October 30th, 2003
This is my last day in Japan. Nevertheless, the days are still as havoc as ever.
I have an early breakfast with Keith from ANU and both of us recapped some of the interesting tibits from the ACT conference. Particularly, the energy group reminded all of us that energy is now one of the basic neccessarity like food, water and shelter. War has been fought over energy (oil)…
Which reminds me how vulnerable Singapore is. Economically speacking, Singapore is very successful and certainly most Singaporeans are very proud of that. Hence, Singaporeans could be pretty arrogrant with our neighbours. But many of us also forget that of the 4 basic neccessities, food, water, energy and shelter, Singapore has to import 3 of them (and even shelter is debatable…). Without these, there is no economic success to speak of.
If we continue our arrogance, it is a matter of time our neighbours would start wondering why they should continue supplying us these neccesities, regardless what is stated in the contract. We should be aware of our vulnerablities and our dependences on others for our basis neccesities. “No man is an island” is ironically an important statement for an island like Singapore.
Read the rest of this entry »
October 29th, 2003
“Party” yesterday was like any standard formal function: Speeches, then speeches then more speeches. They seem determined to starved you before they allowed you to eat.
The highlight of the party is (no! not the speeches) the traditional Japanese drum performance by the kids in Zao. The last time I saw drum performance was in Kyushu, which was much bigger then what we have here. But still, it is an interesting performance regardless.
Read the rest of this entry »
October 28th, 2003
Slept early last night and really well. In fact, I sleep for 10 hours which is amazing considering I usually sleep 6 to 7 hours. Anyway, wake up early and finally went to the Onsen for an early bath, and an early breakfast. Very refreshing start…
Today, we are split into 3 group: Energy, Security and Infocomm. Obviously, I am the Infocomm group. Our group is chaired by Shintaro Ishijima, President of Tokyo Metropolitian Institute of Technology.
The first presentation is by Yang Shaoli, Director of P&R in Ministry of Information Industry (MII) of P.R.China. She gave an overview of the Infocomm sector in China (btw, it is huge) and also some of the things they are doing to open up China market for competition to fullfill their committment to WTO. (Note I say ‘open up’, not ‘deregulation’)
I did the second presentation on the Trends of Infocomm, talking about numerous things including the Digital Generation, Peer-to-peer, Voice over IP (like Skype and Vonage) and of course Blogging. The folks was quite confused over Blog (even though I show them Joi’s blog) but they are impressed with the growth rate of Blog.
Read the rest of this entry »
October 27th, 2003
This is the first day of the ACT Seminar and we have a set of impressives keynotes speakers. Fukushiro Nukaga, Chairman of the Policy Research Council and a member of House of Representives, Heizo Takenaka, Minister of State for Economic and Fiscal Policy, and Syamsul Mu’arif, Minister for COmmunication and Information (Indonesia).
I am most impressed with Takenaka-san. Unlike the rest, he come with no prepared speech, no notes and no slides. Basically, he just walk up to the stage and just started talking (and the only keynote in English incidently). He gave a very upbeated picture of Japan economy moving forward citing figures like non-performaning loans and budget deficits figures and how it has changes over these few months. Obviously, he really believe in his policies, which use words like “deposing bad debts”, “eliminate unsubstainable budget deficits” and “deregulation” and “FTA”.
Read the rest of this entry »
October 26th, 2003
Wake up early in the morning, skipped breakfast so I can check my email and then rush to meet the ACT folk. Spend the next 5 hours on the road and finally reach Miyagizao Hotel in Zao (of course).
Miyagizao Hotel not surprising is an Hotel with Onsen (hotspring). But of course, I did the obvious thing in an onsen hotel…login to check emails and read blogrolls. I have abit of difficulty here since there is no broadband. The only Zao ISP listed in iPass is not responding so I have to call all the way to Sendai. And before I know it, I actually spend one hour online! (I looking forward to check my bill when I check out…)
Anyway, boring day, dinner then spend the whole evening writing my speech for Tuesday. But the above lighten my day. Now we know what Microsoft thinks of “innovate”, a word they used very often during their anti-trust days …
ps: I am running Windows XP, not Mac. It just look like a Mac that’s all.
October 25th, 2003
I have a very interesting breakfast with Joichi Ito. We discussed so many things, from layer 1 to layer 7 and many things above layer 7. It is unfortunate we didn’t have more time to talk as he has to run off for another meeting.
Lunch with Yoshiro Yoneya who is now with JPRS. Yoneya is one of the folks whom I worked very closely in the IDN days. Catch up a lot of things and apparently, Yoneya is now working on ENUM too. :-)
After lunch we went to Akihabara (a Japan trip without going to Akihabara is incomplete :-) Yoneya showed me a very incredible device: Yamaha RT57i. Yamaha RT57i is a broadband router (ie, NAT box *sigh*) which is IPv6 enabled (!). It has 1 WAN port, 4 RJ45 ports and …(drum rolls)… 2 RJ11 ports. Yes, RJ11 ports which you can plug in any normal analog phone and device will turn it into a SIP phone!
Read the rest of this entry »
October 25th, 2003
I’m sitting at my hotel louge drinking coffee waiting for my next appointment and started thinking about something that happened a month ago.
I was having coffee with an old classmate. He has done pretty well too and now manages a team of people like I do. In the hour we sat in the lounge, his handphone rings at least 3 times. “Fire fighting… my team couldnt do without me” he said proudly. I could hear the unspoken hint “so how come your guys don’t need you?” since my handphone remains totally silent.
But I don’t feel bad at all.
Read the rest of this entry »
October 24th, 2003
This is my first day in Japan. Reach my hotel at 9am morning and too early to check in. But luckily, the hotel has broadband and so login to do some mail. Was hoping to hear back from Toru but didn’t…I hope he is okay.
Have lunch with Adam Peake who works for GLOCOM. Izumi was away for ICANN so he couldn’t join us. (Hmm, I wonder what happening at ICANN now). Adam current research is in a european broadband company so we exchanged some notes. While I like the company ideas, I think they may be in cashflow problem given the number of subscribers they have. (Oh yea, Adam, thanks for the golf tips! :-)
Read the rest of this entry »
October 23rd, 2003
Taking an overnight flight to Japan for the ACT Seminar and will be there for a week.
This is going to be an interesting trip (more about it later)…hope I can get some blogging done :-)
October 23rd, 2003
I couldn’t believe when I read Cory Doctorow summary of the broadcast flag Broadcast Protection Discussion Group (BPDG) is proposing. Although it have rejected by the US Congress, they are bring this to FCC.
The Broadcast Flag is a signal embedded in a digital television signal. If it’s set to “true,” the receiving device is supposed to restrict the distribution of the program in which it’s found; if it’s set to “false,” the receiver is supposed to let you do anything you want with it.
Via Joiito
Read the rest of this entry »
