Will Automated Driving Become Universal?
The automobile world is yet another sector in which the Internet of Things (IOT) is progressing rapidly. However, awareness of this has been slow to penetrate in Japan. While attending a conference on the theme of Tokyo in the year 2030, I felt a strong sense of uneasiness when a participant raised the question: “Where should hydrogen refueling stations be located?” The automobile continues to metamorphose into a computer on wheels and, without a doubt, in the future through the IOT, it will undergo the greatest change of all. Just as motorization transformed the world’s cities in the past, incorporation …
The ultimate security, created through biology!?
Achieve innovation through “leaps of thought.” In early October, I was invited to attend the 12th Science and Technology for Society (STS) Forum held in Kyoto, where I made a presentation at its plenary session. Over 1,000 participants attended this annual event, which invites Nobel laureates from various countries, along with leaders from politics, business, and the media. The theme of the session at which I spoke was “Society Changed by Information and Communications Technology (ICT).” One of the topics I touched on was the factors shared by some of the world’s rapid-growth enterprises. Take Uber, for example. Despite becoming …
No assurance of security, even for company intranets
Zero trust may be the sole solution While visiting various parts of the United States in August, I came away with the impression that major changes had occurred in the ways society reacts to cyber security. Previously, such concerns had typically focused on the leaking of credit card numbers, and countermeasures that mainly involved halting use of cards with those numbers, and the issuing of new cards. A headache—to be sure—but one that involved damage that was manageable. More recently, however, troubles have involved a lot more than the simple theft of data. Now, information such as the content of …
Portuguese Folk Tale “Stone Soup” Useful for Japanese Workplaces
I have said, any number of times, that I believe it will not be so difficult for Japanese corporations to display creativity and regain a leading position in the world. When asked what needs to be done to this end, I suggest the three following points: 1. Build teams based on deep communication 2. Empower subordinates with authority and responsibility 3. Provide sufficient incentives for staff, based on fairness and transparency Of the above, I have previously touched on items 2 and 3. Here, I’d like to discuss building teams based on deep communication. This may be the most difficult, …
Japan’s Galapagos Syndrome
There’s been a constant stream of news recently related to artificial intelligence. The future is likely to be one in which robots play active roles in society—perhaps even relegating humans to insignificance. To prevent this from happening, it will be necessary for education to nurture creativity and imagination. At present, the approach used in exams in Japan typically resembles the equation “7+3=?” from which the answer can be derived . . . . In other countries, it’s more common in examinations to see questions such as “__ x __ = 24” that make students consider several possible answers. The difference …