Innovative Ideas in Baby Care

"Without proper oversight, cryptocurrencies, it risks harming everyday Americans.

So this is something that clearly we monitor."

Policymakers and industry experts are raising the alarm.

Questions are growing over the viability of a form of money that's not backed by a government or central bank.

Major crypto exchange FTX grew fast... and failed even faster.

It was founded just over three years ago, and once had a valuation of 32 billion dollars.

But concerns about its financial health emerged earlier this month.

Customers rushed to withdraw billions of dollars from the platform.

The value of its token, FTT, plummeted.

The digital coin is the exchange's principal asset.

The 30-year-old founder Sam Bankman-Fried was forced to seek bankruptcy protection for his company in a matter of days.

It was another shock for the already struggling digital currency industry.

The FTX meltdown is also threatening to swallow others in its sphere.

Major digital asset lender BlockFi said it has "significant exposure" to FTX, and is reportedly preparing for a potential bankruptcy.

Many crypto exchanges are under heavy pressure as well, struggling to keep customers from withdrawing their assets.

Some are asking if the FTX collapse is a Lehman Brothers moment, risking a domino effect for the financial system.

One expert says that's not likely.

"The bankruptcy filing of FTX is a major setback for the cryptocurrency industry.

However, I don't think it's on par with Lehman Brothers just because of the economic realities and the economic value that Lehman Brothers had on the wider economy."

Meanwhile, calls are getting louder for the US Securities and Echange Commission to step in and exert some control over what's seen as a largely unregulated market.

Another expert says that's what is needed to restore trust in crypto.

"Everybody has lost confidence in all of them, so they're gonna need some kind of assurance, through regulation and transparency, that if you deposit your money on these brokerage exchanges, that your money is safe."

The industry itself seems to be becoming aware of the need to win back investor confidence.

"We do need to increase the clarity of regulations, and the sophistication of regulations in the crypto space."

The chief of the biggest exchange, Binance, earlier this week proposed forming a recovery fund, to provide liquidity to struggling crypto entities and avert future failures.

Despite the market turmoil, few are ready to predict the end of cryptocurrency.

With digital payments becoming the norm, virtual forms of assets are likely to be increasingly integrated into the financial system.

"I think this technology is quite innovative.

And then, lots of lots of different types of innovations related to cryptocurrency are happening.

So I think there are many investors who still want to invest in the future."

The meltdown of FTX has had a massive impact on the digital money market.

The question is whether future cryptocurrency providers will learn from its mistakes, or risk repeating them.

The hundreds of groups of Indian tourists, that visit Pattaya's floating market each day, are part of a growing trend.

Before the pandemic, Indians made up less than 10% of foreign tourists in Thailand.

That proportion has more than doubled, and now they are the second-biggest group, surpassing visitors from China.

"I think shopping and food materials.

Food is very nice here."

Indians are also gaining a reputation as big spenders, splashing out at souvenir shops and restaurants.

"India has become a really big player for hotels, for attractions."

Various local governments are taking steps to make Indians feel welcome in Thailand.

The country aims to attract around one million Indian visitors in 2022.

The capital, Bangkok, is also making efforts.

It recently added the Hindu festival Diwali to its calendar of events, alongside Christmas and Chinese New Year.

The event featured Indian performing arts and traditional goods for sale.

It was aimed at both familiarizing local people with Indian culture, and promoting Bangkok as an attractive destination for people from the subcontinent.

"We were intrigued by all the decoration, light, the music, so yeah, just come here to experience it..."

India's population is about 1.4 billion, and its economy has been growing rapidly -- over 6% annually.

Household spending has been growing steadily in the past decade.

This reflects a growing number of middle class families, many of whom are starting to vacation abroad.

Vietnam is another popular destination for Indian holidaymakers.

Keeping these new guests happy is a top priority for many hotels there.

Some are making changes to their restaurant offerings, after learning that many Indians want to have the same type of curry they get at home, even when traveling abroad.

In late September, this foreign-owned luxury hotel was busy preparing to open an Indian restaurant.

It brought in a new tandoor oven to ensure the food would have an authentic taste.

The hotel invited chefs from a nearby Indian restaurant to teach the staff recipes and introduce new spices.

"It was something new for our team to learn.

But it was fun to learn.

There is no limit, we can see the Indian market if you look at the population of India."

There is no doubt India will be a major force for global tourism in the future.

Countries around the world may want to take lessons from Southeast Asia's experience.

This small pod is positioned next to a busy food court.

It was put here to give families with infants a private place to use for feeding and changing diapers.

And a Japanese day care center is now using an AI-driven baby monitoring system, that alerts caregivers when infants are sleeping in dangerous positions.

Today's On-site Report features businesses that are producing the next generation of baby-care products.

One after another, a stream of parents and babies step into this tiny pod.

It was specifically designed to give parents a safe and private place for feeding or changing diapers.

Some shopping malls offer spacious facilities like these, that can accommodate multiple families at once, but these require a lot of space and investment.

The pod, however, comes completely assembled.

As long as there's an outlet to plug it into, it's ready for use immediately upon delivery.

Being completely enclosed and equipped with a sturdy lock, ensures that users have a private and secure spot to take care of their babies.

Re-arranging the stool results in a nice-sized baby bed.

Male family members are also welcome to use the pod.

A lot of men think that the standard shared nursing rooms are just for women, so most of us don't even think about trying to use them.

But a pod like this, has a definite advantage because it provides a totally private space.

Hasegawa Yusuke came up with the idea for the baby-care pod.

He was inspired to create it after learning how hard it was not having access to baby care facilities, whenever he took his infant son out to eat or to go shopping.

It can be really hard on parents, because babies operate on their own time, and they let you know they're hungry or that they need something very clearly - by crying.

So when we had a small infant, we would only venture out to places that we knew offered a nursing room.

The pods sell for about $18,000, and are also available to rent for around $350 per month.

In July of this year, a major shopping mall operator decided to try out one of the baby-care pods.

They chose to place it in the food court.

Despite already offering a standard nursing room in another part of the mall, it's located over 200m away from the food court.

Management hopes that by placing another option near the food court, they can attract families with infants, who may have avoided this part of the mall, due to its distance from the nursing room.

In order to measure usage and ensure safety, the pods are equipped with sensors.

After 20 minutes have passed, a prompt will ask users to finish up and exit the pod.

If the sensors indicate someone has been inside the pod for over 30 minutes, mall management is notified, and staff are sent to check on the users.

When we visited the mall, we came across the Fujinuma family, who were out shopping with their one-year-old son.

This was their first time to try using the baby-care pod.

Fujinuma Airi says the convenience offered by the pod made her visit to the mall much more enjoyable.

After my son was born, I'd have to do research to make sure the places I wanted to visit had nursing rooms available.

Sometimes, I wouldn't even be able to eat, so having a facility so close to the food court is a huge help!

The sensors also allow the mall to keep track of how much use the pod is getting.

So far, its busiest day was on August 21st, during the summer holiday.

From 3 pm to 4 pm, the pod was used by seven different families in a row.

This was designed to be a place for families to come eat, relax, and enjoy spending time together, so I think it's important to offer a facility like this next to the food court.

This daycare center takes care of infants up to 2 years old.

Every day, naptime is scheduled between noon and 3 pm.

A four-person team of employees are always present to ensure safety.

In this classroom, a camera attached to the ceiling is also helping to look over the children.

Able to recognize facial features and body part orientation, AI technology is used to monitor the babies' sleeping positions.

If it detects an infant is laying on their stomach...

By providing instant warnings of potentially dangerous positions, the system helps the daycare staff watch over the sleeping infants.

These little ones can turn over really quickly, so when the alarm goes off, I can shift my attention from the child I'm with, and respond almost instantly.

The system was developed by Urakami Satoru.

His company specializes in providing AI-based monitoring services to healthcare providers.

After learning that infants were at risk of injury or death from dangerous sleeping positions, he thought his company's technology might be able to make a difference.

I felt that by offering support for the most important task, which is ensuring the children's safety, that we could give the human staff more time to focus on interacting with and caring for each and every infant.

And to help relieve them of some of their most monotonous tasks, Urakami added another important feature specifically for the teachers.

The system documents the head position of each child while they're sleeping.

Japanese daycares are required by law to document and submit these records to the government on a regular basis, in order to prevent any accidents from happening while the infants are sleeping.

The school requires teachers to check and record the babies' head positions every 5 minutes.

Currently, only the one year-old-and-under class, has the AI monitoring system up and running.

The one-and-over class must still do the checking and documenting manually, which keeps one of the staff members busy for the full duration of naptime.

Since the one-and-under class can rely on the AI system to handle that task for them, only one staff member is needed to stay with the infants,

so the others can focus their attention elsewhere.

I have a lot of other tasks and paper work to do while the children are sleeping, so having this monitoring system really helps to lighten my work load.

Ishimaru Yukino's son recently began attending this day care.

She said that safety was one of her top priorities when selecting where to take him.

I was so happy to learn that they use an AI monitoring system, because I know they can respond to any issue immediately.