Tokyo 2020 × IoT
The Olympic Games have been a great opportunity to show how much technology has developed to all over the world, and Olympic accelerates the development in the host country. In 2020, the capital of Japan, Tokyo will be hosting a 2nd time Summer Olympic called Tokyo 2020. The 1st time was in 1964, when Japan developed “Ballet Train” which was(is) the fastest train in the world. As Japan hosts Summer Olympic in 2020, the Japanese National centre of Incident readiness and Strategy for Cybersecurity (NISC) released a document named “the General Framework for Secured IoT system”(Japanese link). The government tries to develop security systems in order to adopt IoT system in many fields until Tokyo 2020. Besides, there is an interesting idea which connects sports and IoT, called “Smart Stadium”. In Tokyo 2020, the stadiums might be more convenient and much smarter than we expect thanks to IoT technologies.
Olympic × Development of Technology
First of all, Olympics have played an important role in developing technologies for a long time. At every Olympics we surprised the emergence of new technologies. Let’s look at the brief history of Olympics and Technologies.
- 1900 Paris Olympics:
A new photographic technology named chrnophotography was used in this Olympic Games. This technology made it easier to analyse the movement of athletes by capturing movements over several films and creating something like animation.
- 1964 Tokyo Olympics:
For the first time in Olympic history, the games were televised internationally via satellite, so this Olympics Game is also known as “TV Olympics”.
In addition, as mentioned early, Bullet Train also known as Shinkansen or High-speed rail was opened to traffic. The top speed of this train was about 210km per hour in 1964, but lately the top speed is over 320km per hour. The purpose was to improve transportation system for Japanese residents and the foreign visitors who came to watch Tokyo Olympics.
- 2012 London Olympics:
Several technologies such as multi-screen, LED and Projection were used so much in the opening ceremony.
Besides, many people watched this Olympics through smart phones and more than 150 million comments about London Olympics were tweeted in Twitter. This implies that smartphones and SNS became so popular around the world.
- 2018 PyeongChang Olympics (winter):
Drone shows in the opening ceremony gained global attention. 1218 drones were used in this show. Drone was a new and emerging technology at that time, but this show proved that drone was already a practical technology.
In this way, Olympics and Technologies are related in some ways. The hot technology in these days is Internet of Things (IoT). How Olympics accelerates IoT? How IoT changes Olympics in the future?
Smart Stadium
The concept of “Smart Stadium” is based on Smart City. Smart City is defined as “designation given to a city that incorporates ICT to enhance the quality and performance of urban services such as energy, transportation and utilities in order to reduce resource consumption, wastage and overall costs.” by Techopedia (2019). In the same way, Smart Stadium is the stadium which applies IoT technologies to improve the spectator’s and player’s experience. In the future, the stadium will be as different as it used to be.
Some stadiums are already becoming smart. The good example is Wembley Stadium in London. The largest mobile network operator in UK, EE has been sponsoring Wembley Stadium since 2014. EE introduced high-speed Wi-Fi in the stadium, but EE have also done many other things. This company is engaged in making an official app of Wembley Stadium which improves customer experience with Internet technologies. For example, this app has “Seat View”, “Browse Events” and “Travel Planner”. Spectators can check the view from each seat by using “Seat View”. “Browse Events” makes it possible to find all events at Wembley Stadium and share them with friends. If you don’t know how to get to the stadium, “Travel Planner” tells you the way to the stadium from your current location. These are very simple functions, but 60 years ago, before the Internet was invented, we didn’t have this kind of services. Now stadiums are started to be connected to the Internet and becoming smarter and smarter.
Rakuten, one of the biggest Japanese e-commerce and Internet Company, also known for the shirt sponsorship with FC Barcelona, is trying to make “Smart Stadium” by applying 5G technology, drone and Virtual Reality (VR).
- 5G:
The speeds of 5G network is expected to be 100 times faster than current that of 4G network, so it helps every device be connected Internet, which will rapidly enhance IoT. At Rakuten Seimei Park Miyagi in Sendai city, Rakuten carried out the over-the-air (OTA) 5G trial in collaboration with Nokia and Intel Corporation in November 2018.
- Drone:
Drone-based identity verification can be deployed to smart stadium. Drone with camera captures video in the stadium and transmit to identity verification system via 5G network. This drone-based system will identify individuals in the stadium and automate check in process. Plus, by combining this technology with facial recognition for criminals, drone will detect the criminals in the stadium and prevent terrorism.
- Virtual Reality (VR):
VR will provide the whole new experience to people without going to the stadium. Your home can be the stadium. I other words, you can bring “Smart Stadium” in your house. Rakuten is trying to provide 360 degrees 8K VR streaming service in the future. You will take a VR headset and then you can feel like you are in the stadium to watch sports. 5G network is necessary to enable real-time VR streaming service.
These brand new ideas about the combination of technologies and stadiums, “Smart Stadium” will rapidly be popular in Olympic Games as technology develops. Especially, Japanese government and some companies such as Rakuten are trying to enhance IoT and create Smart Stadiums for Tokyo 2020. As mentioned early, Olympics is a great opportunity to show the application of new technology. Hope Japan shows fantastic smart stadiums and make us enjoy the sports with IoT technologies in Tokyo 2020.
Reflection
I have studied Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning and Deep Learning in particular, so I thought I already knew digital society very well before I started this module. However, every module, especially “Digital Engagement”, “Internet of Things”, “Smart Cities” were so new to me and they changed my way of thinking about digital world. I used to think about only the positive effects when it comes to digital society, but now I know it has some negative impacts on our lives. I had already known the fact that Google, Facebook, Instagram and other search engines or SNS are collecting our data from their products, but I had never discussed about it deeply.
I really feel ashamed that I had never heard of the word “Smart Cities” until I learned it in this module. Of course, I knew Internet of Things (IoT), but smart city was out of my dictionary. This concept is so interesting for me because I think AI can be applied into smart cities in many ways. Lately, the hot topics in AI are Computer Vision and Natural Language Processing (NLP). Computer Vision is programmed to imitate how human eye works and interpret view. Computer Vision can be used to identify the people in smart city, which can detect criminals immediately and prevent the crime or terrorism. NLP is about how human speak and text each other in terms of language. For example, NLP is applied into translation service like Google Translate. It is also used in virtual assistants such as Siri. This technology can make smart city more global because of the immediate translation service with NLP. Besides, virtual assistance will advise every resident when they ask something. In this way, AI technology seems to play important role in creating smart cities.
The other thing I learned through this module is how to write a blog post. I had never written blog post, even in my first language. I still don’t know how to write perfectly, but this module gave me a chance to write blog posts. I realized that writing down what I think can brush up my ideas. Besides, we can share our ideas on blog, which is so interesting for me. After writing my idea, I can see other people’s idea and compare mine with others, that broadens my perspectives. We used Medium in this module and this site is so convenient. This site is very easy to find interesting topics and easy to post a blog, so I want to keep using Medium even after this module has finished.
Anyway, this module gave me a huge amount of interesting and useful knowledge which can be combined with my studying (AI). Plus, thanks to this module, I learned how to write a blog and met a great site, Medium. As a person who lives in the era of Internet of Things, I want to keep attention on new technologies with thinking critically.
