Exactly one year ago, I received a message from Mr. Kono, Executive Director and Chief Engineer at NHK, and we discussed ways to collaborate with Learning of Tomorrow and other organizations. The discussion went well beyond the time we had anticipated and was very lively. This was because we were in the midst of preparing to launch the Learning of Tomorrow Research Institute (the name was later finalized as B Lab).

Now that the organization has been successfully established, we visited the Broadcasting Technology Research Institute to put our plans into action. We once again held discussions with the researchers—including the director and deputy director—while experiencing technical demonstrations.

"Before/After VR" lets you switch between 360-degree videos shot at the same location—one before reconstruction and one after—to show what a disaster site looked like. There are probably plenty of situations where you’d want to compare “before and after” views, like rebuilding or renovating your home! I’d love to see a platform created for sharing that kind of content!

This project aims to realize personalized learning by integrating data from broadcast programs—as well as external content—and leveraging a personal data store. I’d like to discuss this right away with the Data Working Group team at Learning of Tomorrow.And I want to implement it! If we integrate it with solutions like the “Highlights Cube”—developed by DNP—which links data on museum exhibits and displays relationships between multiple works based on various criteria such as materials, uses, and history, this would truly be the textbook of the future!

A robot that watches TV with you. It recognizes keywords from the video and audio of TV shows and responds with related comments, so you can enjoy conversing with it. Furthermore, it helps deepen conversations between people and offers a new way to watch TV. I want one for my home right away. I’m looking for an affordable robot. I want to make the “one robot per person” vision from my school days a reality!

A shared-space content viewing system that allows users to experience AR/VR content together in the same space as people located elsewhere. Just by sitting in a chair, it feels as if the person in the remote location is actually sitting right next to you.This time, I experienced a clay figurine. I was able to view it from an extremely close distance, step inside it, and hold it in my hands—a truly immersive experience. This is also fascinating as educational content! That said, the inside of the clay figurine is scary!

One service presented as a fusion of broadcasting and telecommunications is a system where dancers appearing on a TV screen step out into the room when a tablet is held up to them, allowing viewers to enjoy the experience from any angle. It creates the sensation of being able to freely wander through the world of the program. It makes you want to dance along!

I’d like to set up a space where we can all freely discuss ways to put these amazing Giken technologies to use!

So, I’d like to continue our dialogue with B Lab to make all of the above a reality ^^

*Apparently, the digital sign displaying Giken’s history has been changed to a foot-operated system because people can’t touch it due to COVID-19 (*^^*)