Robot therapy, which uses robots as a substitution for animals in "animal therapy" is a new robot application in mental health. The baby seal robot "PARO" was commercialized in Japan in 2005, and in Europe and the U.S. in 2009, and about 5,000 PAROs have been used in hospitals and care facilities in more than 30 countries. Recent clinical trials including randomized controlled trials have revealed that robot therapy has similar effects on patients as animal therapy. In 2009, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) certified PARO as a "neurological therapeutic medical device". PARO can be used in various kinds of therapy such as people with dementia, palliative care for cancer patients, and children and adolescences with developmental and psychological disorder. PARO can reduce usage of psychotropic medications as non-pharmacological therapy. PARO can also reduce burden of care and nursing, and social cost of medical and welfare service.

Currently, automated driving systems are being developed toward the introduction in commercial market by 2020. Current activities on advanced development for self-driving vehicles on mixed traffic and fully automated truck platoon on highway will be described. Furthermore, vehicle control technologies needed to self-driving such as local dynamic map or deep leaning for the obstacle recognition will be introduced.

Automatic Driving System is entering the practical stage. However, to put Full Automated Driving system into practical use, we must deal with many, various legal problems. Automatic Driving Technology will reduce the number of accidents, but never make it zero. So we must discuss who will be responsible for the accident. In this article, outlines about the legal problems about Automatic Driving System, and suggestions of countermeasures will be offered.

Multiple service providers must share each service recipient's personal data and thereby collaborate with each other in order to optimize the total value of the services. This data sharing has so far been implemented by centralized methods intervened by middlemen other than the data providers and the data users, but decentralized methods without such middlemen are much safer, lower-cost, and more scalable. PLR (personal life repository) is particularly inexpensive and scalable among them. Its applications and potentials are discussed and relevant world-wide trends are outlined.

Open Data is spreading worldwide, and Open Data Contests which are activities to increase use cases of Open Data are attracting attention. The Linked Open Data Challenge Japan (LOD Challenge) is a contest which has been held since the first period of Open Data promotion in Japan. The LOD Challenge focuses on spreading Linked Open Data (LOD), also has distinctive systems such as organizing co-hosted events with sponsors. In this paper, we describe the contest-based activity which spreading Open Data from the perspectives of an executor and a sponsor. Specifically, the history of LOD Challenge and the results in 2016, the co-hosted event with Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST), and future prospects are described.