NTT Research and Development 2005 Review of Activities

2004 Symposiums/Forums Schedule (arranged chronologically)

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NTT R&D Forums

NTT R&D Forums were held NTT's Atsugi, Tsukuba, and Yokosuka research centers during 2004.

The first of these—NTT R&D Forum 2004 in Atsugi—was held on October 15 at the NTT Atsugi Research Center. Focusing on a basic concept termed “Assured technology in harmony with people, businesses, and society”, this forum presented the latest research results through lectures, workshops, and exhibitions covering a wide range of fields from science to business. In a broad appeal to the 820 attendees from many places, research results from the NTT Science and Core Technology Laboratory Group and NTT Energy and Environment Systems Laboratories were presented.

“Tsukuba Forum 2004” was held at the NTT Tsukuba Research and Development Center on October 21 and 22. Based on the theme “FTTH is well underway to speeding up resonant communication”, this forum not only introduced R&D results from this research center but also gave proposals and presentations concerning the latest technologies from NTT Group companies and related industries. As well as the great interest shown by the total of 8,600 attendees toward the latest R&D at the NTT Access Network Service Systems Laboratories and trends toward the future, a forum for discussions on speeding up resonant communication was created through various presentations and proposals given by NTT Group and participating companies.

Taking place over two days from February 24 to 25, “NTT R&D Forum 2005” was held at the NTT Yokosuka Research and Development Center. This forum—being held jointly for the second time by the NTT Cyber Communications Laboratory Group and the NTT Information Sharing Laboratory Group—was held this time at the Yokosuka R&D center. Under the theme “A widening world of resonant communication,” the forum was aimed at furthering the understanding of NTT customer businesses as well as NTT Group members in regards to core technology development, new services, and new-business creation being advanced by NTT's R&D. Over the two days, through lectures, workshops, exhibitions, and so on, the total of 3,784 attendees—exceeding the number of the previous year—could get a real feeling for the core technical developments and the steady progress and various efforts of NTT's R&D toward realizing a world of resonant communication. At the same time, through discussions on different service images and exchange of opinions from many participants, this forum turned out to be extremely worthwhile.

NTT R&D Forum 2004 in Atsugi (Special lecture)

Tsukuba Forum 2004 (Conference scene)

NTT R&D Forum 2005 (President's lecture)

NTT R&D Forum 2005 (Exhibition scene)

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Core Technology Symposium

Hosted by the NTT Cyber Communications Laboratory Group, the “Core Technology Symposium” was held over two sessions in 2004. Aiming at reinvigorating research activities, this symposium promotes planning and implementing improved presence of five main themes (i.e., core competence) being advanced by research and development at the NTT Cyber Communications Laboratory Group, namely, “visual media”, “speech, acoustics and natural language”, “human interface”, “human appliance”, and “media-based computing”.

The first session—held at the Ginza Gas Hall on April 16—was based on the “visual media” theme. Through lectures and exhibitions, a broad range of research results concerning video-encoding technology and image-processing technology developed at the NTT Cyber Communications Laboratory Group was presented to the 230 gathered attendees.

The second session—based on the “speech and acoustics media” theme—was held at the NTT Musashino Research and Development Center on December 17 by collaboration between NTT Cyber Space Laboratories and NTT Communication Science Laboratories. Through lectures and discussions, the approximately 150 gathered attendees could partake in meaningful discussions on the present state of and future expectations on sound and acoustics technologies in the optical broadband era.

The first session of the Core Technology Symposium (venue scene)

The second session of the Core Technology Symposium (lecture scene)

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The Second NTT Basic Research Laboratories School

Aiming at improving the education of young researchers in the solid-state and physical-science fields and increasing the profile of the laboratory overseas, the second NTT Basic Research Laboratories School (NTT-BRL School)—based on the theme “Transport properties in quantum nanostructure”—was held at the Fuji Seminar House in Fujiyoshida city, Yamanashi prefecture and the NTT Atsugi Research and Development Center from October 8 to 14, 2004.

Welcoming special-guest speakers with close ties to NTT—such as Professor L. Glazman of Minnesota University, USA, Professor Seigo Tarucha of Tokyo University, professor R. Fazio of Scuola Normale Superiore, Italy, Professor C. Schönenberger of Basel University, Switzerland, and professor Tsuneya Ando of Tokyo Institute of Technology—and joined by the group leader of NTT Basic Research Laboratories, this schooling presented lectures to 32 participants from 17 countries (mainly Ph.D. students)—who, in addition, introduced their research by poster sessions.

On the first day, the director of the NTT Basic Research Laboratories gave a lecture overviewing the research laboratories, introducing its mission and research systems, and so on. On the final day, in addition to introductions to research activities from the executive managers of each research laboratory, laboratory tours of the research center's facilities, such as clean rooms and the low-temperature laboratory, were conducted.

A questionnaire given to the participants stated impressions such as “the lecture contents were substantial and extremely fruitful”, “a rewarding glimpse of the research activities of NTT Basic Research Laboratories in such a fantastic environment”, and “I would definitely like to try to do research at NTT Basic Research Laboratories sometime in the future”, On top of demonstrating the broad appeal of the research activities of NTT Basic Research Laboratories and receiving favorable comments from the participants, the schooling made a great contribution to raising the profile of the laboratory. From now onwards as well, NTT-BRL School will be kept going, and aiming at further improving the profile of the laboratory to young researchers from overseas, vigorous efforts will be continued.

Scene from a lecture

Photo of the assembled participants

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