Interesting People mailing list archives
IP: Tokyo Diary #1
From: Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>
Date: Sun, 03 Dec 2000 14:35:07 +0900
I arrived in Tokyo on Wed 29 Nov after a long and uneventful flight from Chicago. I make record time through Japanese Immigration and met Hiro HASHIZUME . We had a slow ride into Tokyo with the usual traffic mess one finds in Tokyo all hours. I stayed at his new house in west Tokyo. It has been featured in several architecture magazines and is wonderful. I delicious blend of Japanese and modern. On Thursday am I was picked up by a car for the trip to NTT DoCoMo Labs near Yokohama . It took us close to 3 hours due to Tokyo traffic. I had a brief but impressive tour of the Labs. It has 800 engineers and scientists and is focused on wireless. Most are aiming at 3G but about 20% are starting work on 4G and some small amount on 5G.. They are in the process of doubling the physical size and person power of the Labs. At a time when the US labs are going down, this one is on its way up. After a "French" lunch at a nearby "French Country Inn" I was driven to NYY DoCoMo's Headquarters in Tokyo and met with Keiji Tachikawa Pres and CEO for 10 minutes either right before or after the press conference on their ATT purchase. He is an insightful person who asked what I thought of the Lab and other more focused issues. I then went back to Hiro's for a home made Soba dinner -- from scratch. Friday I went to the new National Institute for Informatics (that word again) and gave a talk and heard about their planned version of Internet 2 -- same problems and maybe missed opportunities. After the NII I visited eputy Director General Yoshikai of MITI Our 1/2 hour meeting turned into 1 and 1/2 hours. Some observations. Japan is worried that they are slipping further and further behind the US in communications., at least networking. They are piling money at it again with the same hazy focus from what I can see and hear as the 5th generation computing (not everything however). I am told that the Prime Minister make a point of saying that IP V6 will be the key to Japans rise in networking. Well maybe , I was not convinced but .. Long discussion followed in the meeting. Saturday I wen to the Akihabara. Crowed and it's usual great place. I looked at camera, mp3 players and computers. Prices are less that the USA. I bough a 9 hour dictation unit -- small!!. and a MP3 convertible watch . NEAT and styled for the mod generation. -- or is it generation Z.. I will report more on this latter. Today I went to the cameral area and saw nothing very exciting but crowds . Time to nap Dave Farber In Tokyo, my cell phone is +81 (0) 90 4964 2242 For archives see: http://www.interesting-people.org/
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- IP: Tokyo Diary #1 Dave Farber (Dec 02)