Des "ucodes" glisses dans les trottoirs peuvent guider vocalement un aveugle dont la canne blanche, reliee au "communicator", sert de lecteur.
Le systeme est capable de servir de guide touristique ou de donner des consignes de securite en cas de seisme en fonction du lieu ou l'on se trouve.
En partenariat avec les autorites, Ken Sakamura a deja installe des dizaines de milliers d'"ucodes" au Japon, notamment dans la capitale.
"Nous voulons faire de Tokyo la ville la plus avancee dans l'usage des nouvelles technologies de l'information et de la communication, pour la rendre plus sure, plus accueillante et plus facile a vivre", plaide M. Sakamura.
Son ambition ? "Que les +ucodes+, balises de guidage polyglottes, multimedia et reproductibles a l'infini, deviennent un standard universel, et Tokyo un modele", repond-il.
Conference organisers IDTechEx is now staging Printed Electronics Asia conference and exhibition in Tokyo, Japan, on 10-11th September.
The title, say the organisers, is carefully chosen because both organic and inorganic electronics have a great future. It is therefore best to explore all the possibilities and achievements.
One speaker Dr Yasuyuki Watanabe, of the Center for Frontier Science at Chiba University, says: “We believe that printed electronics is the key technology for advanced flexible electronic devices employing organic materials." He will talk on the topic of vertical transistors which can have better current handling and higher frequency performance. For example, ORFID in the US is printing vertical transistors.
Another speaker, Dr Zie Zhang from the Printed Electronics Department of Motorola in the USA says: “I believe that printed electronics offers a unique solution for applications that require low cost and conformal form factor. These are realised by high throughput printing manufacturing technologies and lower cost flexible material systems. Organic and inorganic inks are coexisting and complimenting each other. Skillful integration between organic and inorganic material systems by those creative engineers and scientists will result in creation of a large application portfolio. Printed electronics is capturing and creating markets where traditional silicon microelectronics is too rigid and expensive to apply.”
Raghu Das, Chief Executive of IDTechEx, says: “We shall explore all the applications and hot topics, including the impediments to commercialisation of printed electronics such as the slow progress in replacing indium tin oxide.”
“Printed and flexible thin film photovoltaics is moving forward very rapidly and I strongly recommend this event to learn the latest from Konarka, a world leader in organic photovoltaics that converts light to electricity anywhere,” says speaker John Gui, Vice President, Business Development, Asia, for the US company Konarka which is commercializing both inorganic and organic photovoltaics because the needs are so varied.
The printed electronics industry is full of surprises. For example, OLEDs have attracted the largest number of developers because they have a great future in flexible lighting and flexible displays when the reliability problems are overcome a“ a big challenge. However, the less glamorous electrophoretic displays are creating new markets right now, including e-books, e-posters and e-billboards.
“It is clear now that electrophoretic displays are set for very rapid growth and it is true that organic TFT starts to play a very critical role to enlarge the E-Paper market,” says Ryosuke Kuwada, talking of the flexible Thin Film Transistors (TFTs) that are needed. He is Vice President, Sales and Marketing, of E-Ink, the leading supplier of “imaging ink” for this purpose. Color versions are also coming along, so his lecture will be very interesting.
Other speakers at Printed Electronics Asia will be from the world’s largest manufacturer of mobile phones, Nokia, where David Lu, New Technology Manager, New Manufacturing Technology, Nokia USA, will talk on “Nokia's Requirements for Printed Electronics and what has been Done So Far”, and Hitachi will present on printed nanotube emitters. Sony will talk on printed TFTs for flexible displays and Professor Ken Sakamura of the Ubiquitous ID Center will describe the huge markets that will be created by these sensors and RFID. From Germany, a representative of PolyIC will describe how they are already selling fully printed organic RFID and allied products in 2007.
Nanoparticle inks are coming in very rapidly because they are more flexible and use less material and Seiko Epson and ULVAC will share their latest advances on this, with Konica Minolta revealing improved ink jet technology. Nanomaterials, and the challenges of printing them, will be a hot topic explored at the conference. Masaaki Oda of ULVAC says, “The printing dispersed nanoparticles will be very important for printed electronics in future. Of course ULVAC is a major supplier of equipment used to manufacture printed electronics already. I look forward to participating in this important conference." Nissan Chemical, Japan Research Institute and others will also make new announcements.
IDTechEx has hosted several successful RFID conferences in Tokyo, Japan but the Printed Electronics Asia conference, September 11-12 was a first for them. It was very successful. Indeed, it was sold out, with over 180 people attending and an exhibition. IDTechEx will now do a much bigger conference and exhibition on this subject in Tokyo next year. Many new trends were revealed by the international line up of best-in-class speakers.
For example, although it is popularly believed that open RFID systems controlled by EPCglobal are the only way to go with RFID, Professor Ken Sakamura of Tokyo University is now making major headway with his Ubiquitous ID Center. He said that he is not focussed around supply chain work like EPCglobal, with main attention on UHF tags but looking more generally and seeking a lower cost service. A trial of user services, enabled by ubiquitous RFID, in the Ginza district from January to March 2007 was very successful in providing aids both to the disabled and to tourists. It involved hand held displays downloading maps, navigation, records of routes taken and a wealth of other useful information including spoken and visual history of interesting buildings. You could even hold the device near a terminal in a subway and get a picture of the scene above without ascending to find out where you are.
Over 10,000 tags helped the disabled to navigate using smart white sticks and smart electric vehicles. The Japanese Ministry of Information has now announced that the scheme will roll out fully in 2009 and the governments of Australia, Thailand, Korea, Singapore, Vietnam and China behind trials in those countries already. Professor Sakamora's schemes involve passive and active tags of many frequencies and there is nothing equivalent to the 72,000 transistors in an EPC supply chain tag. Indeed, simplicity and very low cost are priorities, chipless tags will be embraced and many famous Japanese suppliers of RFID are heavily involved. Membership is already modestly priced and number issuance will be carried out at very low cost, they say. Both UID and EPC already seek to serve such applications as anti-counterfeiting of drugs, so collision is inevitable.
IDTechEx believes that the fears in East Asia that EPCglobal is American controlled are unfounded but we do acknowledge that other aspects of the UIC approach are very relevant to the needs of the marketplace.
The conference certainly gave the impression that the first multibillion dollar sales of printed electronics may be photovoltaics. Thin film cadmium sulphide photovoltaics has attracted over one billion dollars of business in the last few months and Copper Indium Gallium DiSulphide CIGS photovoltaics has led to the most factories being built, Nanosolar even ink jet printing them. However, Dye Sensitised Solar Cells DSSC have so many uniques that they will also carve out a big niche and Konarka gave a masterly summary of the big picture and their approach based on both DSSC, where their UK joint venture is already ink jet printing them and organic PV which is fast becoming a commercial prospect too, but for different markets. Konarka calls its organic product Power Plastic and Toppan Printing in Japan and Leonhard Kurz in Germany are partners bringing it to market. Some slides are shown below.
Un profesor japonés tendría ahora miles de millones de yenes
TOKIO (France Presse).— Si Ken Sakamura hubiera negociado sus creaciones en lugar de regalarlas sería uno de los hombres más ricos del mundo: sus programas informáticos hacen funcionar miles de millones de objetos.
El japonés Ken Sakamura, de 56 años, un visionario tan influyente como desinteresado, está realizando su último proyecto: diseminar microchips inteligente por todas partes, en especial en Tokio.
Este profesor de la universidad de Tokio es una autoridad científica en Japón, pero un desconocido fuera de su país.
Sin embargo, todo poseedor de autorradio, teléfono celular, grabador de DVD, horno de microondas, fax, televisor, lavadora o automóvil “made in Japan” utiliza alguna de sus invenciones.
Ken Sakamura inventó en los años 80 el primer sistema de explotación gratuito y modificable por cualquiera. Bautizado TRON, este sistema estaba destinado inicialmente a computadoras.
Sin embargo, suspendió su investigación al ser abandonado por sus socios industriales japoneses cuando los estadounidenses bloquearon la explotación de TRON en su territorio para proteger a su industria informática.
Toyota resucitó TRON en 1999 al decidir utilizarlo para sus automóviles. Los otros grupos japoneses también lo hicieron.
Este programa, fiable y ultrarrápido, está presente en la mayor parte de los aparatos electrónicos de marca japonesa.
Ken Sakamura calcula que las variantes de TRON le hubieran podido suponer mil millones de yenes de ingresos —más de 80,000 millones de dólares— si hubiera optado por comercializarlo en lugar de difundirlo gratis.
Los “ucodes” Su juguete ahora son los “ucodes”, chips o “marcadores electrónicos”, que sueña con colocar por todas partes.
Se trata de etiquetas de identificación por radiofrecuencias “que se pueden colocar en cualquier objeto. Igual que un código de barras, permiten acceder a informaciones pasando por un asistente numérico personal y, el día de mañana, con un teléfono celular”, explica el científico.
Un “ucode” pegado a una cajita de medicinas permite que el consumidor reciba, de forma visual y sonora, las instrucciones de uso. Unos “ucodes” en las aceras pueden guiar a un ciego, y su bastón, conectado al “communicator”, le sirve de lector. El sistema es capaz de servir de guía o de dar consignas en caso de sismo, en función del lugar donde se encuentre.
富士ソフトは,携帯型テレビ受信端末用ミドルウェア 「FSDTV Mobile 2.0」を発売した.同社の従来製品である「FSDTV Mobile」の機能を強化した. 既存のワンセグ放送受信機能に加えて, 地上デジタル放送(12セグ),デジタル・ラジオ(3セグ),海外の規格である DVB-T(Digital Video Broadcasting-Terrestrial), DVB-H(Digital Video Broadcasting for Handheld)に対応した.