will support their chatting.
From the beginning of next year, Polyglots plans to expand the HandShake function, and will add a paid function on the Polyglots app allowing users to study with English tutors. With their sights set on offering face-to-face learning opportunities in Tokyo, they are also seeking to cooperate with on-demand rental space providers like Spacee. Tutors can reference the learning history of student users on the app so even during a first session they are able to provide effective learning opportunities and strengthen the service. In the future they plan to do with same with the Mondo app and offer a service for introducing Japanese-language tutors to non-Japanese speakers.
Now, Polyglots is looked towards China. Using the networks of their investors they are planning to develop a study app for the Chinese language, and intend to expand their services to include Japanese people who wish to learn Chinese, and Chinese learners studying Japanese and English.
Translated by Amanda Imasaka Edited by Masaru Ikeda
This is a guest post by Sabrina Sasaki, a marketing representative of Kyoto-based hardware startup accelerator Makers Boot Camp. The accelerator holds the Monozukuri Hub Meetup event in Kyoto on a monthly basis. Additionally, all photos in this article were taken by Kyoto-based systems biologist Tugi Guenes. Last week we took part of the closing event of France Japan Innovation year: a special forum when an official mission from France visited Japan to validate bilateral business opportunities. The event happened on December 6th and 7th at Knowledge Capital – Grand Front Osaka (Umeda) , as the outcome of two years of collaboration, when the parts involved had the chance to showcase, all in the same space, their next steps and also new opportunities in innovation between both countries. Makers Boot Camp had a booth area together with KSN (Kyoto Shisaku Net), our prototype experts, a network of SMEs who support small lot production for startups creating a new product. KSN has already clients from France, and they also count on some French team members to support French startups. We shared our area side by side with Kyoto VR, a brand new startup working on combining both arts and technology for…
This is a guest post by Sabrina Sasaki, a marketing representative of Kyoto-based hardware startup accelerator Makers Boot Camp. The accelerator holds the Monozukuri Hub Meetup event in Kyoto on a monthly basis.
Additionally, all photos in this article were taken by Kyoto-based systems biologist Tugi Guenes.
Last week we took part of the closing event of France Japan Innovation year: a special forum when an official mission from France visited Japan to validate bilateral business opportunities. The event happened on December 6th and 7th at Knowledge Capital – Grand Front Osaka (Umeda) , as the outcome of two years of collaboration, when the parts involved had the chance to showcase, all in the same space, their next steps and also new opportunities in innovation between both countries.
Makers Boot Camp had a booth area together with KSN (Kyoto Shisaku Net), our prototype experts, a network of SMEs who support small lot production for startups creating a new product. KSN has already clients from France, and they also count on some French team members to support French startups.
We shared our area side by side with Kyoto VR, a brand new startup working on combining both arts and technology for a unique virtual reality experience. Recently, they exhibited a demo session at Nuit Blanche, a French event in Kyoto, with a special project involving IoT for cultural initiatives. Paris and Kyoto are already sister-cities in the fields of Fine Arts and Architecture and IoT should also be considered for the next projects.
During the two days of the event, there were sessions with key industry players from both countries, as Valeo, Michelin, Orange and Dassault Systems, Toyo Aluminium, SynphaTech Japon, and also a special session day focused on IoT startups. The purpose of the event was to bring stakeholders involved on the current discussions between France and Japan in order to achieve a plan for concrete actions in the next years.
With this spirit, Makers Boot Camp signed an MoU (Memorandum of Understanding) with La French Tech, represented by The French Embassy of Japan.
In May 2016, on behalf of Makers Boot Camp, I was invited to attend two outstanding hardware events in France: Connected Conference and Innorobo. It is clear the potential of disruptive projects in robotics and healthcare being created in France, so we’d like to partner with local players interested to reach a global market with high quality. Currently, there are players from both Japan and France willing to promote an exchange of technologies and resources.
From Toulouse city, Julien Toulouse paid us a visit to our ecosystem in Kyoto, including our KSN factories with French team members involved. The tour was a way to illustrate Japanese small lot capabilities for French startups.
On Japanese side, Kansai representatives from local government and companies were also supporting the event. We hope the players involved can commit to a more active role in both countries, fomenting IoT industry all over the world.