Recent Trends of Information Technology in the Social Life of Japan
OKADA Naoyuki Professor Emeritus
Kyushu Institute of Technology University of Warsaw Aug.27, 2005
Contents 1. Introduction 2. IT Policy 3. Trends of IT Industry 4. IT in Everyday Life 5. Future of IT 6. Conclusions
Chapter 1 Introduction History
of IT Early ’40s – ’80s: Growing era Birth and growth of computer technology Hardware ： large computer Software ： operating system Database ： large-scale electronic file
　 Applications - The privilege in constructing a system is given to computers. - The first is efficiency of work.
Since ’90s: Grown-up era Human and computer collaborate each other, composing an information system. Human: adaptive processing, broad & general judgment, friendly treatment Computer: fast & correct processing, narrow & deep judgment, monotonous 　 repetition
Applications - Human beings are put at the center of an information system. - Computers are introduced to support human beings
The role that Japan played Growing era
- Design and manufacture of large-scale computers and word processors - Development of large-scale electronic dictionaries of vocabulary and concepts
Grown-up era - Development of network systems - Design and manufacture of mobile devices connected to internet
Current states of Japan 　 Era of chaos or groping ď ľ
- What kind of IT policy should Japan carry out? - Can IT industry revive? - How much do we need IT in everyday life? - How does science contribute to IT? We lack the principle to solve these problems.
Chapter ２ I T Policy ２．１
The e-Japan tactics
The government made a five-year IT plan, “e-Japan tactics” in January 2001 aiming at the most advanced IT country of the world. Key phrases (１) (２) (３) (４)
Super-highway network Electronic dealing Electronic government Able persons
Goals of e-Japan tactics Education ďźš to receive a high education in whatever conditions such as geographical, physical or economical one may be. Art&Science: to appreciate artistic or literary works wherever one may be, and to promote the distribution of digital contents. Medical Service ďźš emergent treatment of home-stay patients, or high-quality service of remote place ones
Work ： to do work at one’s home, being released from commuting Life ： to enjoy recent movies, popular TVprograms, or joyful communications with remote families or friends wherever one may be Industry ： global dealing whatever the scale of a company may be Administration ： to get various public certificates or to report tax payment at one’s home --------
２．２
Carrying out
( １ ) Super-highway network - Restudy of various regulations of electric and communications business, e.g. assignment of the band of radio-frequency - Improvement of digital divide
(2) Electronic dealing - Restudy of the Antitrust Law, or establishment of a new regulation for the protection of privacy
(3)
Electronic government
- Making the documents of the government/ municipalities electronic files, and processing them with on-line - To open the information of administration or to order public enterprises through the Internet (4) Able persons - To improve the level of information literacy of all the people, and to train IT leaders - To train IT engineers and researchers, and to educates contents creators aiming at the highest level of the world
２．３
Midterm results
The government reported the midterm results in July 2002. ( １ ) Super-highway network - Super-/ordinary highway network connectable for 24 hours Goal ： 3 ０ /1 ０ M(illion) families Result ： 34/14 - Connection rate ２，５００ yen/month （ the cheapest of the world ）
( ２ ) Electronic dealing - Scale of the dealing market Business companies vs business companies Goal: 7 T(rillion) yen Result: 3.4 Business companies vs consumers Goal: 300 B(illion) yen Result: 1.5 - Restudy or establishment of related laws The fundamental laws, e.g. rights for intellectual property, have been completed.
(3) Electronic government - Bills making the administrative procedures on-line were introduced in the Diet - Electronic bids were partially introduced for public enterprises (4) Able persons - Training course of information literacy Fundamental: About ５ . ５ M persons Professional: About 1.4K - Internet connection of all the public schools Approximately 40 thousand elementary, middle, and high schools Goal: 100% Result: 100%
２．４ Evaluation
- The effort by the government could be recognized ． - But the world is making progress year by year. Spread of the Internet Sweden ６５％ , Japan ４４％（ the 16th place ） Electronic dealing market （ busi. vs busi. ） USA ４０％ , Japan １８％（ the 2nd place ） Plan of I T promotion USA IT-21C, EU eEUROPE-2000
Chapter 3 Trends of IT industry ３．１ Survey of thirty tops’ understanding The Japanese economy is suffering serious deflation now. A survey of the thirty tops’ understanding of the main companies in Japan was carried out at the beginning of 2001. The details ： manufacture ８， IT industry 6 ， financial 5 ， transportation 3 ， and others 8
Result ｰ overall 2
1
3
1
5
6
9 9
24 Gradually improving Heavy steps of imrovement Keeping a standstill Gradually falling down
Fig.1 Current state
Gradually improving Though at the bottom, heavy steps of improvement Keeping a standstill Gradually going back その他
Fig.2 Perspective of this year
From the Yomiuri of Jan. 3, 2003
Result ｰ IT Q. What is the leading industry of Japan after 3 through 5 years ？ A. 1st I T industry （ 13 tops ） 2nd Automobile industry(10 -) 3rd Bio-industry(9 ） 2003 From The Yomiuri of Jan.3, ---------
３．２ Trends of the whole IT industry The details (1) Post (2) Electric&communications (3) Broadcast (4) Software house (5) Information-related service (6) Manufacture of Information&communications device (7) Rent of information&communications device (8) Construction of electric&communications facility (9) Research
T yen 120 100 80 60 40 20 0
1985
1990
1995
2001
Fig. ３ Total amount of IT production From the white book 2001総務省 of information&communications 2001 年情報通信白書より by the Ministry of the Management and Coordination
T yen 120
Production amount
100 80 60 40 20 0 1985
1990
1995
2001
Year
IT
Transp. Machine
Steel
Fig. 　 Comparison with other industries From the white book 2001 of information&communications by the Ministry of the Management and Coordination
３．３ Trends of several fields (1) Communications a ． ” i-mode” Technology to connect the portable or personal handy-phones to the Internet - Japan took the lead in its development in 1992 - Number of users Japan About ３６Ｍ EU About ２００ K
Menu of i-mode - Weather/news/information - Mobile banking - Bill/card/insurance - Transportation/map/travel - Shopping/ticket - Gourmet - Life - Work/live/learn - Melody/karaoke
-----------
b. 　 Broadband Technology of communications circuits transmitting/receiving more than 500K bits per second Note : Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line
Human speech does not need the highfrequency band of telecommunications lines, which are used for the high-speed data transfer.
(2) 　 Post administration - The Agency of Post Business was transferred from an organization of the government to the Public Corporation in 2003. - Three categories of its business: Post, savings, and insurance - The post was partially released to private enterprises, but the savings and/or the insurance is not yet. When and how much?
(3) 　 Broadcast Digital broadcasts are getting popular. - Digitization makes it possible to improve as several times as high as the quality of images, and - to process the received contents at one’s home 
(4) 　 Information-related
industry ---
Robot industry - Robot control needs a high-level IT, in particular Artificial Intelligence (AI). - The number of the industry robots working in Japan are 360K approximately, and occupies 43% of the world. - The robots working at home or for welfare are actively being developed.
Chapter 4 IT in Everyday Life
Several sides affected by IT in everyday life
４．１ Communications---Telephone (1) Portable phones “ i-mode” ： mentioned above
“ Sha （写） -mail” ： a kind of e-mail technology that a portable phone can take photographs to attach them to e-mails
- Approximately ２３Ｍ portable phones will spread in Japan at the end of 2003, 1 ３Ｍ ones of which will be sha-mail. - Recent sha-mail can take moving pictures with sounds - Very popular among youngsters
(2) “ ＩＰ phones” A kind of communications technology that a home telephone can be connected to the other by a “protocol” which is used in the Internet. - In Japan, an Internet provider appeared recently whose telephone charge is free if both sides of a call are IP phones.
(3) Others---“Bone-conducting” telephone A kind of telephone used in noisy places or for weak persons in hearing - Pressing its receiver to one’s temple or the rear part of an ear - The vibration of the speech is conducted through skull, internal ear, and eventually brain ．
Transportation --- ”Car-navi.” ＧＰＳ s （ Global Positioning System s ） , which identifies one’s position using artificial satellites - Cars equipped with this system were released in the market of Japan in 1990 or so. ４．２
At the beginning, only the current position was displayed (often with a big error).
- Car-navigation systems today * From an ordinary map presentation to a bird’s eye one * Communications by speech * Root search from the current position to the goal * Offer of sight-seeing information along a root * Offer of traffic information by connecting to a transportation center * E-mails by connecting to the Internet
４．３ Broadcast --- Digital hi-vision
A TV system which transmits/receives digital electric waves to/from the satellite(s) above the equator. - As is called “hi-vision”, its images are clean and minute, because the number of the scanning lines increased from 512 to 1,125 per picture(frame).
- Big picture ďźš diagonal 32 inches,
width 30 inches or so - Very high presence rate sounds by putting five speakers at right and left, and front and rear sides - Both way communications between each TV terminal and the station
Iyashi (healing)”--- pet toys The people today suffer various kinds of stress, and so the industry healing them are popular in Japan. (1) Pet robot --- Sony’s ＡＩＢＯ ４．４ “
- A walking robot like dog
AIBO’s functions Feelings and instinct: Six kinds of feelings, e.g. joy or anger, and five kinds of instinct, e.g. curiosity or (charge) appetite Learning ： Knowledge through experiences Behavior ： Actions suitable for it’s age Sense and recognition: Sensors of light/ sound and recognition of speech/ images
（ 2 ） Dog language translator ---Takara’s Ｂｏｗｌｉｎｇｕａｌ A device which analyses dog’s voice, in particular, voice-prints to translate his/her feelings or mood into human sentences
- Recognition of six kinds of feelings, e.g. pleasure, demand, or threats - Thirty thousand translators were sold in ten days after the sale began. - The “Ig-Nobel Prize� was awarded to this translator by some scientific magazine concerning Harvard University, USA in 2002.
４．５ Retails --- “Conveni （ Convenience store) Retail stores such as vegetable store, fish shop, hardware store, and tailor’s disappear from downtown local cities recently. Instead, “con-venis” appear here and there, and sell necessary goods for everyday life for twenty-four hours.
- There can be found ITs from two points of view.
(1) Management Construction of powerful networks Head-quarter system Networks （ Special and Internet) Retail system Retail store １ POS, ATM, MMK,---
Physical-distribution center system
Dealer system
Retail store ｎ POS, ATM, MMK, ---
Fig. 5 Network systems of con-venis
(2) Goods Collection and delivery center of information - Receipt of post - Administration service, e.g. reservation of public facilities - Delivery of goods sold by the Internet - Banking, e.g. ＡＴＭ - Electronic dealing -----------
Chapter 5 Future of Ｉ Ｔ Making IT intelligent - IT of the growing era was centered around computers. ５．１
Science and technology of computer, communications, and network will be pursued more and more from now, too.
- The grown-up era gives the privilege to the human beings in the construction of information systems. 　
What kind of principle should we have in this era ?
- The Science Council of Japan reported in 1993 that computer science steps towards knowledge science, i.e. referring to the human intelligence. - So is IT, and the computer models of the mind gain more and more in importance.
５．２
Computer models of the mind
Intelligence dwells in the mind. Recent research in the fields of cognitive science and artificial intelligence throws light on the comprehensive mechanism of the mind.
Minsky’s model The mind is composed of a large number of small processors called “agent”. - An agent shares just a simple job. - Several agents meet to do a job, and several groups meet to do a little larger job. (1)
- Thus, the mind is a large set of agents, and is called “multi-agent system”.
- However, many problems remains unsolved in Minsky’s model. - Especially how AI technologies developed by each sub-field, e.g. natural language processing or pattern recognition can be incorporated into a computer model is not clear.
(ďź’)
The author’s model
The mind consists of six domains (functions) of processing. (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)
Recognition Reasoning&Design Emotion Expression Memory Language
Language Emotion
Memory
Reasoning&Design
Recognition
Sensors
（ Thirst ， hunger ，…）
Expression Mind(brain ）
Actuators
Body
（ Scene ， speech ，…） External world
（ Behavior ， speech ，…）
Fig.6 Okada’s model
Plan contoller
Control
Interrupt controller
Language Reasoning of behavior 実現可能性
PlanningEmotions Reasoning
Reasoning of di 存在性、ほか
危険性
Memory Plan generator
Simulator
Evaluator
認識・人間の存在性・交差点 1 Reasoning&Design
Recognition
認識・人間の存在性・館 1 前 1
認識・滑る可能性・池 1 認識・転ぶ可能性・池 1
Expression
認識・落ちる可能性・池 1
認識・人間の存在性・館 1 の池 1
Mind （ brain ）
Sensors （ Thurst,hunger… ）
認識・人間の存在性・池 1
認識・溺れる可能性・池 1
認識・人間の存在性・猟師小屋 1 前 1
認識・風邪をひく可能性・池 1
認識・人間の存在性・館 1 のぶどう棚 1
認識・凍死する可能性・池 1
認識・人間の存在性・橋 1 の東 1 Body
認識・滑る可能性・館 1 の池 1
Actuators
（ Scene ， External world speech ，…） ・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・
・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・
（ Behavior ， speech ，…） ・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・
・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・
５．３
Aesopworld
A system for implementing our model - It simulates the physical, mental activities of protagonists of Aesop Fables, e.g. The Fox and the Grapes.
Language
desire relieve thirst
plan eat fruits
Reasoning goal &Design relieve
Emotion
thirst
plan Drink water Controller
Memory Planknowledge Naturereasoning
Planner physiology thirst
Recognition
Plan generator Simulator
Expression
Evaluator
Reasoner reasoning water in pond
Sensors
reasoning pot in house
reasonin g human near pond
Fig.7 Chain activation of
Actuators
Language
Emotion
plan go to mansion to drink water Controller
Reasoning &Design Planner
Memory actionPlanknowledge movement to Naturemansion reasoning
Plan generator
Recognition
Simulator
Evaluator
Expression
Reaosner
Sensors
Actuators
Fig.8 Snapshot 1
Fig.9 Snapshot ２
Chapter 6 Conclusions IT in Japan is stepping into the mature era from the grown-up one. It’s doctrine is humanity, where the privilege in the information system is given to the human beings instead of computers.
Some of ITs will survive whereas others will disappear according to the doctrine. ď Ź Thus, future computers will resemble more and more humans. ď Ź