Plenary Lecture

Post Modern Ubiquitous Information Society
- Bridging the gap between human and computer -

Professor Norio Shiratori
Research Institute of Electrical Communication (RIEC)
Tohoku University, Japan

Abstract: Famous Russian economist, Nicolai Kondratiev envisioned a long term (50 to 60 years) economic cycles of boom followed by depression, known as "Kondratiev waves", or grand supercycles. These cycles are closely related to the innovation of new technologies and its wide spread applications. The last boom was in 1960s with the invention of semiconductors and subsequently the introduction of computer. According to Kondratiev time-cycle, new technology and the consequent next economic peak would appear around year 2025. By that time, with the advancement of computer and communication technologies we can perceive a transformation from the present Information society to a new society, that we named as Symbiosis society. We have already witnessed that, invention of new technologies has made a huge impact on our life style and the society itself. Though it may provide various advantages and convenience, at the same time many social problems have also arisen. For some particular group of people, this technological development may not be as helpful as the rest. As they will be unable to take the full advantage of the benefits of information and facilities available. Actually it may pose anxiety and inconvenience to various layers of the society in different ways. To overcome these problems and to close the expected gap between human and computer a new information and communication paradigm is proposed, named as Symbiotic Computing.
To overcome the above mentioned shortcomings and the subsequent problems, at the same time strengthening the power of advance ubiquitous computing environment, a new paradigm, called Symbiotic Computing is created. Based on this novel idea of Symbiotic Computing, Symbiosis Society can be realized, where human and ubiquitous information environment can coexist providing necessary cooperation to each other and close the gap between these two entities.
We construct a symbiotic computing model and an architecture of symbiotic space for achieving the concept of symbiotic computing. Basic technologies for realizing the model and architecture are also developed. Moreover, we evaluated our proposal through developing a few applications and performing trial experiments in prototype system.

Brief Biography of the Speaker:
Norio Shiratori is currently a Professor at Research Institute of Electrical Communication (RIEC), Tohoku University, Japan. Before moving to RIEC in 1993, he was the Professor of Information Engineering at Tohoku University from 1990 to 1993. Prior to that, he served as an Associate Professor and Research Associate at RIEC, Tohoku University, after receiving his Doctoral degree from Tohoku University in 1977. He was also served as the vice Director of RIEC, Tohoku University, vice President of IPSJ (Information Processing Society of Japan) and IFIP representative of Japan. He is a fellow of IEEE, IPSJ and IEICE.
Professor Shiratori also contributes through serving as various capacities, such as: General Chair of the 9th IEEE ICOIN-9(1994), 1997 IFIP Joint International conference FORTE/PSTV'97, and 12th IEEE ICOIN-12 (1997); Program Chair of ICPADS'96 and ICPP-99 (1999).
Dr. Shiratori was one of the leaders in Japan Gigabit Network (JGN) national project as is leading two other projects: SCOPE - funded by Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications and JSPS sponsored "Mirai-kaitaku" project. In 2006, the proposed idea of his research group on Mobile IPv6MIB was approved and standardized by IETF. He has been engaged in research related to symbiotic computing paradigms between human and information technology and distributed processing systems and flexible intelligent networks.
He has proposed a new concept of Flexible Computing and still working in this direction. His recent research interest is in Ubiquitous and Symbiosis computing. He has published more than 15 books and over 400 referred paper in computer science. He was the recipient of IPSJ Memorial Prize Wining paper award in 1985, Telecommunication Advancement Foundation Incorporation award in 1991, best paper award of ICOIN-9 in 1994, IPSJ best paper award in 1997, and many others, including the most recent Outstanding Paper Award of UIC-07 in 2007.