Document

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
- 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： 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： 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： 3０/1０ 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 ５.５M 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 -）
--------From The Yomiuri of Jan.3, 2003
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2001年情報通信白書より
of information&communications
by the Ministry of the Management and Coordination
T yen
120
Production amount
100
80
60
40
20
0
1995
1990
1985
2001
Year
IT
Transp. Machine
Steel
Fig.４ 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 ２００K
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, 1３Ｍ 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.”
ＧＰＳs（Global Positioning Systems）,
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： 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
- A walking robot like dog
 ４．４
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 --- “Con-veni（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 ＩＴ
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.
(２)
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
Expression
Mind(brain）
Sensors
（Thirst，hunger，…）
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 of di
存在性、ほか
危険性
Memory
Plan generator
Reasoning
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 agents
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.
 Thus, future computers will
resemble more and more humans.


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