July 2015 Vol. 13 No. 7

Feature Articles: The Challenge of Creating Epoch-making Services that Impress Users

• Creating Epoch-making Services that Excite Users

  

  Abstract
  When the telephone first made it possible for people to chat with friends hundreds of miles away, and when the Internet made it possible to obtain thousands of books’ worth of information without having to visit a library, people were excited by these technological advances. NTT Service Evolution Laboratories has set itself the challenge of developing technologies for the creation of new services that will generate as much excitement as the phone and Internet did. This article presents an overview of our work.

• Developing Technologies for Services that Deliver the Excitement of Games Worldwide

  

  Abstract
  NTT Service Evolution Laboratories has floated the concept of an ultra-high-presence service that will enable viewers to experience the feeling of actually being in a sporting venue or the like, wherever they are, and is therefore developing an immersive telepresence technology called Kirari!, towards its implementation. This article introduces the supporting technologies used with Kirari!, which involve ultra-high-presence media generation, spatial and environmental information synchronized delivery, and content license management.

• Personal Agents to Support Personal Growth

  

  Abstract
  We at NTT Service Evolution Laboratories have been focusing on implementing a personal agent that will co-exist with us in the real world, empathize with us, encourage us to stay active, always be at our side to support our personal growth, and even grow on its own. In this article, we introduce sensing technology for understanding people and their environment; multimodal interaction technology for supporting people and helping them to grow; and virtualization technology for implementing device features that are used to continuously support people in any place or at any time.

• Proactive Navigation Optimized for Individual Users

  

  Abstract
  In this article, we first give an overview of the proactive navigation project that NTT Service Evolution Laboratories is striving to accomplish. Then we provide a simple explanation of the technologies currently being researched and developed to implement the project: information navigation, big data analysis, and resilient communication. Finally, we give an overview of experiments currently being run in Fukuoka City along with their results.

• Towards the Creation of Attractive Services Based on an Understanding of Users

  

  Abstract
  To create information and communication technology services that are fun for users, it is necessary to ensure that such services match user needs and characteristics, and to do this, we need to fully understand users. We introduce here the processes involved in service creation and the design area that NTT Service Evolution Laboratories is focusing on. We also show a specific example of what we do to understand the user and visualize a service image.

• Creating Omotenashi Services for Visitors and Spectators in 2020

  

  Abstract
  NTT Service Evolution Laboratories is working to develop services for people from both within and outside the country who will visit various places in Japan. This includes the spectators and organizers who will be in Tokyo for the 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games. This article describes four conceptual Omotenashi services that will be available on smartphones and tablets to provide people with spectator and transportation assistance.

• Efforts toward Co-Innovation Promotion

  

  Abstract
  NTT is now shifting its business model from the conventional B2C (business-to-consumer) model to the B2B2C (business-to-business-to-consumer) model in order to create novel services in alliance with various external players. This article introduces the Co-Innovation Promotion Project that was launched at NTT Service Evolution Laboratories to promote partnerships with them.

Regular Articles

• Predicting Who Will Be the Next Speaker and When in Multi-party Meetings

  

  Abstract
  An understanding of the mechanisms involved in face-to-face communication will contribute to designing advanced video conferencing and dialogue systems. Turn-taking, the situation where the speaker changes, is especially important in multi-party meetings. For smooth turn-taking, the participants need to predict who will start speaking next and to consider a strategy for achieving good timing to speak next. Our aim is to clarify the kinds of behavior that contribute to smooth turn-taking and to develop a model for predicting the next speaker and the start time of the next speaker’s utterance in multi-party meetings. We focus on gaze behavior and respiration near the end of the current speaker’s utterance. We empirically demonstrate that gaze behavior and respiration have a relation to the next speaker and the start timing of the next utterance in multi-party meetings. A prediction model based on the results reveals that gaze behavior and respiration contribute to predicting the next speaker and the timing of the next utterance.

• Taking the English Exam for the “Can a Robot Get into the University of Tokyo?” Project

  

  Abstract
  NTT and its research partners are participating in the “Can a robot get into the University of Tokyo?” project run by the National Institute of Informatics, which involves tackling English exams. The artificial intelligence system we developed took a mock test in 2014 and achieved a better-than-human-average score for the first time. This was a notable achievement since English exams require English knowledge and also common sense knowledge that humans take for granted but that computers do not necessarily possess. In this article, we describe how our artificial intelligence system takes on English exams.

• Cross-connect System with Packet Transport Technology

  

  Abstract
  The public switched telephone network (PSTN) and existing dedicated line services have been carried over transmission lines using older data link systems based on time-division multiplexing technology. However, as Internet protocol traffic has increased and traffic to the PSTN and existing dedicated services has decreased, there has been a move to use data link systems based on packet transport technology; this in turn has allowed simpler networks to be built. We have developed a packet-based cross-connect system that can efficiently promote this transition by allowing individual low-speed (1.5 Mbit/s) paths to be split up and reassembled.

Global Standardization Activities

• Recent Activities of ITU-R Study Group 5

  

  Abstract
  Radiocommunication systems such as mobile communication systems and fixed wireless communication systems play important roles in telecommunication networks. Mobile communication systems have become widespread, as represented by smartphones, and fixed wireless communication systems provide flexible and resilient communication in times of disasters. The International Telecommunication Union - Radiocommunication Sector (ITU-R) is one of the organizations responsible for developing standards for these important systems. Towards the end of 2015, the ITU-R will hold two very important meetings: the Radiocommunication Assembly (RA) and the World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC). This article introduces recent activities and contributions from NTT and NTT DOCOMO to ITU-R Study Group 5, which deals with terrestrial radiocommunication systems.

External Awards/Papers Published in Technical Journals and Conference Proceedings

• External Awards/Papers Published in Technical Journals and Conference Proceedings