2002/7/17

Chapter 1. Face and Face

1-1. Red and White

The guitar is making a sharp sound. A talented jazz band. But the voices from the party drown the music sound. The party takes in about 150 people. A huge tent for the event is full of life and energy. With a glass of beer or coke or wine in their hand, there are groups of people � some laughing, some exchanging their views and some working on papers.
Passer-bys would wonder what sort of groups they are since they are very incoherent. There are men and women or young and middle-aged, and they seem to have different nationalities. Some are very like students, or artists, or IT professionals from the West Coast, or Japanese salary workers.
This is a scene from a sponsor�s meeting at the MIT Media Lab. In one of the regular consortia �Digital Life�, which is composed of a group of the Media Lab and sponsors, a dinner party is arranged as a part of the conference. The consortium comprises 50 sponsors, and the representatives get together twice a year at the MIT, Cambridge City, Massachusetts. The sponsors range in industrial category from telecommunication, electronic and electrical manufacturers, software, banking, publishing, advertising, food etc.
There are about ten professors. They are all leading professors in the field, what we call �a charisma group�. People who have a mania for the digital world would bring in their books and ask for their signatures. There is also a large attendance of students � future charismas.
We discussed in a building nearby the tent until the party started, introducing research progresses for the last six month, explaining the Lab�s perspectives, and performing a panel discussion with invited guests. The party now begins. The party is filled with professors, researchers, students, staff, and sponsors, each exchanging much valued information. This mixed community represents the MIT Media Lab.
Thrusting the way through the crowd, a bar counter appears. �Red or White?� a bartender says. �What is Red?� I ask. � For today, Napa Valley and Nuit St. George�. A Bourgogne. The bar serves a delicious wine as always.
It becomes dark. The main dish for tonight is a saut�ed chicken. The Lab gives good service. Drinks and food have its best quality. Drinking and eating establish a communication, and it is a fundamental of culture. Enjoying the messages from drinks and food expressed by the Lab, sponsors find their seat with others.
The participants seem to be very much incoherent. The types of what they wear are also unbalanced. While one wears a blue shirt with a three-buttoned navy jacket and seems to represent a person appeared in a textbook of Ivy fashion, some wear a T-shirt and a pair of cotton trousers. There are some in a gray suit with a wide-shaped tie and the travel case from a shoulder, or some who wear a baseball cap, a pair of sunglasses and hiking shoes, or some in a black polo-neck shirt and a black suit. While a woman is dressed only in T-shirt and a pair of short trousers � is she warm enough?-, a bearded man wears a suede jacked and a pair of corduroys � doesn�t he feel too hot?
However, there is a kind of coherence in accordance with groups. For instance, there are no students who wear a tie. It is no surprise because they are at the party just for taking a rest between their studies and will go back to their lab soon after the party. The sponsors wear a tie since they are representatives of their company and a tie shows its honor to the organization. There are about ten participants from Japan and most of them put on tie.
On the other hand, the host professors are dressed in several styles. Some are in a suit and some in a T-shirt. They are a little more in formal style than usual and they seem to wear what suits them. If it were a group of a law faculty or MBA, most would be dressed in a suit, and if it would take place in the West Coast, the uniform would be without a tie. At MIT, it totally depends on what they think the best. When people see the scene, some might say that it looks like the countercultural notion of the West Coast comes into this new and foremost culture of the East Coast, or some say it only characterizes a cultural nature of Boston. The scene could be interpreted into different views.
Among the participants, there is a gentleman who is usually dressed in a striped shirt with a fine tie. He is Nicholas Negroponte. He has been a director since establishing the MIT Media Lab. His dandy attire and charismatic atmosphere that appear to praise the Greek mystery have not changed since the Lab�s opening. Now he is with a title of �chairman� to his name and travels around the world more energetically than he used to. Although one could rarely find him, he is here today in this tent having conversations with sponsors.
I would like to tell a story about one of the sponsors from Japan. The business card that a man in advertising industry tenders to Negroponte says �Media Lab Section�. He names the section after the MIT Media Lab. �Did you pay the fee to our Lab for using its name?� Negroponte says. Surrounding people burst into laughter. As it is a rule to laugh when someone makes a joke, people follow the rule.
�Did you pay the fee?� includes two implications. �Media Lab� is a proper noun derived from MIT. Therefore, MIT has the right to ask for the fee for using the term. On the other hand, the term has already become a common noun. Therefore, it is taken as a joke. The term reserves a fame and MIT has a pride that it introduced the Media Lab to the world.
However, a fame could sometimes bring self-conceit and stop its development. Negroponte himself is aware of the danger. With a motto of keep changing and moving, the Media Lab challenges for a new development.
�@A lady with a wearable computer is walking around. A camera is tied to her forehead and a display fastened to her arm indicates something. �We are broadcasting the party over the internet. Directors in a remote place send messages to my arm,� she says. She is the channel to connect this community and the online community.
Connecting the real and the virtual space and performing the digital life are the Lab�s permanent theme and are based on the investigating spirit.
A moon is beyond Charles River.
The night is wearing on peacefully.


1-2 Triangle and Square

Boston is Kyoto�s sister city. As a region where the American Revolution began, it achieves a status of America�s ancient city. There are the cemeteries of heroes at the time of what has been dubbed �The Boston Tea Party� and of the American Revolution. The buildings and streets evoke a distinct European feel. The stream of Charles River is calm. Delicious seafood is served. The city attracts many tourists from all over the US.
Kyoto and Boston have in common not only as an old city but also as an educational city. Some of the world�s most famous institutions include Harvard University for literature and MIT for technology. Both of the universities are located in Cambridge county next to Boston county across the Charles River. The district has other famous universities such as Boston, North Eastern, and Babson.
Boston produces progressive ideas, technologies and intelligent people, which draw many high-tech companies. The characteristic is also similar to Kyoto. Both cities have developed history and culture and harmonized them with new technology and business.
MIT was established in 1865. A class had fifteen students when it started. Currently the institution draws 10,000 students and 1,100 professors. The institution has produced many Nobel Prize winners and achieves the world�s best foundation for natural science. As one of Japanese Nobel Prize-winning professors, Susumu Tonegawa has won the Prize in Physiology and Medicine in 1987.
The Media Laboratory is located in the opposite building where Prof. Tonegawa is stationed across Ames Street. The building is a rectangular parallelepiped and lied on its side. It has four stories and a basement. It was designed by I.M. Pei who designed the Louvre pyramid. The serial number of the building is E15 and it is officially called the Wiesner Building named after Jerome Wiesner, the former president of MIT.
Walking through the door on the first floor, the spacious entrance allows a lot of sunlight coming through the windows. The entrance lobby is wellholed up to the ceiling beyond a steel-framed object. The white walls, lighter colored, have a crosswise pattern, which evoke a Mondrian feel. The wall, designed by Kenneth Norland, itself achieves its own art.
The bright colors used for the walls are adopted to the Logo of Media Laboratory. The basic colors are purple, green, white, red, orange, blue, yellow and black. The business card of each member reflects some of those colors and has a similar pattern. However, none of them are the same and they all have different combination of color and pattern. It shows the Lab�s diverse ideas. The Lab�s house designers perform the work. Mine had the color of purple, yellow, white and red until last year, and this year�s card uses red, green, white and blue.
The Media Laboratory opened its doors in 1985. The outline of the Media Laboratory was formed in 1980 and the building opened in 1985. Oddly, it belongs to the MIT�s Architectural Faculty since a co-founder Nicholas Negroponte was engaged in Architecture. But that is not important. When established, Professor Negroponte was pioneering in the field of the new correlation of people and computer. Although the idea was based on the Lab�s establishment, it gathered strong visions in diverse areas, which had never been thought to become a study, and formed the framework of the Laboratory.
The founders of the Media Lab, apart from Nicholas Negroponte, indlude: Marvin Minsky, the Father of Artificial Intelligence, Seymour Papert, the world�s leading light of Mathematics and Leaning, Stephen Benton, a developer of the world�s first 3D hologram, Barry Vercoe, a pioneer of electronic music, and Andy Lippman, an advocate of digital television. Those professors who have a different study field and backgrounds gathered, foreseeing the potentiality of future media. Breaking the existing walls, a free-research organization was constructed.
For the establishment of the Media Lab, a strong financial support was made by Japanese companies. In order to raise corporate support, the Media Laboratory was expected to expand the range of sponsorship from the MIT�s old sponsors, and they targeted on the film and publishing industry and Japanese corporations. Japanese technology was then high enough to be criticized for trade friction and a lot of contributions were made by those companies. The one-third of the Media Lab�s building was contributed with the financial support from Japan.
The building has become not able to accommodate enough research groups. Asking a subject that the Media Lab currently faces, �space� is their unanimous response. Although a new building is under construction, the four of the research groups have rented labs in the near building until its completion.
�Media Arts and Sciences� is the name of academic program at the Media Laboratory. The formation at its establishment was interdisciplinary and the interconnection of study areas was one of the themes. The major theme is to interconnect the art and science. On the first floor of the building, as to express the theme, it has an art gallery �MIT List Visual Arts Center�.
Since its foundation, the Media Laboratory has cultivated the digital technology. It has been a leading institution for technology such as the AV interface , the compression technology, intelligent animation, personal electronic newspaper etc. The Media Lab has influenced on the technological policies or political progresses, expressed as in participation in establishing MPEG or in advocating digital broadcasting.
The computer realizes not only entertainment or news but also various expressions or activities through the network. The internet has realized the foresight of those days regarding AV or Virtual Reality. While it was on the progress, the Media Lab has changed its form and shifted to a new study area such as Wearable, Tangible, Ubiquitous, Nanotech, Biotech, Robots. Describing the Digital World coming next to the Internet, it moves forward to the realization.
Walter Bender who followed Negroponte and is now a director of the Media Lab says, �Core thinking (Leaning, Perceive, Express) are changeless, but the range of technical applications has changed.�
The Digital World will rapidly expand its applying range and spread the economy and living culture overall. The Media Laboratory will grow faster than its own pace.


1-3 Ball and Wall

The crosswise pattern colored with blue and green seems to be floating in front of my eyes. A cubic springs out from the glass wall. Walking close to the wall, there is no such cubic. It is a hologram printed on the clear film � the thing printed on credit cards. Holography has gained a worldwide reputation of the Media Laboratory since it was founded, and it has not declined at all.
Steven, one of the researchers, calls me and says, �Look at this latest technology�, pointing an object placed in a frame decorated with eggs. Placing it on a hand, it is just a flat paper. It seems that the object is actually there, but it is only a printed paper.
�No, not that one. This is the latest,� he points at an automobile hologram looking like a rough screen. Moving the eyes left and right, it seems a cubic. �Look both from the top and the bottom,� he says. The bottom structure of the car can also be viewed from the top. A cubic is created not only left and right also up and down. It could create an image of girl that could be seen from the under, which means � �What�s funny?�
In the Open House of sponsor�s conference, the Lab�s researchers present the progress of the last six months. While the sponsors walk around in the Lab, the students demonstrate their research result as much as they can. �Come and see this,� they express themselves as if they are at an audition, inviting the sponsors to the neatly decorated room like a cultural exhibition.
A woman is having an affair with a good-looking guy. It is a soap drama. Operating a remote control to the TV screen, it shows the price of what she wears and the book the man is holding on the pop-up screen. �The moving picture links to those information data,� one of the students says. The scene turns to a party scene, showing a fish dish being served. Clicking on the fish, it turns up a boat leaving for fishing. A student says, �The technology is to link a moving picture and another moving picture.�
There is a big screen next to the TV showing a baseball game. A student sitting on a couch in front of the screen throws a tennis ball to it. When it hits the screen, it turns into a tennis match. Throwing a basketball, it changes to a NBA game.
A light music comes closer. Far on the corridor, a bearded man is standing pointing something like a black pizza to us. He is Mr. Pompeii. Turning the black pizza to the side, the music stops. It is a special speaker that sends a sound at pinpoint like laser beams. Throwing the sound towards the wall, it comes out from the wall. He shows a demonstration that a whisper comes from the wall, and scares the walking people who knows nothing about it.
�This Audio Spotlight will make an exciting event,� he says. It will be interesting to make it smaller and setting in a portable game. �A automobile company has already employed it into a car for trial.�
Sponsors are also serious. The Open House allows them only three hours. There are tens of projects demonstrated at the Open House. The research that each genius shows is very rich. Are there any projects that we (the sponsors) could collect the funds? Can we find anything that could be placed into a market and merchandised? What should we report to the company?
Is there anything that leads to a new theme of the company? What�s new? What will competitors put eyes on? What is next? Is there anybody that could be benefit to our company? Should we continue supporting? Should we tie a deeper sponsorship next year? Some takes a note, or some holds a camera, or some videotapes.
�Hello.� Hello, James. He makes an editing tool of moving picture. He is Korean, speaks English as a native speaker and has fluent Japanese after staying in Sapporo only for three months. I am ashamed that my English is not fluent enough although I have lived in the USA for three years.
�We completed the system editing on the Web.� With the system, editing operation can be conducted easily and fashionably by putting the video clips to the server, selecting them, and putting them together. Many people create moving pictures, share them, edit them and express themselves. Sharing and working together on the cyber space will be essential on the internet world and the system is just on the first step.
�Thanks for the Furikuri,� James says. I was asked to bring an animation DVD from Tokyo. It was a great animation and the best in the world. �Will bring me again when you fine something good?� Sure.
In the next room, computer shows an online screen. In the cyber space, you can shop, read news and easily find what you want. Business and living life are already created in the net. But it is you who has to operate all the work. For those who cannot be bothered to operate on their own, you could find the Web Agent Software. It surfs the internet, collects the information, and negotiate.
�It is a software that selling and buying agents negotiate each other.� The agent has to be the one that a user can trust, doesn�t it? � The program operates on the basis of understanding the user�s taste or habit. It operates on its own�
Operating itself. Operating itself. �An intellectual dog works,� the demonstrator says. The screen shows something like a television game. A dog is chasing a sheep. It seems that both animals move around on their own? �They are controlled by the Artificial Intelligence.� It is also the Agent technology. �Stop,� the student says to a dog, then it stops.
The other screen shows an animated life-size woman. She explains about real estate to a student. �She is a real agent,� the student says. When he moves his arm and tries to talk, she stops talking and tries to listen to him. �She understands my gesture.� And they started talking without difficulty and pleasantly.


1-4 Surfaced and Three-dimensional Shape

�PCs will become video processors so that people can edit their own images and make them into birthday cards,� Stuart Brand writes in his book �The Media Lab� published in 1987. It was not a prospect but a future reality.
The reality became true after ten years and it does not mean that such technology is on its development. Even housewives shot video and attach the clips to emails or web sites. It has expanded to our daily life.
The Media Lab has opened the way of digital technology. Let�s go back to the past. In 1987 when the Lab was founded, AT&T was divided and Baby Bell was established in the USA, and Dendenkosya was transferred to NTT that brought us free-telecommunication in Japan. The shops started selling not only the black phones but various colored phones. We expected the fax transmission would be much faster with ISDN.
In Japan, CATV had just opened as a business, private satellite was only to launch, and the Hi-Vision was expected to appear. Although Macintosh was launched as a personal computer, it was still high-priced for the public. Only a few professionals and the rich used the internet and mobile phones. The technology in Japan was far from digital but still very much analogue.
The Media Laboratory foresaw the digital technology from the beginning. The Multi-Media was their foremost theme. They pioneered the technology such as the interface, compression, and editing. Their principal theme to converge text, video, sound, and data grew from the late 80�s because of the increase of personal computer and the inter-activation of television. And the world was digitalized through the internet.
Since the beginning, Nicholas Negroponte foresaw and insisted the coming convergence of the broadcasting industry of motion picture and television, publishing industry of such newspaper and books, and computing industry. This convergence has mostly been realized via the internet. The electronic news or publishing has spread and movies and television programs are shown in broadband. The integration of entertainment and internet business such as AOL Time Warner.
The Media Laboratory was positive to digitalize the analogue-based TV. It is known that it criticized the Japanese Hi-Vision. They said there was no point of regulating the size of length and width, but it would be much practical to change its size through contents. Also, it would be easier to change the pictorial quality by downloading a software.
Not many understood the Laboratory�s foreseeing idea. However, it is now, without difficulty, understood because you can change the window size of streaming video on the internet and can select its frame-rate to change the quality.
What Negroponte demanded at the Being Digital was the merger of atoms and bits. It is an idea that the atoms of the physical world could be replaced by the bits of the digital world as much as possible. Although the fusion of media industry is the area of entertainment-journalism, it is only a part of it. But the Digital world controls the whole living world.
Online shopping, learning, and working would become reality. Department stores, schools, offices, banks, and hospitals would be created on the net. Negroponte maintained not the possibility but the necessity. This prospect, which was foreseen before the internet spread, soon become reality.
Small businesses started in rural areas obtained a chance to compete in the world market. The expansion of the digital world encouraged the people to start their own business and their challenging spirit. It speeded up decision makings, accelerated competitions, and adjusted prices. The consumers have acquired the price control replaced by the suppliers. The plans of coming product have reflected the consumer�s idea. They have planed products or services and began providing themselves. Everybody in the world has obtained the environment to collect various information and acquired the way to propose and express their own opinion.
�The conception to change has changed,� Negroponte says. In other words, nothing could be unchanged. Changing lasts. The world of technology also changes. None of the technologies �interfaces, networks, contents- from the 20th century has completed. The Media Laboratory must continue challenging the improvement and innovation of technologies.
In addition, the Digital demands to change the transformation stage. Mobile, Wearable, and Ubiquitous. The transformation from Atoms to Bits has realized in the 90�s but the reverse transformation from Bits to Atoms will be necessary. It is to bring back what happens in the virtual space or in the computer display to the real space. That is to say, everything around us will become a computer and connected via the internet.
To realize such world, connecting each computer is not enough. Changing the computer itself is necessary. We have to make the computer understand the human and create smart computers. We have to make friends with them. Moving side by side with nano-technology and bio-technology, the computer needs to merge with the coming technology. The digital is urged to incorporate not only with things but with physical spirit and form.
Besides, it is pointless if such technology stays out of reach. It is important to spread it into the society. To face the subject, it is essential to work with different sectors. Expansion with the outside field is the Media Laboratory�s next subject.
The Laboratory has now a lot of subjects to work on. As a result that the world seeks for the rapid digitalization, its charismatic nature could easily fade away. It is good enough for the Lab because challenging to change itself is its identity.


1-5 Bottles and Paper

The open house is still going on. It is the room of Prof. Roz Picard. A woman is operating the wheel of a car. A computer screen in front of her shows her face. It also displays a data. �The car figures out the actions such as handling the wheel and the timing of operating the accelerator and brake,� she says. A car is a running computer so that a driver could easily operate the car. �No, it�s the other way around. The computer matches the character of car with the driver�s character. We make the computer decide if the driver is nervous or relaxed,� she says. The computer understands if she is pleased or angry or afraid? �It reads how hard the driver holds the wheel, how she is seated, and also her facial expression and eyes� movement.� The connection between computer and people is not only a keyboard or mouse. It senses our input through cameras and pressure detectors, and accumulates all the information to understand us.
In the room of Prof. Ted Selker, there are many yellow balls on the screen. Keeping the eyes to one of the balls, it turns red. �The computer senses the eyes,� he says. Switching the eyes to another ball, it becomes red. �If you keep moving your eyes, the red ball moves to the same direction. It will be fun to make a game out of it, don�t you think?� It is not easy to control intentionally what to gaze at. You could easily look away. It will be exciting to play a game that functions without intention.
A large man lied down on the bed next to it. �Look at the ceiling,� he says. The ceiling replaces the computer screen. The picture of sun rises. �Setting an alarm clock, the sun wakes you up.� It is simple but fun. When he moves a ball in his hand while lying, the screen turns to be a basketball match. �You can play the game, too. I�m lying to the ceiling so that it becomes a screen. But what I am trying to do is, when I turns over to the side, the side becomes a screen.� He tries the whole living space to become a media.
On the other side beyond the corridor, there is a kitchen surrounded by glass walls. �Come and see the demonstration,� a woman invites. It is Prof. Mike Hawley�s laboratory. On the white counter, the image of dishes floats and the kitchen introduces the recipe. It is a kitchen display. �It is not only for display. When the danger such as boiling over or grilling over comes, it warns you. When a milk in the fridge needs to be filled, it tells you.� It is a kitchen that talks. �It is a kitchen that thinks,� she says. It is a kitchen that is alive.
Another student passes by and says, �It is not only the visual and auditory senses but also the scent that the digital can control.� He creates a system that you can smell the herbal mint when a good news arrives via the net, and lemon when a bad news arrives.
�You will be able to send scent files.� Really? �Really.� How about the taste? �We are working on it.� Sending the taste and smell of Ramen noodles by email? �Probably it will start with chocolate.� Serious?
Moving onto another room, there is a woman with a basket of supermarket installed with the PDA and a detector. She pulls out a bag of crisps. �When the detector reads the bar-cord, the price is displayed on the PDA. It also sends from the server like 15% discount for three bags.� Wherever, they demonstrate the examples of computer and ubiquitous�the computerized basket, the crisps made into the bits, and the digitalized supermarket.
The next laboratory is Prof. Hiroshi Ishii�s. He transferred from the NTT Human Interface to the Media Laboratory in 1995 and carries one of the major highlights. He places three empty bottles on the round table. The rainbow-colored illumination comes into the bottle from the underneath. Opening the bottle, a jazz music of piano starts. It seems that an unseen sound streams gently as a servant appears solemnly from a lamp. Opening another bottle, it is the sound of base. The third bottle sounds the drums. Those sounds create the ensemble music. It is a beautiful ensemble �the mixture of illumination, touch, and sound. Using the analogue materials like bottles and lids, it combines them with the sound and operates by digitally controlling. I would rather call it �the expression of its world� than �the integration of technology and art�.
The next is Prof. Tod Machover. Tapping a toy like a ladybug, it repeats the rhythm. Tapping again, another ladybug starts the rhythm. When you lift the lever, the rhythm and sound operate together and are sent to another ladybug. �They communicate with music,� he says.
Next to the toy, student draws a picture on the computer screen. Clicking the start button, a magnificent music begins along with the pictorial lines. �It is a composing software that creates music as you draw a picture.� If the children in the world will be able to use the software, they can be a composer. �You can already download from the web. Our wish is to regain the performance such as playing the instruments, or composing music from the professionals.� It might change the conception of music itself.
In the room of Prof. Niel Gershenfeld, he asks me to wear a watch. He also wears the same one. Actually, it is not a watch but a display showing �the Media Laboratory�. He offers his hand saying hello and we shake hands. On the display of my watch also shows �the Media Laboratory�. It switches on by shaking hands? �No. My data was transferred to yours.� Via an electric wave or infrared rays? �No, the data passes through the palms.� It employs the physical part as a communication line? �Yes, the information like in a business card can be transferred in a second.�
There lies an empty box of leads. You could see the board inside of it. What is it? �It�s a web server,� Excuse me? �It is a server,� he says. Which means? �You can put into your pocket and place many of those in a room. It will be easier if you can control everything like a toaster or an air conditioning or electric bulbs with TCP/IP.� It will take another two days to understand the technology.
Prof. Joe Jacobson demonstrates the computer ink. With the special ink, it prints the computer display. It does not make a display like a paper. But it is a technology that prints a display on a paper.
�It is already ready for use so that it will be used for signboards or price tags.� I remember the last time when he showed it. �The different material like plastic was used last time but this is a paper.� Wow, the printed texts move on the paper. A film could be seen in a book. Tell me more later.
And I go onto the next laboratory.


1-6 400 and 150

There are thirty professors in the Media Laboratory. Each has his or her own research area with a different theme. The range of research area spreads variously �Digital Physics, Device Technology, Network Technology, A.I., Wearable Computer, Holography, Video Interfaces, Speech Interfaces, Software agents, Music, Graphic Design, Electronic Publishing, Learning, Education, Toys, Nano-technology, Bio-technology, Robotic Presence etc. It includes all the areas in related to digital technology.
Negroponte says, �The Media Laboratory is not an institute of Natural Science, nor Technology, nor Cultural Sciences, but all of them mixed.�
Five of the professors are women and the others are men. They have different nationalities. Negroponte is from Greece, Papert is from South Africa and Ishii is from Japan. Some are from India, Belgium, Central Europe, and a lot of Jewish. Some are old enough to be said the �Great Professors�, and some are only in their thirties. Each of them is the world�s foremost in their own area.
Graduate enrollment totals 180. 60 percent are master�s degree candidates and 40 percent are PhD candidates. Of these students, 85 percent are enrolled in the Media Laboratories and the others are based in the other laboratories such as engineering. Each belongs to one of the professors� laboratories and carry out their own research. Since there are 30 professors and 180 students, a group consists of about six students.
The Media Laboratory is also an academic department. It produces masters and doctors, which is unlike regular laboratories. The students sometimes study in a classroom, and also they perform and develop their research in a workshop or in other unique environments. While they enjoy their study, the programs are extremely hard.
Instead of paying the tuition, they are provided about $1,700 a month and entitled as Research Assistant. It is exceptional in comparison with the regular tuition $25,000 per year. There is no doubt that the world�s genius gather to the Media Laboratory.
About 200 undergraduates per year also participate in carrying out their research or as an assistant. The Laboratory totals 400 people as researchers, and 50 staff in the management group.
In 2002, the Media Laboratory received $45,000,000 from sponsors. Dividing the total amount into the 30 research groups, it seems to be too much for an academic institution but little for a business laboratory. The supporters include approximately 150 corporations and foundations. The Media Lab�s close relationship with the industries is one of the features, and reflects a success to corporate with them.
The corporate sponsors include from multimedia industries such as electoronics, furniture, computing software, telecommunications, broadcasting, publishing, and advertising. The large competitive companies are listed as sponsors. They also range from finance, distribution, chemistry, food, automobiles, and toys. The governmental and international corporations also support the Laboratory. Geographically, 50 percent of the sponsors have their headquarters in the USA, 25 percent in Europe and 25 percent in Asia, including 13 Japanese companies.
Consortium sponsorship is consisted out of each research area connecting the 30 research groups and 150 companies. There are five consortia: �Digital Life� seeks for online world, �Organization:Information� (I:O) works on information production, edit and utilization, �Thinking Objects� aims at merging objects and bits, �Digital Nations� focuses on the informationizing children and developing countries, and �Changing Place� concentrates on digitalizing the physical life. Each consortium has 30-40 members.
The sponsorship provides nine smaller and more-focused research agendas in addition to the consortia: �Toys of Tomorrow� researches playing methods and learning, �CC++� looks into informationizing automobiles, �e-Market� explores electronic business trading and electronic agents, and �Broadercasting� fuses telecommunications and broadcasting and computers into one.
Joining a community of sponsors means to participate in one of the consortia. The cost of joining a consortium is $200,000 per year, for a minimum of three years. The cost of individual smaller groups ranges from $75,000 to $100,000 per year.
Whether to find it too costly or not depends on how effectively and valuably to utilize the benefit out of the Lab�s research results.
First and foremost, consortium sponsors receive full intellectual property rights. Each sponsors is entitled to acquire and make use of the Laboratory�s license and research programs during their sponsorship years in license-fee free and royalty free. The full rights include not only the consortium programs they join but also all the intellectual properties developed in the Media Laboratory. This policy provides the Lab�s members and sponsors to share the developments openly. As for sponsors, it means buying the economic values provided from $45,000,000 with $200,000.
The policy is the direct and general benefit for the sponsors, but there is more. The sponsors are entitled to employ the Lab�s professors and students. The Lab�s property is the �people�. They share technological subjects with them, and exchange the ideas. The benefit is to make use of the researchers as a consultant.
The most valuable benefit that I think the Lab�s sponsorship provides is the community of corporate support. With the ideas and will the worldwide sponsors share to develop the degitalization, there is no doubt that new businesses or corporations are produced. The corporation is more valuable than numbers. The Media Laboratory provides the opportunity and performs as an agent. It is an industrial platform and media.


1-7 Night and Skiing

We are at a game center next to the oldest stadium for Major League, Fenwey Park, where the baseball team Boston Red Sox is based. The sponsor conference �I:O� has finished and we were taken here on a reserved bus for dinner. There are cocktails, food, and games. Prof. Brian Smith who organizes the conference planned the dinner.
�Lost again,� the director Walter Bender is excited with the Sega ski game challenging one of the sponsors. The director of the Media Lab is playing a game. He continues his research since the Lab�s foundation, and now he performs as a researcher and a director. No, he is playing a game this moment. It is a virtual reality game that you place yourself in a virtual slope and use a pair of skies and stocks.
The Media Laboratory�s predecessor, the Architecture Machine Group, first developed the virtual reality in an interactive image. Bender had a seat in the group with other researchers such as Negroponte. In 1979, the world�s famous system was presented as �Aspen Moviemap�. It produced a town called Aspen in Colorado in a virtual space and let you have a virtual experience such as driving on the streets, or entering stores.
The concept of the virtual reality expressed the future of computing system, the interface technology and possibility of image expression. Multimedia has been developed as a technology that everyone could enjoy and play with.
Some sponsors are excited with an online car-racing game. Bender has joined them. Prof. John Maeda, a young master in design, is playing an F1-racing game. Prof. Mitchel Resnick, an expert of children learning, is throwing a ball into a hall. �I expect Nomo will step into the pitcher�s box in Fenwey tomorrow,� he predicts.
They play, really a lot. I once took Resnick to Sega World Tokyo Joypolis in Odaiba. A researcher of digital music, Prof. Tod Machover, and an expert of censors and synthesizer, Prof. Joe Paradiso were also with us. Asked to make the Media Lab area by Tokyo Joypolis, the super three observed the place.
Hurray, hurray! They played a lot then too, trying sound games, dancing games, thrilling games, and skate-boarding games randomly. And they think � thinking about its technology, or image, or sound, or maybe win or lose. Their interest and seeking spirit are their engine.
It was also a midnight. Across the Tokyo Bay, Tokyo Tower looked dim in an orange color. Tonight, the candle fire on each dinner table is swaying. In the reserved floor, the cocktails and dinner are ready. A dream opens its door in the evening. Whether in east or west, evenings are the time to make decision. Even a war starts in a salon.
Negroponte is not here tonight. �He is now in South Korea.� South Korea is a Broadband country. �He often visits India.� India is a Software country. �Don�t you call it Japan-Passing?� Someone told me all the Lab�s members might visit Japan in autumn. �John Maeda will hold a one-man show in Japan�. I would like to visit then.
How is the Media Lab Europe? �Good. How about your plan to establish a children�s center in Kyoto?� It opened and is called CAMP. Since the Media Lab fully helped to its opening, it did not take long. �I hope we do something together.� It will be great if we could communicate the children in Ireland and in Kyoto via video as a workshop. �Why don�t we plan it more in detail?�
Barney, how is the project in Cambodia? �We will need more financial aid for providing computers and building schools.� Let�s go talk to Japanese government again. �Do you carry out a project with the people from the government?� I work with the team working on increasing the ownership of radio waves, or the legal policy for the merger of telecommunication and broadcasting.
�Are you from Japan? I plan to do a business with the system that collects data with mobile phones of next generation. What do you think?� Do you plan to do it in Japan? �I will have offices in Boston and Taiwan.� I will help for free, of course. We will get in touch by emails.
I see many people from journalism tonight. �This consortium originally started with electronic publishing.� The electronic publishing has been realized from the future subject, hasn�t it? �Children can publish their book from home.�
Nice to see you. You are from the retirement association? �I work on expanding the online community for the retired, trying to provide their idea via network.� I work on expanding the online community of children. �Why don�t you undertake the junior summit again that carried out in 1998?� I actually have a plan in my mind. �Excuse me, I used to produce a TV program for children and I would like to listen more about it.� Sure, let�s talk together. The person over there is also interested and we can talk on the table.
The evening goes on cheerfully.


1-8 2D and 2C

Resnick�s was right. Nomo was on the pitching field the next day. While, in Japan, he is a pioneer of opening the door to the major league, in the USA he is a hero of the country. Pedro Martinez, a great pitching player in Redsox, is from Dominica. Despite their nationalities, they are American. People who come to the USA and achieve their work are American. A conductor at The Boston Symphony Orchestra, Seiji Ozawa, was based in Boston. Culture is built with the help from outsiders. Communities which are open and accept anything produce international culture.
Only an open platform guarantees the diversity. However, it is not easy to maintain the diverse position if not intentionally. Though the Media Lab is originally established with the mixture of diversity, it needed to keep trying. �D� as in diversity is the basis of the Media Lab.
Although, nothing would be produced if each idea stays within. Each axis must stand out others. Negroponte once said commenting on Japan, �The country should pull the nail that sticks out even further out�.
Hiroshi Ishii, the only professor from Japan at the Media Lab, who leads the �Tangible Media Group� also says, �The nail that sticks out too far can�t be hit. You should be the one.� Nomo, Ozawa, and Ishii are the ones that stick out too far.
Bender says, �The terms that characterize the Media Lab are ��imagine and realize��,� meaning that you imagine in your brain and realize it. Create virtually and physically. It was originally expressed by John Maeda.
Similarly, �demo or die� is the Lab�s motto since the beginning, meaning �invent and demonstrate as a real thing�. Invention is more important than criticism of academic research. A created thing or program or work is more valued than theses. Predicting the future is out of the question. A real work speaks.
The Lab�s professors and students create their work and demonstrate it to the sponsors. The works do not always respond to what they want. But it is the starting point. With the demonstration as a start, the creators explain the technology utilized and the original ideas, and the explanation expands from the next project to its utilization. �D� as in demonstration is also the basis of the Media Lab.
Creativity is important for each individual. In the Media Lab, it is not important to get a good score in an exam or to be clever for the use of life. �C� as in creativity �imaging, expanding an idea, developing a technology and expressing- is also the spirit of the Media Lab.
The things that the students at the Lab create are interesting. On a spring day, posters that imitate a Campbell�s soup were put up on the walls of the Media Lab. It says �soup in the future�.
�News In The Future� was one of the old consortia that preceded current I:O and studied electronic newspapers as its theme. It is no doubt that �Soup in the future� on the poster copied the name. It notifies the first meeting of a drinking computer. If a computer would be functioned with quanta, it would be possible to create a liquid computer. I once heard Negroponte muttered to sponsors that a drinking computer would be created.
Making the new consortium indicates that it is invented to the practical use? Can we see the demonstration of computer soup? Although I thought it was a future news, it would be a big news provided it was true. I walked down to the meeting room on the basement with a notebook on time.
It was strange since there ware not many people. I asked a cleaning lady on the corridor whether the meeting place for the soup in the future. �You come for the soup? There is no such soup. It is April Fool�s Day.�
April Fool�s Day. Soup in the future. It was a creative lie. A drinking computer. An academic joke. I was cheated but went back happily.
These creative people are the Media Lab�s property. The Lab�s property is the �people�. Professors, students, staff are all property. The Lab�s people are very shifting. About one-forth of the members are replaced every year. The seats for the professors are also competitive and the Lab often hires new professors. New property challenges new theme. �Development� is more important than �Transmission�.
Later on, Prof. Issac Chuang who joined the Laboratory in 2001 developed the liquid quanta computer. The soup in the future became no joke. What�s new? Who�s new? The metabolic mechanism is the mobility of the Media Laboratory.
Each professor decides the research theme. The Lab finds a new person, and the new professor raises his/her own theme. People stand first rather than research themes. This Lab�s policy will continue.
The Media Laboratory has no rule. There is neither project plans nor organization charts. They change all the time. �Change� is the whole theme. Changing continually is the dogma. �C� as in change is also the Lab�s spirit.
Although there are research groups classified according to research themes, they are also changeable. The other day, I prepared the Lab�s research for presentation in Japan classifying it into three areas such as technology, art, and application in accordance with a document. And Bender says, �The document is old. We make it into seven areas.� I had to start from the beginning.
The Laboratory challenges new areas and is very flexible. The Lab�s theme is to destroy what has done and veto the success. Negroponte has once spoken about such principle: �It is our principle to question authority, respect differences, veto the establishment and invent yourself.�
It is not easy.


1-9 Pizza and Almonds

In the morning. The sponsor�s conference has finished. An ordinary day at the Media Lab. In a big room on the third floor, tens of computers and work stations are placed at random. The panels that explain the research program such as carpets or IT projects in Senegal are hung down from the ceiling.
The things scattered in the room are unliterally odd: a speaker without frames, oscilloscope, cartoon figure made of clay, a fork stuck in a bread, a computer tip plugged into the bread, a frog toy tied with a copper wire etc.
Many of the Lab�s people work in the evening. Not many people are around in the morning. Two women are seated in front of their computer. The one works on the three-dimensional animation. Her head with a headset moves to the music she is listening to. The other works on the JAVA programming with her face close to the display.
Three male students sit on a couch. They seem to stay up all night. Digital works such as programming or editing images are so interesting that could make them forget the time. �Digital is not good for your health,� says one of the students eating a cold pizza. What do you want eat? I will get something for you. �I want a hot pizza.� You like pizza.
The students and professors at the Lab work hard. They do what they like and are happy. The students on the couch tell stories of Levi-Strauss and McLuhan. Is such subject suitable after spending the whole night? Their brain is full of energy.
A class started in the next room. They sit around the table and discuss watching a video. Some are with a laptop or a coke or a cup of coffee. Some students sit on the floor. There is even a student who holds a baby.
Interviewers from a Japanese TV station received a permission to report the Media Laboratory. After having lunch, I guided them to a room on the basement. A serious-looking man who works with clay says, �This is a musical instrument.� Placing the clay on the two electrodes, the computer made a sound. �If you make a different shape, it makes the different sound because of the resistant value. With this, children can also enjoy.�
It would be great if I could be a musician who can play Zhigoinel. �You can also design such. Why don�t you program like that?� Making a swan out of clay, it plays Swan Lake. �You create the program by yourself. This is a kit that makes an instrument by yourself.�
A robot made out of Lego blocks lies next to him. It is a work of Mindstorms, Lego�s big hit. It is a product that children themselves program on the computer and create their own robot. Mindstorms was based on the research of the group of Prof. Resnick.
�This is the latest version of its heart.� It is a battery size. �It is called Cricket. You can invent not only robots or instruments but some more tools with this. We have to make it smaller, though.� If children in the world play with it, they will create a new world.
Several boys are actually in the room working on a computer. �We develop our research with children.� A browny big dog approached to us. Hello, Rufus. Rufus is always here. Though a visiting professor Ken Haas says Rufus is his dog, he is also a member of the Lab. There are three more dogs in the Lab.
On the third floor, Prof. Mike Bove demonstrates an application of the Digital TV. One of the interviewers says, �It will be useful for the BS.� Why don�t you become a sponsor? A man with a Hawaiian shirt and a tie passed next to us. �Isn�t he Marvin Minsky?� Yes, he is. �Wow. Minsky. I saw a live Minsky!� Why don�t you become a sponsor?
The next is the room of the wearable research. We interview Prof. Pentland. We ask two of the researchers to show a demonstration outside with a wearable computer. All the materials such as CPU, memory, battery, telecommunication system are contained in a fishing-like vest. The thing like a tiepin put on the glasses is the display.
The researcher Stephen Schwarz with a pair of sunglasses says, �I should wear nicely if going outside� and wears the vest over his jacket. �This is Armani.� It does not suit him. We leave the building and walks on the grass. �Touch this, touch this. The server on the shoulder gets hot.� The tip on the shoulder emits the heat.
�Everything is collected in this. Somebody is accessing to my server and views the website. I feel somebody in the planet accesses to me. I feel good.� It is normal in the Media Lab. But I wonder if it is forbidden to broadcast such action in Japan.
Prof. Ted Selker who used to work for IBM approached on a bike. It is a weird bike that produces bubbles when it moves. �I want to make a driver laugh even if I crash with this.� Did you invent it?
It is getting late in the evening. More people are in the Laboratory. An impressive piano sound comes form the basement. Wondering if a professional piano player is making a sound, it was Prof. Mike Hawley who studies networks and toys. The recital is coming soon. I leave him without saying a word.
I come back to my room. Leaving the door open, a parrot was there. It is a parrot of a visiting professor Irene Pepperberg and has an ability to tell colors and shapes and calculate. It is a smart parrot. I guess it seeks for an opportunity to take a professor�s seat.
It walks around with almonds in the mouth and mess the floor. �Nice almonds?� I asked in Japanese. He does not seem to understand me. Give it to me. I pick up one of the almonds from the container. It has no tastes. I will buy a pizza for you tomorrow.


1-10 West and East

Today is Okawa lunch�s day. Once a week, the Media Lab invites guests and the members have a conversation over lunch. Arriving at the meeting room where the �soup of the future� was supposed to take place, Bender, Resnick, Smith and other professors queue with the students.
I also queue behind them and put some pasta and salad on the plate. After picking up Dr. Pepper, I take a seat. There are about thirty people. A professor from Tel Aviv University started his presentation about the educational experiment at primary schools. �Standard is the term for the era of the Industrial Revolution.� On listening to the impressive terms, I pick up my pen and take a note.
Classrooms after school, plays, experiment arts, digital divide, children�s paper, community activities etc. Okawa lunch invites a lot of activists in different areas and relates the Media Laboratory with the outside.
Seeking for the correlation between digital and society, and feeding back technological matter from the community are the Media Lab�s principles along with technology and art. Especially, the Lab keeps an eye on the people and the areas that digital technology could benefit such as children and developing countries. The Media Lab provides a new technology and creates an environment where children and developing countries can demonstrate its creativity. It revises the next technology via action.
The Okawa Center is named after the Chairman of CSK Sega group, Isao Okawa. Until the death of March 2001, Mr. Okawa continued to support the Media Laboratory as a patron. In 1998, he donated $27,000,000 to MIT for the establishment of �MIT Okawa Center�, the research organization for the children and media in the future.
With the contribution, the Media Lab will build a new seven-stories building next the current one. It will open in 2004. MIT Okawa Center will be included in the building. It aims to develop the Lab�s activities such as learning, plays, arts, expression, health etc. The Media Laboratory will be the biggest research organization in the digital area that connects children and digital. It will also include the digitalization of developing countries and the internet activities of old people. The activity has already started with Prof. Resnick and one of them is this Okawa lunch.
In 1995, Japanese government and Japanese industries held the Junior Summit. It was Mr. Okawa�s idea. Children from the world were invited to Tokyo and discussed the future of digital society. I joined to work for the summit from the government.
In November 1998, MIT Media Lab held the second summit. 100 representatives out of 3,000 children in the 139 countries gathered MIT. I have joined the Media Lab from then. The representatives requested to the United Nations in New York on live demanding the support for making the online nations. They still work online actively. At the Junior Summit, the MIT announced the establishment of Okawa Center.
The new building will be the basis of such activity. The Media Laboratory will expand enormously. Along with the opening of the new building, other activities will also create the own independent center: the center for the consolidation of Bits and Atoms, which develops the next technology after current IT such as wearable, and the center for arts and expression, which exploits the new expression such as music, design, games etc. Prof. Tod Machover whose research explores music and digital instruments will lead the latter center.
The Media Lab moves towards �double-expanding and three dimensions� together with the foundation of the big three centers. Although, it is not difficult to notice that the three themes overlap. The organic correlation will create more values. It will be no doubt that each leading professor work for all the centers. The process to organize and manage the three centers is a challenging subject for the Media Lab.
The expansion of the Media Lab does not stay within. For instance, the consortium started in autumn 2000, �Digital Nations� that covers a research about digital has proceeded its project in the areas such as Costa Rica, Mexico, Thailand and Senegal.
The consortium differs from the regular consortiums that are supported by corporations, but it works with governments from each country or international organizations. Since the aims that each sponsor has are radically different, the approaching methods towards research will also be different. In addition, it works with Harvard University.
The Laboratory is also undertaking major collaboration and merger such as in �Media Lab Europe�. The collaborated Laboratory is established in July 2000 on the site of old Guiness brewery in Dublin, the Republic of Ireland. The collaboration realized with the support of Irish government and it is a challenging project that aims to expand with $200,000,000 in ten years.
Similarly, the government of India has offered to create �Media Lab Asia�. With the same amount, it announced a 10-year Media Lab Asia project to expand the centers throughout in India. The project is expected for the development of education, health and new businesses in the community via digital technology.
In Japan, Sega has introduced the Lab�s eight projects to the Tokyo Joypolis. The exhibit at FutuExpress in Joypolis includes such as the gloves that express emotions, jackets and shoes that play music and graphic arts.
With the collaboration of the Media Lab, a workshop center for children, Children�s Art Museum & Park (�CAMP�) has opened in the south of Kyoto in November 2001. Mr. Okawa originally announced the idea expecting to open an Okawa center in Japan. CAMP is managed by CSK.
A throughout-glazed building that stands on the huge area where 350 cherry blossoms are planted looks like a modern art center. The professors and researchers from the Media Lab bring the Lab�s technology and know-how such as robot-creating, invention classes, music-creating, and open a workshop with children in Japan. At the same time, it works with other projects in other areas via internet.
CAMP is also supported by enterprises such as Lego and Intel and the world�s biggest natural science group, National Geographic. The workshop will enlarge in cooperation with children�s museum in the USA, Mexico, Ireland, Britain and Singapore. Each of them is the Media Lab�s syndicate.
The Media Laboratory increases.