The future of digital

 This is the continuation of the presentation that I gave at the meeting on future policies in intellectual property.  Professor Negroponte advocated bits over atoms and virtual over real, and that change has come about. A world beyond that is here. The trend is toward intelligence, wearable, and ubiquitous. Another way of putting it is, “Clever, always, everything.” 1)    Intelligence: (Clever) Media creates content automatically without your interference. It acts as your autonomous agent, expressing and creating...

Read More

Content up to the present

  I was asked to give a small presentation on the history of content to a meeting that was considering new policies for IP assets.  The first musical instrument was made from the femur of a badger 43,000 years ago in Slovenia. It all starts with music. Next we had Altamira 18,500 years ago, and Lascaux 15,000 years ago. At the time, people thought and expressed themselves with images. Letters weren’t invented until around 7000 B.C. So content developed from music to pictures to letters, and was limited to concerts or cave walls;...

Read More

Want to visit a cool and pop country?

 Would you like to study in Japan? I took part in a PR event put on by Japanese universities geared toward UK students and talked about pop culture.  In 2020, Tokyo will host the Olympics. Who should be at the opening ceremony? Toyota? Honda? Sony? That might work out, but they aren’t people. There aren’t any famous politicians. However, we could have Gundam, Son Goku, Pikachu, DeathNote, or Bleach. Japan is a country of pop culture. My first trip overseas was to London in 1981. It was scary, and full of punks and motorcycle gangs....

Read More

Impressions of “TV is a Condition”

The chairman of the television union, Yutaka Shigenobu, published “Television is a Condition.” It’s a digital publication about the history and culture of television, and a theory of management.  He showed recognition that the liberated “broadcast era” shifted to the “industrialized era” of the 80s, and accurately portrays how he fought against the “structured” era. It seems like quite a fight.  The behind-the-scenes stories are interesting. Mr. Shigenobu invited the director of a movie about the Berlin Olympics, Leni Riefenstahl,...

Read More