Rump Sessions

A Beyond wearable electronics

Organizer:

Akira Fujiwara NTT BRL

Moderator:

Takao Someya The University of Tokyo

Panelists:

Magnus Berggren Linköping University
Motoki Nakano Activelink Co., Ltd
Hiroshi Onodera The University of Tokyo
Koji Sumitomo NTT BRL
Tsutomu Terada Kobe University

The communication tools that can be worn like clothes are called wearable devices (“wearables”), and they are eyed by the global researchers as detonators that lead ICT in the next generation. Recently, global companies introduce wearable computers which resemble standard eyeglasses or watches one after another. The market eye them for their potentials to sweep over smart phones or tablet PCs. New services of wearable are actively brought up or brain stormed in the world as well. For example, wearable devices are not just downsized communication tools, but, additional unique features of wearables, such as health-monitoring, are being combined. The strength of wearables that they do not impair the movement of the user allows new service concepts to arose; the new services are body condition monitoring during exercises or technical instructional supports during maintenances.

Though, various neo-wearables are introduced and gain global attentions, their goals or directions are somewhat not clear. Furthermore, just reducing electricity consumption and downsizing, such trends in conventional information communication terminals, are not enough for this new apparatuses. Some specific requirements imposed for the wearables are their softness and designs, nonetheless, what is expected of the devices and their materials remain less well-defined.

In this Rump session, we name the new wearables “Beyond wearable electronics” as they exceed the present eyeglass-types or watch-types. Our main focus is to determine the direction of electronic materials and devices, especially on the possibilities of flexible devices and stretchable materials, since this discussion is inevitable for realizing “Beyond wearable electronics”.

B Change the future through the strong collaborations among our society

Organizer/Moderator:

Hitoshi Wakabayashi Tokyo Institute of Technology

Panelists:

Shoji Kawahito Shizuoka University
Kazuhiko Matsumoto Osaka University
Chris Van Hoof imec
Shunri Oda Tokyo Institute of Technology
Yoshinobu Baba Nagoya University
Tetsuo Endoh Tohoku University

An information communication technology (ICT), based on a solid state device and materials, has been rapidly and globally changing the society. To accelerate the innovations more, the collaborations among industry and academia are strongly expected. In this rump session, we invited the excellent panelists, who have managed the one of the COI program to change the future society.

(COI: Center-of-Innovation program led by MEXT and JST of Japan)