In 1997, Hiroaki Kitano, a research scientist at Sony, helped organize the first Robocup, a robot soccer tournament that attracted teams of robotics and artificial intelligence researchers to compete in the picturesque city of Nagoya, Japan.
Kitano now leads a new effort at Sony, announced in November, to infuse cutting-edge artificial intelligence throughout the company.
Sony will focus its artificial intelligence on three domains, says Kitano: games, sensors and, more interestingly, culinary arts. These areas reflect the company's current commercial focus and an aspirational direction for the future.