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FANATICS AND COMPLEX PRESENT TAKASHI MURAKAMI x MLB LIMITED EDITION COLLECTION FOR 2025 MLB TOKYO SERIES WITH TOKYO POP-UP EVENT

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The Collection Marks Murakami’s Most Extensive Partnership with MLB and Highlights the Los Angeles
Dodgers and Chicago Cubs

Collection Goes On Sale March 7, with Tokyo Event March 8 – 21

Images Available HERE

LOS ANGELES, March 5, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — In celebration of the 2025 MLB Tokyo Series taking place March 18-19 at the Tokyo Dome between the Chicago Cubs and the defending World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers, Fanatics and Complex are unveiling the Takashi Murakami x MLB Tokyo Series collection.

The exclusive partnership highlights the collaboration between the renowned Japanese contemporary artist Takashi Murakami and Major League Baseball (MLB), bringing together two cultural icons to celebrate two of the league’s most storied teams for a limited-edition collection of collectibles and merchandise. The collection celebrates the deep cultural connection between America’s favorite pastime and its influence in Japan. Featuring Murakami’s iconic vibrant colors and playful motifs, the exclusive series brings a fresh, artistic perspective to MLB merchandise and memorabilia, making it a must-have for baseball fans, art enthusiasts and collectors.

The collection goes on sale March 8 at 2:00 AM JST online on the Fanatics app, Complex.com, and MLBShop.JP and will be available at the Fanatics and Complex Tokyo pop-up event March 8-21 and the MLB SHOP at Tokyo Dome Mar 14-19. The collection will also be on display at the MLB SHOP at Miyashita Park from Mar 6-23.

Complex Tokyo Pop-Up Event

An exclusive pop-up event will be held in Tokyo at 1 Chome-20-6 Jingumae, Shibuya, Tokyo 150-0001 from Saturday, March 8 – Friday, Mar 21 beginning at 11:00 AM JST. The event will showcase the limited-edition merchandise, Murakami-inspired installations, and historical MLB vignettes, offering fans a chance to engage with both the collection and Murakami’s visionary artwork.

Reservations are required and can be made at: https://t.livepocket.jp/t/l92b6.

Important Notes for Tokyo pop-up entry:

All visitors must reserve a 30-minute time slot on https://t.livepocket.jp/t/l92b6 before arrival. Only visitors with confirmed reservations will be allowed entry with line up for entry beginning on March 8 at 10:50 AM JST.Entry Restriction Period: March 8, 2025March 21, 2025Limit: One entry per person per day during the restriction period. Customers will be limited to three items total per visit.Limited Stock: Items will sell out once stock runs out.Sales Methods May Change: Adjustments may be made based on demand and logistics, please check website and social for updates.For real-time updates, please follow @universal_music_store_harajukuVisit the official website https://t.livepocket.jp/t/l92b6 for more information.

Takashi Murakami x MLB Tokyo Series Collection

The Fanatics and Complex collaboration brings together two of MLB’s most iconic teams: the Los Angeles Dodgers and Chicago Cubs, infusing Murakami’s signature style across an array of exclusive products from global sports platform Fanatics, including Nike MLB t-shirts and hoodies, alongside signature pieces – official Nike Los Angeles Dodgers and Chicago Cubs MLB Limited jerseys. The Fanatics apparel collection, which will incorporate Murakami’s iconic floral artwork, will also be available on individual player Nike MLB Limited jerseys for Dodgers players Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman and Cubs players Shota Imanaga, Seiya Suzuki, and Dansby Swanson. Fanatics Collectibles – which owns the brand Topps – will also be a part of this partnership, with a trading card set featuring Murakami’s artwork.  The chase card in that limited-offering set: a one-of-one dual-autograph card of Murakami and Ohtani, sure to be one of the most desirable and rare cards of all time.

In addition to wearable merchandise, the collection will also include New Era 59FIFTYs, knits and adjustable caps, Rawlings® baseballs, Victus bats, totes, keychains and more.

As part of the collaboration, Murakami’s Ohana Hatake, a first-of-its-kind brand led by the legendary artist, will introduce two brand new, limited-edition slides. The new release embodies Murakami’s iconic flower motif and showcases the Chicago Cubs and Los Angeles Dodgers logos on the inventive Surippa Ohana silhouette.

For more information on the Takashi Murakami x MLB Tokyo Series collection, please visit: the Fanatics App, Complex.com and follow MLB, Complex and Fanatics.

ABOUT FANATICS
Fanatics is building a leading global digital sports platform. We ignite the passions of global sports fans and maximize the presence and reach for our hundreds of sports partners globally by offering products and services across Fanatics Commerce, Fanatics Collectibles, and Fanatics Betting & Gaming, allowing sports fans to Buy, Collect, and Bet.

Through the Fanatics platform, sports fans can buy licensed fan gear, jerseys, lifestyle and streetwear products, headwear, and hardgoods; collect physical and digital trading cards, sports memorabilia, and other digital assets; and bet as the company builds its Sportsbook and iGaming platform.

Fanatics has an established database of over 100 million global sports fans; a global partner network with approximately 900 sports properties, including major national and international professional sports leagues, players associations, teams, colleges, college conferences and retail partners, 2,500 athletes and celebrities, and 200 exclusive athletes; and over 2,000 retail locations, including its Lids retail stores. Our more than 22,000 employees are committed to relentlessly enhancing the fan experience and delighting sports fans globally.

For additional information please visit www.fanaticsinc.com

ABOUT COMPLEX
Complex is the definitive platform for global youth culture and music lifestyle, seamlessly integrating cutting-edge content, commerce and live experiences with unparalleled scale.

Whether through video, long-form text, or social media, Complex tells stories of streetwear and style, music, sports, art and beyond. Its content engages in a dynamic conversation with the audience, reflecting and shaping the zeitgeist of convergence culture.

A powerful media juggernaut paired with a curated marketplace, Complex is redefining the way fans interact with their favorite brands and artists and reshaping the future of digital culture and commerce. Complex’s strategic partnership with Universal Music Group will deliver unparalleled experiences and exclusive collaborations to passionate music fans.

ABOUT TAKASHI MURAKAMI
The originator and proponent of Superflat theory, which reconstructs Japanese traditional paintings and the origin of Japanese contemporary art through visual premises of anime and manga. Murakami has created numerous characters including Miss Ko2 and Mr. DOB that reflect the otaku culture and presents them in the forms of intentionally kitsch sculptures and acutely two-dimensional paintings antithetical to the Western perspective techniques. Murakami’s cultural theory based on subcultures not only deconstructs the highbrow/lowbrow hierarchy but critically illustrates the post-World War II Japanese psychology, establishing a discourse unique to Japan in the increasingly globalizing art scene. The artist continues to attract a wide-ranging audience beyond contemporary art through his multifaceted activities including his collaboration with Louis Vuitton and focuses on street culture and contemporary ceramics. The final installment of his Superflat trilogy of curated exhibitions, Little Boy: The Arts of Japan’s Exploding Subculture (New York, 2005), was awarded The Best Thematic Museum Show in New York by AICA that year. His first retrospective, ©MURAKAMI (2007 – 2009) toured four cities in North America and Europe, starting with the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. He has since been holding major solo exhibitions around the world, including at the Palace of Versailles (2010), Al RiwaqExhibition Hall (Doha, 2012), the Mori Art Museum (Tokyo, 2015), the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art (Moscow, 2017), Tai Kwun Contemporary (Hong Kong, 2019), The Broad (Los Angeles, 2022), Asian Art Museum of San Francisco (San Francisco, 2023), and Kyoto City KYOCERA Museum of Art (Kyoto, 2024).

ABOUT MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL
Major League Baseball (MLB) is the most historic professional sports league in the United States and consists of 30 member clubs in the U.S. and Canada, representing the highest level of professional baseball. Led by Commissioner Robert D. Manfred, Jr., MLB has achieved back-to-back attendance gains for the first time in 12 years with an overall increase of +11% and 80% of Clubs welcoming more fans over the last two seasons following extensive rule changes that have improved the quality of play on the field. With the 2024 season featuring the best time of game in 40 years and the most stolen bases in 109 years, MLB viewership increased across all its national media partners, grew international viewership by +18%, set another record for MLB.TV streaming with more than 14 billion minutes watched and earned League of the Year honors from Sports Business Journal and the CLIOS.  As the league increased its marketing efforts and promotion of star players like 2024 NL MVP Shohei Ohtani and 2024 AL MVP Aaron Judge, MLB has significantly increased its younger fan base as evidenced through viewership, social media, ticket purchasing, and participation metrics.  Through its MLB Together social responsibility efforts, MLB remains committed to making a positive impact in the communities of the U.S., Canada and throughout the world.  With the continued success of MLB Network, MLB digital platforms and local media production and distribution, MLB continues to find innovative ways for its fans to enjoy America’s National Pastime and a truly global game. To learn more about MLB, please visit www.mlb.com.

Photo – https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2633979/Complex_2025_MLB_TOKYO_SERIES.jpg 
Logo – https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2425300/5199214/Complex_Logo.jpg 

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SOURCE Complex

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Chef Robotics Physical AI Models Can Now Automate Baked Goods Packing

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SAN FRANCISCO, April 29, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Chef Robotics, a leader in physical AI for the food industry, today announced that Chef robots can now automate tray assembly for baked goods packing. The application places baked products, such as burger buns, chocolate chip cookies, biscotti, butter cookies, biscuits, fortune cookies, granola bars, rusks, and shortbreads into trays and packaging containers before sealing.

Watch Chef robots in action.

Baked goods packing has historically been difficult to automate for high-mix production. Each item behaves differently on the production line—a granola bar compresses under the wrong grip, while a biscotti or rusk can crack if placed at the wrong angle. Surface textures range from glazed and smooth to crumbly and irregular, and strict presentation requirements leave little room for error. This variability has made it challenging for automation systems to reliably handle baked goods at production speeds, leaving food manufacturers dependent on manual labor and traditional bakery equipment.

To address this, Chef built its baked goods packing application on its existing piece-picking capability, which uses Chef’s AI-powered computer vision and physical AI models trained across diverse real-world production environments. This allows Chef robots to assess each item’s position, shape, and orientation in real time and determine how to pick the items from the pan and place them quickly and precisely without damaging them.

The baked goods packing application supports four distinct placement capabilities.

First, Chef’s vision system detects the angle at which each item sits in the pan and reorients it after picking, placing it on the tray at the exact angle required, regardless of its original position, enabling retail-ready presentation for SKUs that require precise angular placement.

Second, Chef robots can place multiple baked goods into the same packaging container in a single automated pass, completing full tray assembly without manual intervention.

Third, for packaging containers with multiple small compartments, Chef robots can precisely place items into each designated section, including multiple items in the same compartment, using Chef’s AI vision model to detect compartment positions and orientations in real time.

Fourth, Chef’s vision system identifies the exact center of each tray and places every item at a predefined offset from that center, ensuring a uniform, consistent arrangement across every pack regardless of how trays arrive on the conveyor.

For food manufacturers evaluating bakery systems and baked goods packaging automation, the application offers higher throughput, reduced labor dependency, and consistent presentation across shifts. The capability runs on Chef’s existing robotic hardware and software, allowing manufacturers to deploy it without requiring any changes to their production lines.

Chef’s baked goods packing application is available in the U.S., Canada, Germany, and the UK and is included as part of Chef’s robotics-as-a-service (RaaS) pricing model.

About Chef Robotics
Chef is the first company to have commercialized a scalable AI-driven food robotics solution. With over 104 million servings made in production, Chef leverages ChefOS, an AI platform for food manipulation, to offer a Robotics-as-a-Service solution that helps industry-leading food companies increase production volume and meet demand. Headquartered in San Francisco, CA, Chef aims to empower humans to do what humans do best by accelerating the advent of intelligent machines. Visit https://chefrobotics.ai to learn more.

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/chef-robotics-physical-ai-models-can-now-automate-baked-goods-packing-302756923.html

SOURCE Chef Robotics

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Chef Robotics Physical AI Models Can Now Automate Baked Goods Packing

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SAN FRANCISCO, April 29, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Chef Robotics, a leader in physical AI for the food industry, today announced that Chef robots can now automate tray assembly for baked goods packing. The application places baked products, such as burger buns, chocolate chip cookies, biscotti, butter cookies, biscuits, fortune cookies, granola bars, rusks, and shortbreads into trays and packaging containers before sealing.

Watch Chef robots in action.

Baked goods packing has historically been difficult to automate for high-mix production. Each item behaves differently on the production line—a granola bar compresses under the wrong grip, while a biscotti or rusk can crack if placed at the wrong angle. Surface textures range from glazed and smooth to crumbly and irregular, and strict presentation requirements leave little room for error. This variability has made it challenging for automation systems to reliably handle baked goods at production speeds, leaving food manufacturers dependent on manual labor and traditional bakery equipment.

To address this, Chef built its baked goods packing application on its existing piece-picking capability, which uses Chef’s AI-powered computer vision and physical AI models trained across diverse real-world production environments. This allows Chef robots to assess each item’s position, shape, and orientation in real time and determine how to pick the items from the pan and place them quickly and precisely without damaging them.

The baked goods packing application supports four distinct placement capabilities.

First, Chef’s vision system detects the angle at which each item sits in the pan and reorients it after picking, placing it on the tray at the exact angle required, regardless of its original position, enabling retail-ready presentation for SKUs that require precise angular placement.

Second, Chef robots can place multiple baked goods into the same packaging container in a single automated pass, completing full tray assembly without manual intervention.

Third, for packaging containers with multiple small compartments, Chef robots can precisely place items into each designated section, including multiple items in the same compartment, using Chef’s AI vision model to detect compartment positions and orientations in real time.

Fourth, Chef’s vision system identifies the exact center of each tray and places every item at a predefined offset from that center, ensuring a uniform, consistent arrangement across every pack regardless of how trays arrive on the conveyor.

For food manufacturers evaluating bakery systems and baked goods packaging automation, the application offers higher throughput, reduced labor dependency, and consistent presentation across shifts. The capability runs on Chef’s existing robotic hardware and software, allowing manufacturers to deploy it without requiring any changes to their production lines.

Chef’s baked goods packing application is available in the U.S., Canada, Germany, and the UK and is included as part of Chef’s robotics-as-a-service (RaaS) pricing model.

About Chef Robotics
Chef is the first company to have commercialized a scalable AI-driven food robotics solution. With over 104 million servings made in production, Chef leverages ChefOS, an AI platform for food manipulation, to offer a Robotics-as-a-Service solution that helps industry-leading food companies increase production volume and meet demand. Headquartered in San Francisco, CA, Chef aims to empower humans to do what humans do best by accelerating the advent of intelligent machines. Visit https://chefrobotics.ai to learn more.

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/chef-robotics-physical-ai-models-can-now-automate-baked-goods-packing-302756923.html

SOURCE Chef Robotics

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Air Products to Expand Industrial Gas Supply for Samsung Electronics’ Next-Generation Semiconductor Fab in South Korea

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New investment underscores the company’s long-term commitment to Korea and its leading role in the global semiconductor industry 

LEHIGH VALLEY, Pa., April 29, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Air Products (NYSE:APD), a world-leading industrial gases company and serving Samsung globally, today announced it has been selected by Samsung to supply industrial gases for its new advanced semiconductor fab in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province, South Korea.

Under the agreement, Air Products will build, own and operate multiple state-of-the-art production facilities and a bulk specialty gas supply system to supply nitrogen, oxygen, argon, and hydrogen for Samsung’s new semiconductor fab. The new facilities are expected to come onstream in multiple phases from 2028 through 2030.

Air Products has a long track record of executing multiple phase expansions in Pyeongtaek to support Samsung’s growing manufacturing needs. This latest project represents Air Products’ largest investment to date in the semiconductor industry and will establish Pyeongtaek as the company’s single largest operations site globally supporting the electronics industry. 

“Air Products is honored to be selected once again by Samsung and to have their continued confidence as a trusted partner supporting their strategic growth plans,” said SR Kim, President, Air Products Korea. “This significant investment reinforces Air Products’ role as a leading global supplier to the semiconductor industry and underscores our long-standing commitment to supporting our strategic customers with safety, reliability, efficiency and excellent service.”

Air Products has served the global electronics industry for more than 40 years, supplying industrial gases safely and reliably to many of the world’s leading technology companies. The company has operated in Korea for more than 50 years and has established a strong position in electronics and manufacturing sectors.

About Air Products

Air Products (NYSE: APD) is a world-leading industrial gases company in operation for over 85 years focused on serving energy, environmental, and emerging markets and generating a cleaner future. The Company supplies essential industrial gases, related equipment and applications expertise to customers in dozens of industries, including refining, chemicals, metals, electronics, manufacturing, medical and food. As the leading global supplier of hydrogen, Air Products also develops, engineers, builds, owns and operates some of the world’s largest clean hydrogen projects, supporting the transition to low- and zero-carbon energy in the industrial and heavy-duty transportation sectors. Through its sale of equipment businesses, the Company also provides turbomachinery, membrane systems and cryogenic containers globally.

Air Products had fiscal 2025 sales of $12 billion from operations in approximately 50 countries. For more information, visit airproducts.com or follow us on LinkedInXFacebook or Instagram.

This release contains “forward-looking statements” within the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are based on management’s expectations and assumptions as of the date of this release and are not guarantees of future performance. While forward-looking statements are made in good faith and based on assumptions, expectations and projections that management believes are reasonable based on currently available information, actual performance and financial results may differ materially from projections and estimates expressed in the forward-looking statements because of many factors, including the risk factors described in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended September 30, 2025 and other factors disclosed in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Except as required by law, we disclaim any obligation or undertaking to update or revise any forward-looking statements contained herein to reflect any change in the assumptions, beliefs or expectations or any change in events, conditions or circumstances upon which any such forward-looking statements are based.

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SOURCE Air Products

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