What Will Come After the Internet

　The Inevitable by Kevin Kelly. I reread this book as a textbook, that looks ahead 30 years into the future after the internet.

　It’s easier to see the the gist of this book's argument by looking at the original English title, "Inevitable", or something that is unavoidable. Distribution, the cloud, real time. Sharing, access, remixing, tracking. I also think that these are "unavoidable" items, that will come to define the future.

　High speed, high definition, miniaturization, low price...these were "inevitable" up until now, but the internet produced another inevitable "group", which has defined the past 30 years, and will continue to do so for decades to come. I also agree with the point that "links and tags are the most important inventions in the past 50 years." That is the essence of the internet.

　

I was especially drawn to three episodes in this book. 1. Libraries that store all information, 2. Logs that record the all lives, 3. Avatars for all personalities. These are truly fascinating claims.

1, The concept of a library that stores all information. He says that it will consist of 50 petabytes of data. Currently 180 million songs have been made by humankind, but to rendering all of those songs as MP3’s will amount to 20TB of data. He says that for $2000 you will be able to add to this store. It will be placed in the palm of your hand. With that extension, 50 peta can also "see" numbers.

 Erik Schmidt of Google once said that it would take 3 centuries to build an all-information database, in other words “let's take 3 centuries to make it.” The problem is whether this library will become a shared asset, and whether "knowledge" will be necessary in an era where everyone can share such a library at all times time.

2. An all life log. This is a story of a researcher who films with a camera for all of his waking hours. He says that the intention is to build an extended memory storage archive for your personal use. I am more interested in the possibility of sharing an archive that records all the images I’ve see in my life.

  I have heard that if you were to make an MP4 of 70 years of life consisting of all of your waking moments, it would amount to 10TB of data. Almost everyone can store all of the images from their life in HDD for mere pocket money, and everyone can share it. You can synchronize the time and link. What take place in that enormous video alternate dimension,  consisting of real + virtual spaces?

  This question regarding the "recommended imagination" is something that I have asked my students about for the past ten years, I myself do not have an answer. But already the technology is in our hands and it's easy to do. It is only imagination that we are lacking, we will have to put in more effort when it come to our imagination.

Kelly suggests the possibility of having ones life log tracked, and mentions the emergence of a Big Brother entity. However, before you get scared of surveillance cameras, the fear of real terrorism and crime increases, and it should be noted that surveillance via IoT is becoming a resource that will make our lives safer.

  The suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing were located, cornered, and killed, so I was under the impression that trust in IoT surveillance and Big Brother was an established  custom in America. Am I wrong?

3. All personality avatar. With the recommendation feature provided by filtering, the machine will know me better than I do, and suggest the things tome that align with my preferences. If you only consume such comfortable and pleasant information, you may become very narrow-minded, but I'm fine with that because I’m already an old man.

  I am looking forward to the emergence  of a personal avatar who knows me more than myself, and can substitute for me. Kelly suggests that by recommending avatars to other people, you may be able to earn rewards, but before that I intend to vigorously invest my funds into the rearing of such an avatar.

　

  I'm sure he will be much smarter than me and will have much better judgment. I can't wait to assign some of my work to him. I will entrust about 70% of my various duties to him. The vast majority of my work is on the net. So I will be able to enjoy an extremely leisurely, creative, and dazzling old age.

  The challenge in that case, is how much will I be allowed to delegate to him? How much responsibility will I have in my speech, instructions, promises, and  contracts exchanged between him and myself. I think that it is time to start thinking about the intricacies of such a scenario.

  Kelly says that as a result of the unexpected success of wikipedia, maps around the world can be seen for free,  and software can be developed free of charge, and that the impossible has become possible. However, he points out that such an "evolution" has only "just begun". That’s exactly right. That is what I agree with most in this book.

  Thirty years since the rise of the internet. And 20 years since its popularization. If we compare with 560 years ago when the book was popularized by the invention of the Gutenberg press, we are not yet at the stage of Luther's religious revolution. We will have to wait for the “unavoidable” to manifest itself.

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The Famicom and it’s Generation

　Famicom and Its Age by Masayuki Uemura, Koichi Hosoi, and Akinori Nakamura.

A research paper written based on the industry-academic public game archive project implemented in 1998.

 After an initial boom around video game technology developed in the area of MIT, Nintendo enjoys 20 years of hegemony after the North American video game crash of 1983. Vannevar Bush’s memex, Engelbart, Alan Kay, and Papert are drawing a digital evolutionary history.

　

Truly Interesting.

　The history of video games is an accumulation of the excitement that made business and society, by combining things and technology, content and culture. This is a  document of the highest order, and I certify it as a textbook on media theory.

  I was once asked, “Why weren’t companies like Apple, Amazon and Google born in Japan?” No, no, they are all mimicking Nintendo. It is a model that suppressed technology and content, and controlled circulation. And that circulation changed into the internet.

 Nowadays all you hear about is the failures of Japanese companies, but this book presents a theory of success, specifically why Nintendo and Japan have controlled the fiercely competitive game market, and their continued hegemony in this sphere.

 The first part, "The Birth of the Video Game" written by Mr. Uemura, the man who birthed the famicom, is especially valuable. I will provide an example.

· In 1964, Sharp and Canon developed the LSI for the calculator and changed the world.

This caught the attention of Nolan Bushnell of the Atari Corporation,  the fire in the US was ignited.

Originally it was technology created by Japanese companies.

· In addition to Atari, US companies like RCA, Coleco, Mattel etc. initiated a number of prototypes and products.

In 1982 there were 76 LSI game consoles from  14 different companies.

It was a fiercely competitive market.

The point is, why was the Japanese influence of companies like Nintendo incorporated into these products.

·  In 1982, Atari and Warner teamed up,

to develop games based on Spielberg's Raiders of the Lost Ark and ET, which was supposed to be a "guaranteed hit", but ended up being a big mistake.

The result was the North American video game crash of 1983.

The responsibility fell on Warner.

And the lesson was that both development and administration, design, technology and management need to be commensurate.

· When it comes to advanced technology, Japan is not inclined towards home appliances or PC’s.

Children's toy companies actively undertook the initiative in developing low-priced products.

More than development, the real problem is administration.

· Nintendo was aware that the LSI consoles were developed late, and that the market had become fiercely competitive.

However, as early as the 80’s, already in the midst of confronting the falling birth rate, children were more interested in radio cassette players than toys.

Nintendo recognized that the market was moving to high-tech, so they broke into the video game & watch industry.

In other words, they were watching the market.

· The spread of PCs made by companies like IBM had already started.

At the time, Nintendo was sticking to the formula of  low cost + childs perspective + TV from the perspective of a Japanese style living room, and

high-end + adult's perspective + PC 's line.

· HUDSON, NAMCO, KONAMI, TAITO etc. produced software for Famicon.

The difference with Atari was the prevention of mass producing inferior products.

User trust in software companies, strict evaluation / information exchange among users,

There was soil such as software evaluation ability of distribution personnel.

· At CES in 1985, Nintendo looked at  the direction Commodore, IBM, Apple of PC’s,

and became confident in the market for home gaming console.

Before you knew it, the market had become void of competition.

  American made TV games expanded in Japan,  and then spread all over the world. Video games are representative of Cool Japan. I want Japan to produce more things like this. To that aim, this book is the perfect book to use as a reference, it is a guide book for the future.

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Media and the LDP

　Media and the Liberal Democratic Party by Ryosuke Nishida .

  The Minister of  Internal Affairs and Communications referred to stopping the radio waves of broadcasting stations, and big newscasters stepped down from their programs, and a suspicious smell drifted into the relationship between politics and the media. A good book to get a grasp on.

  This book is about how the "familiarity" of politics and the media as demonstrated by reporters clubs and the beat reporter system is changing in the era of the Internet and social media, the LDP especially, has established a continuous relationship with the media.

 In 2000, around  the same time the government formulated the IT basic strategy, the LDP shifted from election by intuition to emphasizing data. Especially in the second Abe Cabinet, they launched a new public relations strategy with professionals and made an in-house  communication strategy team.

  However, the Democratic Party of Japan seemed to have no explicit publicity strategy like the LDP, although they did try to hold more open press conferences when they were in power. Even though they had an opportunity after the ban was lifted on election campaigning on the internet, it was Liberal Democratic Party who realized this strategy when they came back into power, which showed that they  were also behind in dealing with IT.

  What especially caught my eye, was the description of the public relations budget. An analysis of how the government and ruling party are strengthening their relationship with the media, in 2015 the government public relations budget was at 8.3 billion yen, and each ministry and agency also has their own budget, amounting to tens of billions of yen.

  Sponsors of tens of billions of yen are clients with great power, and the relationship between the media and politics should be viewed not only from as a power structure but also from the perspective of business and money. And its influence is really huge. The politicians intentionally use that power, and the media is manipulated in silence.

　Politics (Liberal Democratic Party) is showing a clearly strategic change towards the media and the internet. On the public side, people unite on the internet and carry out demonstrations, and even if their not exactly successful in that regard, this seems to be a sign of a change in how people relate to politics.

　Here the author says that "what has not changed significantly has been the media." I agree. Rather, the circumstance is one that  seems to be a gradual degeneration where even when the administration throws a softball the media shrinks away. In contrast, the author sees news distribution applications such as NewsPicks and SmartNews as "new revolutionaries." Can we count on them?

　This book also mentions government involvement according to Broadcasting Law, the independent regulatory commision theory such as the US FCC and measures to strengthen the third party organization "BPO". There has long been controversy over the current system in Japan, including the Independent Committee system. After my history of overseeing such matters, I made the decision to quit the goverment, so this conversation could become very long, but I will stop myself here.

　However, further strengthening the BPO that was made as a wisdom for that placement is another good example of the Japanese style of wisdom. How to take distance oneself from politics, how to distance oneself from the net, this should be considered as our next homework.

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