Information Technology in the 21st Century
Mr. Kiyoshi Yamakawa
Corporate Advisor
Sony Corporation
Good morning, and thank you for inviting me to participate today.
I have been with Sony for 36 years and during all that time, our company has always worked to stay ahead of each new wave of technology.
As we move into the 21st Century, Sony is in the process of a corporate restructuring to transform our organization into a Netcentric coompany, with both our business operations and our products and services connected to the Web.
In terms of new products, Sony's offerings for the 21st century are smarter and they reflect the changes in lifestyle which the new century is bringing. As many of you may know, in the past year we introduced the AIBO, a robotic dog which has the ability to express emotions, learn and adapt its behavior. It is battery-powered and is able to store knowledge acquired from its owner to a Sony Memory Stick - a tiny digital media storage stick in the shape of a piece of chewing gum, which can record audio, video, and data. The information on the Memory Stick enables the Aibo, in effect, to LEARN AND MATURE.
This robotic dog with a learning device inside can be a playmate for children, or a companion for the elderly. While today Aibo can recognize its favorite color (which happens to be shocking pink...), future innovation should even allow this pet to recognize human faces. The Aibo is a fascinating new product, made possible to digital technology, which Sony hopes will serve as an Open Robot architecture to be shared and developed with other companies.
Another new product with Sony, which indicates the future of technology lifestyle, is the Playstation 2, released just this month, It is the most powerful games machine in the world with an "Emotion Engine" producing higher quality images at a faster rate and a DVD player for movies. By next year, via a new high-speed connector, the Playstation will also be on the Network.
The application of technology doesn't stop with the products themselves. Internet sales are growing everyday. Sony sold 980 thousand Playstations in just the first few days after their release in Japan. 380 thousand of those were sold through the Internet. We experienced the same phenomenon with the Aibo, where we conducted our entire sale over the Web.
But perhaps what is most significant about today's electronics is that they are all platforms onto which future innovations in technology will be added, producing more possibilities and interest in the next century.
Of all inventions of the last century, certainly the computer and Internet have the greatest impact on our business now. The ever-increasing capacity and speed of chips allow us to make more powerful products, and the Internet has connected us and made our market more global.
By and large the United States has been the leader in these developments; and English has been then ~ language of the Internet and PC. But, at the turn of this new century, I see some exciting developments in IT which may end up creating a much more diverse Internet and communications world. Possibly, one which will narrow the digital divide that we hear so much about today. Let me give a recent example from my own country, Japan.
It is often said that the introduction of the PC has been very slow in Japan. But there is a new trend in digital technology, which is greatly expanding the number of Japanese who are connecting to the Internet- this is the i-mode system. And it is enjoying great success in Japan because it is tailored so well to the specifics of the Japanese market.
i-mode was launched by NTT Do Co Mo (subsidiary of Nippon Telephone and Telegraphy) last year. It is a system which uses wireless technology to handles email, make bank transactions, and receive contents from the ~ Internet - all on a cellular phone. This system also offers such services as finding the distance to a train, subway station, bank or restaurant by using a tri-angle measurement method. This last feature, in particular, is extremely useful in Japan, where it is often very hard to find addresses in the big cities.
In terms of functionality, (it works over a cellular phone) and because of its services, the i-mode is uniquely appropriate for the Japanese market, where people are very mobile and typically use public transportation. With the help of their very small cell phones, they can conduct business, get important information, send e-mail and arrange to meet friends and colleagues.
In addition to that capability, i-mode can receive weather forecasts, news articles, karaoke music, and graphic characters - all in all, its accesses more than 7000 different contents.
Most significant however, is the fact that, unlike PCs, i-mode is based on a Japanese-language operation system. Users can type in 46 basic Japanese characters (katakana and hiragana), using only ten keys-from 1 to 9 and sero. Then, they can use a converter key to access over 6300 unique Japanese kanji characters.
Ordinary Japanese teenagers are the majority of i-mode users. Japanese speakers who are not proficient in English and who do not own a PC can now access and enjoy the technology of the Internet, Presently, over 5 million people in Japan are using the i-mode system and there are 56 million registered cellular phones in Japan. As you can see, the possibilities for Internet access, via non-PC devices is immense.
Using the technology employed in the i-mode, individual systems based on language and relevant cultural conditions, can be developed all over the Asian region -in China, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, Korea, etc. That means that vastly greater numbers of people can experience the enhanced of lifestyle that the Internet affords.
Formerly, Internet access could take place only through an alpha-numerical keyboard. But, using a character-based i-mode-type system and wireless technology, millions of people, speaking different languages can access the wealth of information available on the Web.
That includes entertainment media but it also involves medical references, historical and scientific information, and when systems are interfaced with one another, the ability to communicate with people in other places.
It also means that in a world where we are facing great ecological challenges, people will be able to access information in a way which saves energy and resources.
In this introduction, I have suggested just three types o new technology which can revolutionize our lives in the future. The Aibo, the Playstation and the I-mode system are all the types of platform on which many new applications can be developed.
In the last century, we moved from the airplane to the Internet. It is impossible to tell where we will be by the end of this century. But, in order to preserve and reinforce the diversity of today's world for the next century, we need to continue adapting our technology.
While in the past, IT innovations made the world a smaller place, in the 21st century perhaps IT can also be an agent for promoting regional distinctions and allowing all of the world's community to benefit from advancement.