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| >>Current State and Trends in Related Research Areas
Home and Abroad |
A main challenge today in the
field of networking concerns technological developments for wider coverage of
broadband and Ubiquitous systems and for improved information security, as these
areas will undoubtedly form the basis of new information services. For broadband
and Ubiquitous systems, mobile and wireless communication with a 100Mbps bandwidth
or greater will be essential. Concerning security, systematic studies based on
a verifiable approach are widely recognized as an important task. Only with the
adoption of such an approach, rather than proposing and testing individual techniques
separately ? a method still predominant in our country ? it becomes possible
to promote the e-Japan Project and to make a significant contribution to CSIRT,
an international body working for better solutions to Internet security problems.
Similarly, researchers of media content have so far largely concerned themselves
with separate subdomains such as image processing, sound processing, natural
language processing and robotics etc., and concentrated on exploring ways to
automate machine operations or replace human operations. However, now that the
vast improvement in base technologies and processing speed has made real-time
processing a reality, research envisaging a new era is taking shape both in Japan
and abroad, i.e. research in the direction of supporting human intellectual activities
(mixed and augmented reality, multi-modal interface, web search, robot as a human
partner etc.) through real-time interactions, not only machine-human interactions
but also interpersonal interactions using computers (e.g. MIT, CMU, North Carolina
University, Washington University, Technical University of Munich, Tsukuba University,
National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Tokyo University
and NAIST).
Considering this climate, it is likely that Ubiquitous Media Computing will form
a mainstream trend worldwide, as it aims to integrate network implementation
technologies and creative media content, both of which are considered key areas
for the e-Japan Project.
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| >>Target Research Achievements |
| Technologies for mobile networking and media content creation
are among the areas for which Japan is internationally regarded as one of the
most advanced. Our COE program aims to establish a strong research tradition
with an international scope by combining these two technological strengths for
which Japan is already renowned. Our aspiration is to lead the world in developing
cutting-edge technologies, giving rise to new industries thereby. Specifically,
information systems based on the new generation network technology that can assist
human activities anywhere and the robot that “lives with" human
partners and assists them with various everyday tasks (which, incidentally, represents
a uniquely Japanese concept) are examples for which we could expect further developments.
The effort to produce top level results and achieve technological progress is
certainly worthwhile purely from an academic viewpoint. However, it should also
be stressed that the social significance and impact of these research efforts
are of great consequence as the nation of Japan strives to achieve intellectual
independence in areas of research which have huge market potential, a condition
on which the future success of the e-Japan Project depends. |
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Ubiquitous
Networked Media Computing | 8916-5 Takayama, Ikoma Nara
630-0192, Japan | (0743) 72-5935
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