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takyon writes:

SoftBank and Toyota team up to develop services powered by self-driving vehicles

SoftBank is getting into self-driving car services after the Japanese tech giant announced a joint-venture with Toyota in its native Japan.

SoftBank is invested in Uber and a range of other ride-hailing startups like Didi in China and Grab in Southeast Asia, but this initiative with Toyota is not related to those deals. Instead, it is designed to combine SoftBank's focus on internet-of-things technology and Toyota's connected vehicle services platform to enable new types of services that run on autonomous vehicle tech.

Called MONET — after 'mobility network' — the joint venture will essentially assign autonomous vehicles to various different "just in time" services. That just in time caveat essentially means more than on-demand. SoftBank suggests it'll mean that services are performed in transit. That could be food prepared as it is delivered, hospital shuttles that host medical examinations, or mobile offices, according to examples given by SoftBank.

Also at Bloomberg and CNBC.

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