What is the Superhuman Sports Society?

Anyone can become a superhuman and enjoy sports. Through the unification of body and machine, anyone can overcome physical and spatial restrictions to enjoy new sports with a “single human-machine body.” the community for that purpose is the "Superhuman Sports Society." I am employed as a representative.

　http://superhuman-sports.org/

Enacting Superhuman Sports means many “enhancements.”

“Physical enhancements.” This means developing technology and designs to enhance the body with smart augmentations: exoskeleton sports, super artificial limbs, etc.

“Object enhancements.” This means the development of such devices as a magic ball that anyone can throw, a bow and arrow that can pierce through a target any number of kilometers away, etc.

“Field enhancements.” This means developing virtual space and cultivating real land, sea, and air sports locations.

“Training enhancements.” We can anticipate not only matches, but also daily practice and training innovations.

“Player class enhancements.” Superhuman sports will not only deal in serious, high-end games. It is more important that anyone be able to participate. Men and women of all ages, people with disabilities...anyone would get excited and want to participate. For example, wonderful sports like bubble soccer are fun for everyone.

Prospectively,

2020: The Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics align with the opening of a superhuman pentathlon international tournament.

2028: Superhuman Sports is adopted as a formal Olympics and Paralympics event.

2030: The Superhuman Sports game population reaches 10 million and the market scale of superhuman technology reaches ¥1 trillion.

We are creating a community where persons from many fields participate: researchers, scientists, designers, and artists from fields like VR, IT, sports engineering, and neuroscience. We are advancing development and promulgation of new sports, with everyone’s help.

We are already opening a Superhuman Sports hackathon, developing and implementing all manner of games, and expanding places for people to personally experience the sports with such things as the Superhuman Sports Expo.

Many of the current Olympic games were developed in the 19th century and are the sports of agricultural society: soccer, baseball, and rugby. The industrial societies of the 20th century developed motorsports. So what are the 21st century information society sports? What are the new games that incorporate IT and digital technology into the body?

That is our homework.

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The MIT World-Changing $100 Laptop Project

　Walter Bender and others wrote, “Learning to Change the World: The Social Impact of One Laptop Per Child.”

　It is a good book packed with the sweat and tears a large project’s execution. Walter succeeded Professor Nicholas Negroponte as the second MIT media lab director. As I well know of the hardships he experienced, I read it in support.

 　

　The $100 laptop plan focused on technology (T) and design (D). Undertaking to have the laptops manufactured was management (M). Influencing each nation to purchase, distribute, and use the laptops was the role of policy (P).　

　This book describes the creation of a high speed, wireless, sturdy, power-conserving machine (T+D), but it also goes beyond that to discuss contracts, sales, and funds management (M+P), which lends a fresh perspective.

　Conceiving of laptops for the purpose of education is step one, and the following journey of manufacture, sales, and distribution are the following. This book describes those nine steps. This is the actualization of what I have been teaching for some time: “How, rather than what.” We are drawing in cooperative instruction from all manner of projects rather than PCs and education alone.

　

　The book states that innovators and entrepreneurs are different. That is correct. Innovation is good at the discovery level, but starting a business comes with risks. We cannot only be available for consultation; we must also enact implementation. Walter did not write this, but perhaps he thinks so as well.

　Kazuhiko Nishi, myself, and others proposed the original media lab concept in July 2001. Director Negroponte and MIT immediately made it a project. It impacted planning at a time when laptops were $1000. It was the first sketch of the idea.

Our plan was composed of a single notion that did not go beyond “what.” It was immediately made into a project, the enterprise consortium “OLPC” (One Laptop Per Child) was formed in 2005, and the actualization of the nine “hows,” which involved many countries, was the meat of the matter. Distributing 2.5 million laptops to 40 countries is a hard-won achievement. Surely indeed, it is the media lab’s greatest achievement.

        According to MIT Professor Seymour Papert, we are moving from instructional to constructive doctrine.

        His pupil Mitchel Resnick worked with the team that created Logo and Scratch, and handled the abstract infrastructure of the plan.

        We launched CANVAS, which boosts the digital creativity of children in Japan, one year after the creation of the $100 laptop plan in 2002. The activity continues fourteen years later.

        The Association of Digital Textbook and Teaching was launched in 2010. Japan is advancing digital education as well. The news of the distribution of $100 laptops to all children in Uruguay in 2009 had a big impact. We will try our best and succeed.

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What is IoT and AI Era Broadcasting?

Recently I presented at the commercial broadcast research society. A report follows.

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The Internet distribution of TV programs is being regularized and broadcasts are becoming “smartified.” However, starting around last year, the IT field was colored by what could be called a “de-smartification” movement. We are starting to move to the next phase. There are three main elements: 1) wearables, 2) IoT: ubiquitous, 3) intelligent: AI.

All these were technologically completed 15 years ago, but increases in sophistication and cheapness led to a period of popularization, followed by rapidly advancing implementation.

This advance also affects broadcasting. What sorts of things does it respectively mean? We can take it as 1) wearables mean interface expansion, 2) IoT means receiver diversification, 3) AI means broadcast autonomization.

All involve downloading and uploading, which in turn affects both broadcast receptions and transmissions from listeners.

1) Wearables

Digital technology exhibitions are fully stocked with glasses-type display devices. It seems that Google Glass does not have a good reputation, but all manner of proposals can be seen from many different manufacturers.

　For example, the Epson “Moverio” connects to home Wi-Fi, video recording programs, and Blu-ray software and allows you to view videos on a big screen. It also proposes realtime TV viewing while you are out.

The main wearable contender may be watches rather than glasses. Glasses download (reception), but watches are capable of not only audiovisual data reception, but also convey movement information, tactile information, pulse, perspiration, etc., recording data beyond the  audiovisual. In short, they are an upload (transmission) wearable.

2) IoT: Ubiquitous

All consumer electronics connect and communicate. Refrigerators, air conditioners, vacuums, etc.: everything connects, and thus the fixed position of TV may also change. Before that, cars will become smartphones. All automobile companies are putting effort into IT. It has moved from information provisioning to navigation, and will surely expand into steering control.

Robots can even receive radio waves, dance, and perform. 15 years ago, MIT was performing experiments moving a Lego robot with electromagnetic waves. It is technologically simple. This means that with 3D printers, objects can be transmitted through data and broadcasts can send objects.

Let’s also take uploading into consideration. Mountain climbers played active roles in broadcasting the eruptions of Mt. Ontake and Mt. Aso: they recorded them, uploaded the images to Twitter, etc. No, there are more than just individual recordings now. Cameras embedded downtown create content. Security cameras come in handy when incidents occur.

3) Intelligent: A.I.

Becoming smart. The Softbank conversation program Pepper was made by KMD alumni. It is a robot that independently produces content. Expectations for agents technologically swelled about 15 years ago, but agridata will increasingly flourish.

Virtual agents will become smart through AI and act autonomously. An agent smarter than me will perform online activity. My agent will select everything that I should look at and know about.

　

We face such a world. How will the broadcasting industry come to grips with it?

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