Lectures at Graduate School, Osaka University

I am teaching a technical course at the graduate school of computer science of Osaka University. The course details are described by my lecture notes http://micketoh.web.fc2.com/lecture_notes.htm (English lectures will be available upon your request.)
Jan. 29th was the last day of the class. That means I completed three-day lectures for FY2008 program. As you can see at the notes, my lectures consist of 1. technology and application trends in mobile communication, 2. mobile network architecture, 3. mobile internet, 4. servers in light of Google platform, 5. energy consumption issues in green IT development, 6. multimedia coding technologies including audio and video coding standards,7. international standardization organization inside and outside, 8. handset architecture, 9. AAA (Authentication, Authorization, Accounting）in mobile communication, 10. near field communication for e-commerce, 11. location oriented services, and 12. search technologies. The amount of the contents might go longer than 12-day-long lectures.
For example, my lecture of “multimedia coding technologies including audio and video coding standards” originally requires three days, while AAA in mobile communication may require also more than three days since it needs students to understand cipher technologies, PKI(public key infrastructure), challenge-and-response, etc. I squeezed the total contents into 1/10, which is a huge compression ratio in lectures. My students had a tough time in cramming the contents, where a new topic was discussed every single hour.

Here is a few parting thoughts.
I focused on explicitly teaching how to get onto real and real practical research topics by taking good examples in mobile communication area, and tried to attract the needs of the advanced students. “Research for research” in other words “artificially created research activity just for academic papers” has been completely out of scope of my lectures. So far, I am not sure how it worked.

The other thing is to realize the students importance of predicting the future. That is not an easy job or a task doable through the Google search engine which explores the world-wide archives. This is because future prediction has not been written yet. And only experts who are knowledgeable with insights in market demands and technology trends can do that.
In 2006, I predicted, together with my colleagues, the ways of news papers and CD deliveries would be replaced by another way with mobile communication in 2012.

The technology enablers are 3G Long Term Evolution(3G LTE) broadband wireless and display technologies. Here is a sign of that trend. An ipod software shows me a nation-wide news paper every morning with no charge. At this moment, that content delivery has been enabled by WiFi and ipod-touch though, the future eventually come around us (see also http://en.j-cast.com/2008/12/29032905.html).
The future is at the next corner.

High School Class Reunion Party

My new year started with a high-school class reunion party on January 3rd at Himeji Castle Hotel. Thirty years have passed since we left Tatsuno High School, where it had 10 classes at each grade, and 450 students, of which I was one. One hundred fifty old boys and girls out of 450 (which is 1/3 participation ratio) plus our former teachers got together and enjoyed the party. The details are posted on a blog site (unfortunately in Japanese) by party organizers at http://blogs.yahoo.co.jp/tatsuno_31s.

Thirty years have carved out several figures:
1. Our teachers have retired or are getting retired soon in a few years. They were younger, at that time, than the old boys and girls in 2009. That reminds me to think about that our days are being counted.
2. Generally speaking, it seems boys have got older in their appearance (say, spare tire, lower belly, or losing hairs) than girls. Boys’ fatal disadvantage is that they (including myself) can’t use cosmetics! Let me point out that girls cannot decorate their tone of voices. The tone of voices in 1979 was of high-keys!
3. I forgot many old girls who were next-door neighbors. It was a shame on my memories.

I really enjoyed chatting with my old friends, by recalling back episodes in my high-teen period. It was a fun and also a kind of bitter chocolate taste.

Apart from that main topic, I’ve got one observation on our communication structure.
Here in Japan, we don’t have a nation wide social network system (SNS) like Facebook in spirit of “connecting and networking the people in general.” In Tokyo area, around 30 (out of 450) high-school graduates are registered to a mailing list and using it for communication in our daily life. The entire connections of our old boys and girls, however, have not been well-organized yet so far. Of course, we are connected by high-speed optical wired networks and broadband wireless networks with cellular phones. The issue is a lack of application-layer communication organizing system. SNSs are very popular for younger generation, say generations X and Y. The coverage is limited for elders. The communication structure can be improved further by introducing a facebook-like communication organizer. Here is a good research topic to tackle.
Related to this topic, I had an interview from a tech writer last year. The interview was well summarized into the communications of the ACM 2008 December issue.
See, for your information, http://mags.acm.org/communications/200812/?pg=20

Nara in December

Before getting started with my New Year’s post, let me summarize my favorite places which I visited in 2008.

One of favorite places is Nara, which doesn’t mean “United States National Archives and Records Administration (NARA)” but stands for “the City” in ancient Japanese, and that was the ancient capital of Japan around the 8^th century.

Most of us know “Kyoto” as for the Japan’s ancient capital and that 2^nd oldest capital is very popular amongst Tokyoite and foreigners. My spirit of perversity, however, makes me prefer Nara to Kyoto. I love “Nara-machi” (old downtown of Nara) very much.

Thanks to US Air Force decision on indiscriminate bombing over Japan’s cities, Nara as well as Kyoto were off-sighted. Those cities haven’t been bombed and those were allowed to preserve over-1000 years heritage.

Evening around Koufuku-temple complex was quiet and peaceful. None could make

break that silence. The full-moon casted the shadow of the temple on the famous pond, “Sarusawano-Ike.”

Here are a couple of Japanese restaurants. One is “Mangyoku”, a Restaurant near Sarusawa Pond and the other is “Kura.” When I was working at ATR, I did bar-hopping so often in Nara-machi. Believe me that those serve traditional Japanese cuisine with good Sake.

(above, Mangyoku outlook)

(above, Kura)

Sake reminds me another restaurant located in Fushimi (just between Nara and Kyoto).

Torisei, that is a kind of tied-house which serves fresh Sake pumped directly from sake brewery tanks and Chicken BBQ.

(Torisei)

Nara is not only the city of so-called big temples but also the city of restaurants in the old historic town ,Nara-machi. See also http://www.eonet.ne.jp/~naramachiwalk/

The city was not so commercialized nor popularlized like Kyoto. Thus, the city preserves their uniqueness in terms of peaceful atmosphere.

Chateau Mont-Perat v.s. OpusOne Overture

Five wine addicts joined a wine tasting party held on Sunday, November 16, 2008, 2pm-8pm in Tokyo. According to the Wine Enjoyment Guide for a blind test,
http://www.winecountrygetaways.com/fun-wine-tasting.html, it is advised as
1. Twelve to sixteen people is about right for one of these wine tasting parties.
2. One bottle of wine can easily be poured in small amounts for 12 to 16 people.
3. Four to six wines for comparison and rating is about the right number.
4. Set a theme for the wine tasting.
5. Bag your wines.
6. Pour about 2 oz of wine in each glass.
7. Use our easy scoring sheet to score the wine. Then repeat with the next bottle of wine.
Our party was a bit different from the above advice, seven people were originally invited, since the seven is a magic number of glasses from one bottle. We don’t believe one bottle of wine is enough more than a dozen people for drinking as well as tasting. Unfortunately, two of the seven couldn’t make that day; one mistook Saturday for the party and the other had got injured by a traffic accident a week before. The five people were taking a bottle of Champaign, and five bottles of red wine. It meant one and one fifth bottle for each person. That was a great opportunity for the wine addicts. The above picture, from the left to the right, shows the five red wines which we selected:
1. Chateau Mont-Perat 2006, Merlot 80%, Cabernet Sauvignon 10%, Cabernet Franc 10%
2. N.V. Opus One Overture 2003?, Napa, CA. Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Malbec and Petite Verdot (that is what I brought from my precious stock.)
3. Brunello di Montalcino Granducato 2003, Motalcino, Toscana, Sangiovese
4. Domaine Philippe Charlopin-Parizot Marsannay, 2005 , Fixin, Côte d'Or, Pinot Noir and
5. Gary Farrell 2006,Russian River, CA, Pinot Noir
The theme was to confirm whether the Chateau Mont-Perat, a Bordeaux red blend wine from France, outperforms a Napa wana-be French, Overture.
The other theme in conjunction was whether we could tell the Russian River Pinot Noir from the Marsannay Pinot Noir. The Brunello was added as a wild card that was expected to hinder (in other words, to challenge) our sense of taste.
The result was miserable in terms of our excellence in tasting good wines. We could successfully categorize the two Bordeaux-type wines from the others and identify the Russian river as a Pinot Noir. One fault was the Marsannay and the Brunello were reversed. The Marsannay showed, unexpectedly from pinot noir grape, a strong structure and its rich taste and thus the Brunello was considered as the Pino Noir. The Brunello worked very well as the hindrance in that sense.
More than worse, the total evaluation results turned out deceptive since the Chateau Mont-Perat and the Overture were reversed also.
I didn’t expect that the French lower pedigree wine represented a typical and expensive Californian strong color and flavor, while the Overture represented a thin and elegant French delicate. So, that means a French wine is becoming more than Californian and vise versa. I together with the other participants lost the game.
Anyway, the party continued till 8pm and we really enjoyed the five bottle of red wines.

Tint of Autumn

November is my favorite month and my birthday month as well.
I haven’t known this: the Latin ‘novem’ means nine and it used to be the ninth month in history. It makes sense when considering that Oct. and Dec. mean eight and ten. January and February intervened before March.

When I visited Quebec City, Canada last September
(see http://picasaweb.google.co.jp/micknerd/QuebecInSept2008) , the temperature was about 5-13 degrees centigrade though, it was a bit early to see “Tint of Autumn.” I missed the best season to visit Quebec at that time.
I like autumn, needless to say, since Japan's muggy and humid summer is getting worse and is going beyond my tolerance. The summer exists to welcome the autumn in my understanding.

Having said that, I traveled Hokkaido, which is Japan’s most famous northern Island (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hokkaido) for sightseeing, early November in 2008.
I rented an all -wheel -drive car at Asahikawa Airport, and I hit the road to Furano.


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It was a marvelous drive and that made me FEEL Tint of Autumn in Hokkaido; that is my main purpose to visit there. Larch trees got golden colors, and maples trees were turning off with red colors already. There are not better chances other than in autumn. The mountains and valleys are never more beautiful and temperatures is nice and refreshing, and the air is perfectly clear.

Let us savor the season, autumn.

Today, I was on the way back from Osaka to Yokohama, and stopped over Kyoto, formerly the imperial capital of Japan from 8th century to 19th century.
This chance led me to go Sanzen-in temple in Ohara district (See http://www.artofjpn.com/kyoto/sanzenin.html for further information).

The best way to get there is 1) to take the sub-way from Kyoto Station to a north station called “International Conference Center” (19-minute ride) and 2) to take a bus from the north station to Ohara district (23-minute ride). The total toor took almost four hours for all the sightseeing including the public transportation rides.
Ohara district is well-known in terms of “a reserved and promised place” away from the bustle of Kyoto downtown. In that spirit, which I believe, Sanzen-in temple first build in 985 offered me a circumstance which welcomed me so softly with the November sky which was high and clear enough.

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Here is a Japanese delicate. I’ve never seen such a perfect and elegant mixture of the fresh green moss, the red of maple leaves, the blue sky and the patina atmosphere. Here is something more than peace.
It reminds me of another place and time with a close friend, who loved Yosemite... and passed away recently.

Primetime Emmy Engineering Award on August 23rd

I was invited to the ceremony for Primetime Emmy Engineering Award on August 23^rd at the Renaissance Hotel in Los Angeles.

It was a one-night stay and three-day business trip from Tokyo to L.A.

(I confirmed with a cabin attendant; this is exactly same as their working schedule.)

I left Yokohama 23^rd afternoon and got the hotel noon on the same day, and left L.A. next day, August　24th noon for Tokyo.

The 2008 Primetime Emmy Engineering Award, presented by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (ATAS), recognizes nine contributing companies to the JVT: Broadcom, Docomo, Dolby Laboratories, Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute, Microsoft, Motorola, Panasonic, Sony, and Thomson, as well as ISO, IEC, and ITU for the Development of the High Profile for H.264 / MPEG-4 AVC. Here the JVT stands for Joint Video Team Standards Committee. H.264 is now being used with Blu-ray Disc for high definition content delivery, and also for mobile multimedia content distribution over 3G network in Japan.

I represented Docomo at the winning ceremony. I know an “Emmy” is not only for actors and actress but also for engineers, while Emmys, in general, have been being considered the television equivalent to the Oscars^[1][2] . In 1996, JPEG, MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 were awarded Emmy for their technical contribution to the television,

I recall that I started my MPEG career in 1993 for MPEG-4 standardization, and completed my participation in 1997. After moving to Docomo from Panasonic, I was facing the emergence of H.26L (i.e., tentative project name of H.264 at that time). It was 2001, and to be honest with my friends, I was against that standardization activity, since Docomo just had started mobile multimedia applications with MPEG-4 simple profile over its 3rd generation mobile network. That was a simple timing issue, for which I thought the new standard was too early to be born. From the viewpoint of a technical person who had been trained to write patents in Panasonic, however, I decided to enter “the game.” My ex-colleague T. K. Tan joined my team, and Frank Bossen also started his contribution in docomo USA Labs (NOTE: I moved from Yokosuka Labs to USA Labs in late 2002). Behind them, several colleagues were working so hard to improve the compression quality. In 2001-2003, I really enjoyed that endeavor with them. Sorry, let me keep them anonymous. The game was so exciting!

Although we were not able to publish papers so often, nor able to show off our contribution due to the IPR issues, we are luck enough to be recognized as one of nine major JVT contributors to H.264 high profile.

Lessons from that event:

1. Given the excellent people, and given the clear and crisp technical target, a project goes successful. Those are the conditions.
   
2. “Do the right thing” will be rewarded in the long run.
3. The stars at the stage are the tips of the iceberg of anonymous but diligent engineers; we have to imagine how they achieved!