Half a year has passed since the 311 incident. There was a Magnitude 9.0 earthquake, which led to tsunami, fire, landslide, and nuclear power plant accident.
311 was a chance for the media to change their attitudes- for example, NHK (National TV station of Japan) allowed a junior highschool student to livestream their news contents on Ustream, and they ended up livestreaming themselves, too. They also officially uploaded some of the video clips on YouTube which you can see here:
Many citizens shot videos of the tsunami as well- to keep these lessons in mind for the future, I will post some of those clips here:
Tsunami in Oirase
Kesennuma
Otsuchi
Minami Sanriku
Kamaishi
Sendai Airport
A ship of Maritime Safety Agency crossing the tsunami
Fukushima Power Plant explosion
Fukushima nuclear power plant after explosion
There still are people working IN that power plant to cool down and terminate the reactor... video message from them.
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed here are my own, and do not reflect those of my employer.
2011/09/18
2011/08/10
Climbing Mt.Fuji
Last weekend I went to climb Mt.Fuji- the highest mountain in Japan for the first time in my life.
Photo CC-BY TANAKA Juuyoh (田中十洋)
It was an event called "IT Fuji". The event started around 10 years ago with a bunch of researchers with geeky gears climbing Mt.Fuji with lots of sensors and GPS, etc trying to learn how they can utilize IT in the mountains. They played on the mountain with those gadgets so much that recently they've become pretty normal mountain climbers- at least that's what I heard ;) Here are some tips from our trip:
How to get to Mt.Fuji:
Take the "Fujikyu Bus" from Shinjuku station - it takes you directly to Mt.Fuji's 3rd station (3goume) and 5th station (5 goume). Reserve your seat well in advance for early morning buses.
Climbing schedule:
Typically you leave Tokyo in the morning and arrive at 5th station, have lunch and climb up to 8th station where there are lots of lodges and huts. You can eat dinner, take a nap and leave 8th station around 23-1AM to head to the top of the mountain and watch the sunrise. Sunrise from Mt. Fuji is considered very precious and is called Goraikou(御来光) meaning honorable delivery of light. After you reach the top and watch the sunrise, you can either wander at the top - this walk is called Ohachimeguri (お鉢巡り), or you can head back down. Visiting the hot spring -Onsen (温泉) after the climb is highly recommended :D
What to bring:
-backpack, make sure you have waterproof cover (to avoid rain and dust)
-trekking shoes
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed here are my own, and do not reflect those of my employer.
Photo CC-BY TANAKA Juuyoh (田中十洋)
It was an event called "IT Fuji". The event started around 10 years ago with a bunch of researchers with geeky gears climbing Mt.Fuji with lots of sensors and GPS, etc trying to learn how they can utilize IT in the mountains. They played on the mountain with those gadgets so much that recently they've become pretty normal mountain climbers- at least that's what I heard ;) Here are some tips from our trip:
How to get to Mt.Fuji:
Take the "Fujikyu Bus" from Shinjuku station - it takes you directly to Mt.Fuji's 3rd station (3goume) and 5th station (5 goume). Reserve your seat well in advance for early morning buses.
Climbing schedule:
Typically you leave Tokyo in the morning and arrive at 5th station, have lunch and climb up to 8th station where there are lots of lodges and huts. You can eat dinner, take a nap and leave 8th station around 23-1AM to head to the top of the mountain and watch the sunrise. Sunrise from Mt. Fuji is considered very precious and is called Goraikou(御来光) meaning honorable delivery of light. After you reach the top and watch the sunrise, you can either wander at the top - this walk is called Ohachimeguri (お鉢巡り), or you can head back down. Visiting the hot spring -Onsen (温泉) after the climb is highly recommended :D
What to bring:
-backpack, make sure you have waterproof cover (to avoid rain and dust)
-trekking shoes
-warm clothes for the top (it's freezing cold up there even during hot summer)
-light clothes for the bottom (it's hot during summer)
-heat tech T-shirts (clothes that will dry quick is desirable)
-gloves
-climbing stick
-raincoat (umbrellas won't work)
-headlamp (flashlights won't work)
-money (to buy drinks/snacks and pay for the toilets, coins are better)
-mobile phone (to communicate with your team mates. It fairly works!)
-snacks and drinks (don't bring too much since they will be heavy)
-hat/cap (to avoid sunburn)
-sunscreen (to avoid sunburn)
-medical mask (to avoid the dust)
might be good to have
-Oxygen (I didn't use it at all so I don't know if it's effective but saw lots of people using it)
It was foggy/rainy when we started climbing, but didn't rain that hard.
It was actually raining really hard when we were taking a nap at 8th station, but the sky cleared up when we started climbing at 1AM... we were lucky!
This is a typical lodge. They have sleeping bags that you can take a short nap before heading to the top.
Just before the sunrise, it became so cloudy that we almost thought we'll miss the Goraikou (sunrise)...
Then the sky started to clear up
Sunrise! 御来光！
I think it was rather good that we had some clouds since the reflections were so beautiful :D
You can see the clouds down below. The red object is Torii (鳥居) .
Appendix: One of my colleagues asked me to bring Android figure with me to Mt.Fuji and here is the evidence!
-light clothes for the bottom (it's hot during summer)
-heat tech T-shirts (clothes that will dry quick is desirable)
-gloves
-climbing stick
-raincoat (umbrellas won't work)
-headlamp (flashlights won't work)
-money (to buy drinks/snacks and pay for the toilets, coins are better)
-mobile phone (to communicate with your team mates. It fairly works!)
-snacks and drinks (don't bring too much since they will be heavy)
-hat/cap (to avoid sunburn)
-sunscreen (to avoid sunburn)
-medical mask (to avoid the dust)
might be good to have
-Oxygen (I didn't use it at all so I don't know if it's effective but saw lots of people using it)
It was foggy/rainy when we started climbing, but didn't rain that hard.
It was actually raining really hard when we were taking a nap at 8th station, but the sky cleared up when we started climbing at 1AM... we were lucky!
This is a typical lodge. They have sleeping bags that you can take a short nap before heading to the top.
Just before the sunrise, it became so cloudy that we almost thought we'll miss the Goraikou (sunrise)...
Then the sky started to clear up
Sunrise! 御来光！
I think it was rather good that we had some clouds since the reflections were so beautiful :D
You can see the clouds down below. The red object is Torii (鳥居) .
Appendix: One of my colleagues asked me to bring Android figure with me to Mt.Fuji and here is the evidence!
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed here are my own, and do not reflect those of my employer.
2011/06/19
What can you do with your brain wave?
There's a lot of visualization and applications recently using brain waves.
One of the most popular ones was this one by Ariel Garten, CEO of Interaxon presented at LeWeb2010. You can watch her speech "Thought Controlled Computing" here:
Yes, we were sitting there in the audience watching her brain wave while she talks ;)
What about the Japanese usage of brain waves? There's a bunch of interesting installations, but I'll introduce a cute one here - "Necomimi" by Neurowear project. You wear cat's ear shaped device which would lay down if you are relaxed, stick up if you are concentrated.
Looks like I was concentrated when I tried it this time ;)
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed here are my own, and do not reflect those of my employer.
One of the most popular ones was this one by Ariel Garten, CEO of Interaxon presented at LeWeb2010. You can watch her speech "Thought Controlled Computing" here:
Yes, we were sitting there in the audience watching her brain wave while she talks ;)
What about the Japanese usage of brain waves? There's a bunch of interesting installations, but I'll introduce a cute one here - "Necomimi" by Neurowear project. You wear cat's ear shaped device which would lay down if you are relaxed, stick up if you are concentrated.
Looks like I was concentrated when I tried it this time ;)
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed here are my own, and do not reflect those of my employer.
2010/11/03
Flat rate international roaming packet services
For the Japanese folks, this info is a bit old. But I realized talking with non-Japanese folks that many of them didn't know this so I thought I'd write this post.
** The Problem **
Global roaming fee had been a headache for most travelers... the options were, we either:
1) give up and try to hop through wifi spots or go to internet cafes
... this was what I usually did when I was a traveler. Before that, I thought if I lose internet I might not be able to survive. Internet connection was like oxygen to me. I was totally Internet addicted, Twitter addicted. Actually I learned how to survive- I had no internet connection at all for 4 whole days trekking in Machu Picchu :)
2) get a local SIM
... I sometimes do this in U.S. when my stay is long. But it is annoying to do this in each country you go, you don't know the language and you don't know the pricing models in that country, you don't know which career is good etc... it is painful.
Update 11/3:
@miyagawa taught me an awesome wiki "Pay as you go sim with data Wiki"
See also his blog post "Hacking Japanese mobile plans for geeks (or travelers)"
Thank you for the info Miyagawa-san!
3) use the SIM from the country of origin and "behave" not to use too much packets
... this is what people usually does.
4) use the SIM from the country of origin and use it as you want to.
... this is called "パケ死 (packet death)"
** The Solution **
In order to solve this problem, Japanese mobile carriers - Softbank and NTT docomo started to provide flat rate international roaming packet services several months ago.
Info in English for Softbank's service for iPhone/iPad
Info in English for NTT docomo's service
** How did this happen? **
Masayoshi Son, CEO of mobile carrier Softbank received a mention to his Twitter account (@masason) in April to request flat rate international roaming packet service. Maybe he already had some kind of plan already before replying, but his reply was " Let's consider that". A month later, he comes back with the tweet that Softbank will actually start that service from July. Some of the tweets from the conversation:
2010-04-23
2010-04-25
2010-05-12
2010-05-14
2010-06-28
** But wait... is this really feasible? **
Softbank needs to pay other carriers - is it really possible to do flat rate?
Disclaimer:
The opinions expressed herein are my own and do not represent my employer’s views in any way. Nothing posted here should be considered official or sanctioned by my employer or any other organization I’m affiliated with.
** The Problem **
Global roaming fee had been a headache for most travelers... the options were, we either:
1) give up and try to hop through wifi spots or go to internet cafes
... this was what I usually did when I was a traveler. Before that, I thought if I lose internet I might not be able to survive. Internet connection was like oxygen to me. I was totally Internet addicted, Twitter addicted. Actually I learned how to survive- I had no internet connection at all for 4 whole days trekking in Machu Picchu :)
2) get a local SIM
... I sometimes do this in U.S. when my stay is long. But it is annoying to do this in each country you go, you don't know the language and you don't know the pricing models in that country, you don't know which career is good etc... it is painful.
Update 11/3:
@miyagawa taught me an awesome wiki "Pay as you go sim with data Wiki"
See also his blog post "Hacking Japanese mobile plans for geeks (or travelers)"
Thank you for the info Miyagawa-san!
3) use the SIM from the country of origin and "behave" not to use too much packets
... this is what people usually does.
4) use the SIM from the country of origin and use it as you want to.
... this is called "パケ死 (packet death)"
** The Solution **
In order to solve this problem, Japanese mobile carriers - Softbank and NTT docomo started to provide flat rate international roaming packet services several months ago.
Info in English for Softbank's service for iPhone/iPad
Info in English for NTT docomo's service
** How did this happen? **
Masayoshi Son, CEO of mobile carrier Softbank received a mention to his Twitter account (@masason) in April to request flat rate international roaming packet service. Maybe he already had some kind of plan already before replying, but his reply was " Let's consider that". A month later, he comes back with the tweet that Softbank will actually start that service from July. Some of the tweets from the conversation:
2010-04-23
User: Can't you do anything about the ridiculously expensive international roaming cost?
Son-san: Let's consider providing flat rate international roaming packet service from countries that are possible.
出来る国から海外パケホーダイを検討してみましょう。RT @OKAMOTOAtusi: 海外ローミングの法外な価格設定だけはなんとかなりませんか。
2010-04-25
User: Son-sama, if you can make the packets I tweet overseas a flat rate, I will run to Softbank shop and switch to Softbank now!
Son-san: Will consider providing it from countries that are possible.
出来る国から検討します。RT @chisato_mzn: @masason 孫さま、海外でツイした分も一定料金にしていただけたら、今すぐショップに走ってソフトバンクに乗り換えます！
2010-05-12
User: Even if iPad is SIM locked, it would not be a problem if global roaming fee is fixed price.
Son-san: Let's do it. From major countries. Flat rate international roaming packet service.
User: Please do it with iPhone too.
Son-san: Yes.
はい。RT @eisuke0312: iPhoneでもお願いします。 RT @masasonやりましょう。主要国から。海外パケ定額。RT @hayatomo0711: iPadがSIMロックされていても、普通なら問題ないと思うんです。海外ローミングの料金さえなんとかしてしてくれたら…
2010-05-14
User: I can't use (data) outside Japan with current price setting!
Son-san: Fixed. We will start flat rate international roaming packet service from late July in major countries. Details to follow.
決定しました。海外パケ定額7月下旬に主要国開始。詳細は後日。RT @hemolelelilia: @masason 今の料金設定では海外で使えません‼
2010-06-28
Son-san: We're ready. Starting flat rate international roaming packet service from 7/21. Countries fixed. You will be released from several 10,000 yen packet costs. http://bit.ly/bHrive
出来ました。7/21から海外パケ定開始。対象国も確定。数万円のパケット代から解放。http://bit.ly/bHrive
** But wait... is this really feasible? **
Softbank needs to pay other carriers - is it really possible to do flat rate?
User: Uh, are you going to be OK? lol
Son-san: If you use too much, we will be in the red. Please don't be too hard on us.
皆さんが、ガンガン使うと当方かなり赤字。お手柔らかに。RT @terrysaito だ、
大丈夫なのか？ w RT 出来ました。7/21から海外パケ定開始。対象国も確定。
数万円のパケット代から解放。http://bit.ly/bHrive
Disclaimer:
The opinions expressed herein are my own and do not represent my employer’s views in any way. Nothing posted here should be considered official or sanctioned by my employer or any other organization I’m affiliated with.
2010/06/27
World Cup Soccer - Go go Japan!
**FIFA World Cup 2010**
FIFA World Cup Soccer Tournament is held right now in South Africa. Many Japanese soccer fans flew to watch the matches.
(photo via Twitpic of @KNNkanada)
Japan is ranked 43rd in the FIFA ranking, and it is our 4th participation in the matches. Despite all the pessimistic views before the tournament, Japan ended the group stage matches with 2-1 result (won against Cameroon and Denmark, lost against Netherlands) and made it to the knockout stage... yay!
The next match for Japan is against Paraguay, will be aired on TBS television on 6/29 23:00 Japan Time.
Japan co-hosted Worldcup 2002 with South Korea and is bidding for hosting Worldcup 2022 now.
Official website for WorldCup Bidding is here. Concept video for the bid can be seen here:
As you can see from the video, Japanese bidding team is trying to use various technologies to make the experience richer... automatic interpretation device to communicate, augmented reality (AR) devices will be provided to view information of the players etc realtime, " Freeviewpoint Vision" will capture videos in the soccer field using 200 high definition cameras, "Full Court 3D Vision" enables the viewers to watch the matches using 3D technology, etc.
They even had a PSP in their official "bid book"
OH and don't forget- Japan is the country that Yoichi Takahashi, the author of Captain Tsubasa or Flash Kicker was born, right? He joined the world cup bidding event held in Yokohama. You can see a couple of articles here and here with his photos. (I wish they'd make those photos CC licensed...!)
(photo via Twitpic of @KNNkanada)
Japan is ranked 43rd in the FIFA ranking, and it is our 4th participation in the matches. Despite all the pessimistic views before the tournament, Japan ended the group stage matches with 2-1 result (won against Cameroon and Denmark, lost against Netherlands) and made it to the knockout stage... yay!
The next match for Japan is against Paraguay, will be aired on TBS television on 6/29 23:00 Japan Time.
Update 6/30: Japan lost the match vs Paraguay (PK) but it was a very very close match. They did a really great job!
**Bidding for FIFA World Cup2022**
Japan co-hosted Worldcup 2002 with South Korea and is bidding for hosting Worldcup 2022 now.
Official website for WorldCup Bidding is here. Concept video for the bid can be seen here:
As you can see from the video, Japanese bidding team is trying to use various technologies to make the experience richer... automatic interpretation device to communicate, augmented reality (AR) devices will be provided to view information of the players etc realtime, " Freeviewpoint Vision" will capture videos in the soccer field using 200 high definition cameras, "Full Court 3D Vision" enables the viewers to watch the matches using 3D technology, etc.
They even had a PSP in their official "bid book"
This is the photo of the bidding team which I took at their report event after the official bidding. 2nd from the right you can find Professor Jun Murai- father of the Internet of Japan joining the bidding team.
OH and don't forget- Japan is the country that Yoichi Takahashi, the author of Captain Tsubasa or Flash Kicker was born, right? He joined the world cup bidding event held in Yokohama. You can see a couple of articles here and here with his photos. (I wish they'd make those photos CC licensed...!)
2010/06/26
TEDxTokyo
Last month on May 15th, I was involved in organizing an event called TEDxTokyo 2010.
Some of the performances don't need language. Amazing Ukulele performance by Jake Shimabukuro:
Performance by Cirque du Soleil:
As TEDxTokyo is in held in Japan, we had some very traditional Japanese performances by Japanese artists such as Kamikiri by Imamaru Hayashiya:
Also noh performance by Naohiko Umewaka:
Some speeches were about advanced technology of Japan, Dr. Yoshiyuki Sankai showing his HAL system which is a robot suit that enables the disabled people to stand up or walk, weak people to hold heavy loads etc.
Morinosuke Kawaguchi talks about the Japanese super-advanced toilets.
Some talked about the lost values of Japan. Dr. Hiroshi Tasaka talks about the age of "invisible capitalism".
Azby Brown talks about how the sustainable practices of the Japanese Edo era can serve as a model for the modern world.
Some talked about how Japan can contribute to the world- Kentaro Toyama talks about The Technology for Emerging Markets research group which investigates ways the world's poorer communities can harness technology to drive their socioeconomic development.
Kanae Doi shares her experiences from NPO "Human Rights Watch" on how Japan should be helping more refugees around the world.
Jakob Lusensky talks about branding using music, but the presentation was received by the audience that his insights can be applied in various areas.
Industrial designer Kiyoyuki 'Ken' Okuyama shares his thoughts on how society and space is changing and how companies/people should change the way design spaces and products to meet those changes.
Some of the speakers comes back! Techno Magician Marco Tempest's performance from TEDxTokyo2009:
This is Marco's performance from TEDxTokyo2010:
I'm getting tempted to introduce all of the speakers but this post is becoming too long already- all of the videos from TEDxTokyo can be seen here :)
If you are not familiar with Rinpa, check out this video. I'm a big fan of them.
Photo from the stage when all of the staffs and volunteers got on stage:
What is TED?
TED stands for Technology, Entertainment and Design, it is an invitation-only annual conference held in long beach, with amazing speakers and participants from all over the world. Originally it was a closed conference, but they started to provide their video online using Creative Commons license which helped them spread the word. They also launched a translation project with which 4,000 volunteer translators worked on over 9,000 videos to 77 languages so far, which helped non-English speakers all over the world to learn about, and learn from TED conference videos.
What is TEDx?
TED licensed their brand for free as "TEDx" so that anyone who abides to the TEDx guidelines are able to hold their own TEDx event. They can either view the past TED videos together or invite their own speakers to talk. During the past year, 1,000 TEDx events were held all over the world in 70 countries with 35 languages, and more than 50,000 people participated. It is becoming a big phenomenon. The great thing about TEDx is that people around the world are using their own creativity harmonizing with their own expertize and culture to make interesting events happen, and most of them are streamed live and/or video recorded and uploaded on YouTube.
If you go to this channel, you'll be able to find tons of interesting videos from TEDx all around the world (1,874 videos as of 6/26）.
What is TEDxTokyo?
TEDxTokyo is one of the TEDx events held in Tokyo, we held 2 TEDxTokyo events so far, one on 2009/5/22 and another on 2010/5/15 both of which were amazing and I am very proud of being in the organizing team :) I was serving as social media Japanese lead in charge of @TEDxTokyo_ja (Japanese language tweets).
We had amazing speakers- the following is speaker list from this year (link on speaker names goes to speaker profile, link on video links to the videos)
FIRST DECADE
FIVE SENSES + ONE
One of the great things about TEDxTokyo is that everything is operated as volunteer work. We as staffs met up at 7AM in the morning at the venue (Mirai Kan). It was a great sunny day!
TED stands for Technology, Entertainment and Design, it is an invitation-only annual conference held in long beach, with amazing speakers and participants from all over the world. Originally it was a closed conference, but they started to provide their video online using Creative Commons license which helped them spread the word. They also launched a translation project with which 4,000 volunteer translators worked on over 9,000 videos to 77 languages so far, which helped non-English speakers all over the world to learn about, and learn from TED conference videos.
What is TEDx?
TED licensed their brand for free as "TEDx" so that anyone who abides to the TEDx guidelines are able to hold their own TEDx event. They can either view the past TED videos together or invite their own speakers to talk. During the past year, 1,000 TEDx events were held all over the world in 70 countries with 35 languages, and more than 50,000 people participated. It is becoming a big phenomenon. The great thing about TEDx is that people around the world are using their own creativity harmonizing with their own expertize and culture to make interesting events happen, and most of them are streamed live and/or video recorded and uploaded on YouTube.
If you go to this channel, you'll be able to find tons of interesting videos from TEDx all around the world (1,874 videos as of 6/26）.
What is TEDxTokyo?
TEDxTokyo is one of the TEDx events held in Tokyo, we held 2 TEDxTokyo events so far, one on 2009/5/22 and another on 2010/5/15 both of which were amazing and I am very proud of being in the organizing team :) I was serving as social media Japanese lead in charge of @TEDxTokyo_ja (Japanese language tweets).
We had amazing speakers- the following is speaker list from this year (link on speaker names goes to speaker profile, link on video links to the videos)
FIRST DECADE
- Jake Shimabukuro, Musician and Composer
- Lara Stein, Global TEDx Director, Producer, Performer
- Jesper Koll, Economist, Global Financial Analyst, Investor
- Jin Tatsumura, Prize-Winning Filmmaker
- Drue Kataoka, Sumi-e Artist
- Kentaro Toyama, Ex-Computer Scientist
- Derek Silvers, How to Start a Movement (video)
- Azby Brown, Architect, Artist, Author
- Noriko Kawamura, Concert Violinist and Music Explorer
- Dr. Yoshiyuki Sankai, Professor and Roboticist
- Tim Berners Lee, Inventor of the World Wide Web (video)
- Dr. Hiroshi Tasaka, Philosopher, Author, Global Thought Leader
- Hitoshi Murayama, Theoretical Physicist and Director, Institute for
the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe - Owen Rogers, Design Thinker, Branding Artist, Entrepreneur
- Hayashiya Imamaru, Traditional Vaudevillian and Grand Master of Japanese Paper Cutting
- Marco Tempest, Techno-Illusionist
- Matteo Ceccarini, Painter, Illustrator and Comic Artist
- Kanae Doi, International Legal Expert and Human Rights Advocate
- David Hanson, Designing Life-like Social Robots (video)
- Rome Kanda, Actor, Comedian and Producer
- Ken Mogi, Brain Scientist, Author and Essayist
- Jakob Lusensky, Musical Branding Thought Leader
- Ginger Ana Griep-Ruiz, Cirque du Soleil’s ZED
- Bob Stilger and Annie Stilger Virnig, Global Community Connectors and Developers
- Karen Armstrong, TED Prize Winner – Charter for Compassion (video)
- Morinosuke Kawaguchi, Technology Consultant, Subculture-driven
Innovations Expert - Kiyoyuki “Ken” Okuyama, Industrial Design Master and Mentor
- Hans Reitz, Social Business Advocate and Serial Entrepreneur
- Naohiko Umewaka, Noh Master, Playwright, Theater Director and Scholar
One of the great things about TEDxTokyo is that everything is operated as volunteer work. We as staffs met up at 7AM in the morning at the venue (Mirai Kan). It was a great sunny day!
Some of the performances don't need language. Amazing Ukulele performance by Jake Shimabukuro:
Performance by Cirque du Soleil:
As TEDxTokyo is in held in Japan, we had some very traditional Japanese performances by Japanese artists such as Kamikiri by Imamaru Hayashiya:
Also noh performance by Naohiko Umewaka:
Some speeches were about advanced technology of Japan, Dr. Yoshiyuki Sankai showing his HAL system which is a robot suit that enables the disabled people to stand up or walk, weak people to hold heavy loads etc.
Morinosuke Kawaguchi talks about the Japanese super-advanced toilets.
Some talked about the lost values of Japan. Dr. Hiroshi Tasaka talks about the age of "invisible capitalism".
Azby Brown talks about how the sustainable practices of the Japanese Edo era can serve as a model for the modern world.
Some talked about how Japan can contribute to the world- Kentaro Toyama talks about The Technology for Emerging Markets research group which investigates ways the world's poorer communities can harness technology to drive their socioeconomic development.
Kanae Doi shares her experiences from NPO "Human Rights Watch" on how Japan should be helping more refugees around the world.
Jakob Lusensky talks about branding using music, but the presentation was received by the audience that his insights can be applied in various areas.
Industrial designer Kiyoyuki 'Ken' Okuyama shares his thoughts on how society and space is changing and how companies/people should change the way design spaces and products to meet those changes.
Some of the speakers comes back! Techno Magician Marco Tempest's performance from TEDxTokyo2009:
This is Marco's performance from TEDxTokyo2010:
I'm getting tempted to introduce all of the speakers but this post is becoming too long already- all of the videos from TEDxTokyo can be seen here :)
The other great thing about TEDxTokyo is that it is basically invitation only, and the audience are amazing people as well. Some of the speakers this year were audiences last year, and some of the speakers from last year came again as audience this year. I think it is becoming an amazing community.
Mario Tokoro, speaker last year participates as audience this year:
Joi who couldn't join last year participated this year as an audience.
As the organizing team is volunteer work too, the video shooting and streaming team brought their equipments for free and worked for us. It was amazing.
There were amazing things happening even outside the main hall. Rinpa Eshidan was live painting the walls during the event.
If you are not familiar with Rinpa, check out this video. I'm a big fan of them.
Sponsor booth by the sponsors:
Lunch time was fascinating too. Lots of interesting people, doing interesting things.
HAL (robot suit) was walking around at the lunch venue:
Imamaru-san was doing kamikiri (paper cutting) during lunch time too:
Tesla- one of our sponsors brought a Tesla car to the venue:
Our Ustream team was working on interviews during lunch time as well:
I would like to thank all the speakers, sponsors and partners, organizing staffs and volunteers, audiences at the venue as well as on the live stream! Also, many thanks to the social media team- Steve Nagata, Joseph Tame and Paul Papadimitriou!
BTW, I love how speeches at TED are always so inspiring and loved this Ten commandments:
If you are able to read Japanese, it looks like I wrote 31 posts about TEDxTokyo in Japanese here :P
BTW, I love how speeches at TED are always so inspiring and loved this Ten commandments:
Thou Shalt Not Simply Trot Out thy Usual Shtick.Thou Shalt Dream a Great Dream, or Show Forth a Wondrous New Thing, Or Share SomethingThou Hast Never Shared Before.Thou Shalt Reveal thy Curiosity and Thy Passion.Thou Shalt Tell a Story.Thou Shalt Freely Comment on the Utterances of Other Speakers for the Sake of Blessed Connection and Exquisite Controversy.Thou Shalt Not Flaunt thine Ego. Be Thou Vulnerable. Speak of thy Failure as well as thy Success.Thou Shalt Not Sell from the Stage: Neither thy Company, thy Goods, thy Writings, nor thy Desperate need for Funding; Lest Thou be Cast Aside into Outer Darkness.Thou Shalt Remember all the while: Laughter is Good.Thou Shalt Not Read thy Speech.Thou Shalt Not Steal the Time of Them that Follow Thee.
If you are able to read Japanese, it looks like I wrote 31 posts about TEDxTokyo in Japanese here :P
2010/06/14
Spacecraft Hayabusa's return to the Earth
Last night, Japanese netizens were filled with excitement watching Japanese spacecraft "Hayabusa" return from its 7 years mission to explore asteroid "Itokawa". Hayabusa's trip was not easy- it lost communications with the earth, had various technical problems. But the Japanese scientists had overcome such difficulties and brought Hayabusa back home, which was bound to explode entering the earth's aerospace to bring back a capsule containing a sample of Itokawa and land in Australia.
If the capsule indeed carries a sample of astroid, it will be a big scientific success as it will have precious clues to understand the origin and evolution of the Solar System.
（photo：JAXA Hayabusa Mission press kit）
Although this mission demonstrates an excellent example of how Japanese scientists had overcome difficulties and achieved a world class success, none of the TV stations reported this live - yes, they were reporting world cup- and people watched live streams from Ustream and NicoNicoDouga and shared their excitement on Twitter.
Screenshot of Hayabusa's re-entry and turning into firebolt
Control room was Ustreamed as well, with over 63,000 viewers
Video of the re-entry taken by NASA
Hayabusa was shooting photos before its re-entry to the earth's atmosphere- see how lower part of the photo has lots of noise- it entered the earth's atmosphere before finishing the data transmission...
(c)Jaxa on Twitpic
A figure characterizing Hayabusa is going to be on sale.
If the capsule indeed carries a sample of astroid, it will be a big scientific success as it will have precious clues to understand the origin and evolution of the Solar System.
JAXA's website on Hayabusa
Spacecraft Hayabusa
BBC "Japanese Hayabusa asteroid mission comes home"
BBC "Who thought asteroids were dull, dumb rocks?"
BBC "A perfect view of the asteroid capsule's Earth return"
BBC "Who thought asteroids were dull, dumb rocks?"
BBC "A perfect view of the asteroid capsule's Earth return"
Asteroid Itokawa
（photo：JAXA Hayabusa Mission press kit）
Although this mission demonstrates an excellent example of how Japanese scientists had overcome difficulties and achieved a world class success, none of the TV stations reported this live - yes, they were reporting world cup- and people watched live streams from Ustream and NicoNicoDouga and shared their excitement on Twitter.
This is an archive of Ustream by Wakayama University.
Screenshot of Hayabusa's re-entry and turning into firebolt
Control room was Ustreamed as well, with over 63,000 viewers
Video of the re-entry taken by NASA
As you can imagine, people were tweeting heavily about Hayabusa, and Hayabusa was tweeting too. "Hi everyone, I'm home" tweet by Hayabusa.
(c)Jaxa on Twitpic
You can see how Japanese netizens loved Hayabusa- Hayabusa cosplay of a girl with Itokawa at Make Tokyo Meeting 05.
Google Japan's doodle was Hayabusa
Someone created this "Welcome home" message for Hayabusa using Google Earth.
A figure characterizing Hayabusa is going to be on sale.
http://journal.mycom.co.jp/news/2010/06/10/059/index.html
Overview on HAYABUSA from JAXA's website:
May 9, 2003 Launched by the M-V-5 Rocket from Kagoshima Space Center.
May 27, 2003 Ion Engine operation started.
May 19, 2004 Orbit transfer using the Electric Propelled Delta-V Earth Gravity Assist
July 29, 2005 Performed the Star Tracker imaging of Itokawa.
September 12, 2005 Arrived at Itokawa. (about 20km away)
September 30, 2005 Arrived at the Home Position (about 7km away).
November 12, 2005 Released the probing robot ”Minerva”.
November 20, 2005 Performed the first touch down and release of the target marker with 880,000 autographs inside.
November 26, 2005 Performed the second touchdown.
December 8, 2005 Lost communication with the earth due to operation rupture by fuel leakage.
January 26, 2006 Resumed communication and operation.
January 18, 2007 Sample-catcher was actually transferred into the recovery capsule, and latched and sealed.
February, 2007 The ion engines ignited and operated again.
April 25, 2007 The homeward journey with an ion engine drive was started.
October 18, 2007 Finished first phase orbit maneuver toward Earth.
End of May, 2008 Reached the farthest deep space from the Earth.
February 4, 2009 Firing ion engine and starting second phase orbit maneuver to return to Earth.
November 4, 2009 Ion engine anomaly.
November 19, 2009 Resumed cruise by combining two partially working ion engines.
March 27, 2010 Finished second phase orbit maneuver toward Earth.
April to June, 2010 Trajectory Correction Maneuvers (TCMs)
June, 2010 Back to the Earth , capsule recovered.
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