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US self-driving startup Nuro, which is backed by the likes of NVIDIA, Toyota and Uber, has started testing its autonomous vehicles on Tokyo's challenging streets, Bloomberg reported. The company, which plans to launch a robotaxi service with Uber and Lucid in San Francisco this year, will be testing a "handful" of vehicles in the city. Human safety drivers will be at the wheel, as is required by Japanese law. Tokyo presents a challenge for autonomous vehicles, given its narrow, crowded streets and left side of the road driving. "Testing the capability of the autonomy system in such an interesting market with some international complexity really is a good pressure test of what the system is capable of," said CEO Andrew Chapin. The company's ultimate goal is to achieve Level 4 autonomy, which allows full self-driving under limited conditions. Waymo is the other major robotaxi operator testing vehicles in Tokyo in collaboration with Japanese taxi operators Nihon Kotsu and the country's leading taxi app, Go. It has been operating in the nation since April 2025 in collaboration with Toyota. Nuro has yet to announce which operators or vehicle manufacturers it will be partnering with, but Chapin said it may not limit itself to autonomous rides. "A universal autonomy platform that can be extended to a lot of different applications and form factors is a bit different than the approach Waymo is taking," he told Bloomberg. The company previously teamed with 7-Eleven on autonomous deliveries in Mountain View, California. Uber plans to have up to 100,000 autonomous vehicles including 20,000 robotaxis powered by Lucid and Nuro, with a rollout starting in 2027. It introduced its new vehicle design recently at CES 2026. Uber is also collaborating with Nissan and Wayve with the aim to introduce pilot cars in Tokyo by late 2026. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/transportation/nvidia--and-uber-backed-nuro-is-testing-autonomous-vehicles-in-tokyo-081200366.html?src=rss
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Marketing and Advertising
Google Play has introduced a new feature called Game Trials, which will let you play a portion of paid games for free before you commit to buying them. Its now rolling out to select paid games on mobile, and its coming soon to Google Play Games on PC. Titles that offer Game Trials will show a button marked Try on their profile pages. When you click it, youll see how long you can play the game before you have to buy it. In Googles example, the survival and horror game Dredge will give you 60 minutes of free play time, after which youll get the option to either buy the game or delete it from your device. Google has also announced that its releasing more paid indie games over the coming months, including Moonlight Peaks, Sledding Game and Low-Budget Repairs. It has launched a new section in the Play store, as well, to feature games optimized for Windows PCs. You can wishlist the games from that section to get a notification when theyre on sale. Finally, the company is rolling out Play Games Sidekick, the Gemini-powered Android overlay it announced last year, to select games downloaded from Play. Sidekick can show you relevant info and tools for whatever game you're playing without having to do a search query. But if youd rather ask other people for gaming advice instead of an AI, you can also look at a games Community Posts, a feature now available in English for select titles on their Play pages. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/google-play-will-let-you-try-a-game-before-you-buy-it-051854016.html?src=rss
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Marketing and Advertising
Michikusa Hanten breaks down manufacturing costs for its new dog camping fence, showing customers exactly what they're paying for. A new Japanese outdoor gear company has launched a tent-style fence that transforms any campsite into an enclosed area where dogs can roam leash-free. Michikusa Hanten's Wander Wall fences off about 40 square meters with 100 cm-high walls designed to contain small dogs while remaining low enough for owners to step over. The product addresses a real gap: while some campgrounds in Japan now offer dedicated no-leash sites surrounded by permanent fencing, those spots are scarce and expensive. Wander Wall brings that freedom to standard campsites for JPY 68,200 (around USD 430).While the Wander Wall is cool, what sets this launch apart isn't the product itself, but how the company is pitching it. This is the first product by Michikusa Hanten, and the brand published a detailed cost breakdown showing exactly what goes into that JPY 68,200 price tag: materials (JPY 19,840), labor (6,270), shipping and logistics (7,350), and so on, down to the per-unit import fees. The company states its policy plainly: customers should understand and feel good about what they're paying for. It's a drastic departure from the outdoor gear industry's usual opacity, where markups and margins stay hidden behind brand mystique and performance claims.TREND BITEPricing transparency remains rare in consumer goods, where any gap between manufacturing costs and retail price might breed suspicion or resentment once revealed. Michikusa Hanten's approach publishing its cost structure upfront serves multiple purposes. It builds trust by removing the guesswork and positions the brand as confident enough in its value proposition that it doesn't need to hide behind pricing smoke and mirrors. And it appeals to a growing segment of consumers who want to understand not just what they're buying, but whether the exchange feels fair. For brands willing to embrace it, pricing transparency can be a powerful differentiator, capable of transforming a regular transaction into a relationship built on mutual respect.
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Marketing and Advertising
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