Electronic payments have spread throughout the city, and QR code tags are now lined up at store cashiers. It is an interface for electronic money. This is a method in which the user reads the QR code with his or her smartphone, enters the payment amount, and makes an electronic payment. There is also a method of making an electronic payment by having the cashier machine read the QR code or barcode displayed on the smartphone, but it is a little safe because you enter the payment amount yourself.

By the way, until a while ago, I thought that it was easy to use electronic payments using cards with built-in IC chips and mobile phones, but for not a few stores now it is only a method of reading the QR code placed in the store. I think that the number of stores has increased and the flow of electronic payment has changed somewhat. Among them, the reading accuracy by the smartphone camera has improved dramatically. It seems that the results of machine learning are being used skillfully. A few years ago, the QR code was read by the mobile camera according to the guide displayed on the mobile screen, but now if the QR code is in the field of view of the smartphone camera, smartphone application will find the QR code regardless of the location, size and tilt of the code. Once found, it will decrypt the code. The smartphone app does not do machine learning but uses the results of machine learning.

Modeling machine learning requires a large number/amount of samples and computer power, but once the model and parameters are determined, it seems that recognition is performed according to the model with relatively small computer power.

Many apps that use the camera installed in the smartphone use this recognition mechanism. There are a wide variety of apps, such as apps that tell you the names of flowers, and apps that search the internet for similar things. It has become very convenient, but on the other hand, I think it has become exceedingly difficult to ensure privacy.

Nobuo FUJII was working for NTT R&D and NTT Groups where he studied and developed transport network operation systems. He also worked for ITU-T and other standard organizations, fora and consortia so as to develop operation system architectures and interfaces. He is an IEICE fellow. He joined CCI in 2014.

On the left side of a road to Onzanji-temple, Shikoku Sacred Site No. 18 Fudasho, you can find a barn where a huge cow is kept. At first I was wondering that there was a large black mass on the pilgrimage, but it was a beef cattle. Many Japanese cows are in barns. There are about 3.8 million cows in Japan, but 10% of them are grazing. On the other hand, Brazil, which has a large land area, has about 244 million cattle, of which 215 million are grazing. Free range is recommended for animal welfare, but the number of pastures is small in Japan because livestock farmers do not have large land. However, there is 4,230 square kilometers of agricultural fallow land, and recently it seems that part of it has started to be used for grazing. However, it is still 101 square kilometers, and it is expected that cattle will be raised by grazing in the future. Now, when cattle are grazing, attaching IoT devices to the cattle and managing the condition for 24 hours is the method of precision livestock farming (PLF). and ICT technologies including batteries, sensors, networks, clouds, machine learning are expected to be widely/wisely used. Since animals are not “things”, we may have to call them IoA (Internet of Animals) instead of IoT.

Nobuo FUJII was working for NTT R&D and NTT Groups where he studied and developed transport network operation systems. He also worked for ITU-T and other standard organizations, fora and consortia so as to develop operation system architectures and interfaces. He is an IEICE fellow. He joined CCI in 2014.

Cyber Creative Institute, which has a long track record of evaluating the standard essentiality of 4G and 5G SEP(standard essential patents), has published a “Survey Report on 5G Essential Patents , Declared 5G-SEPs and 5G Standardization Contributions For 5G-Standard Essential Patents (SEPs) (Second Version)” on January 14, 2020. Announced the start of sales. (Excerpts is Hear)

Survey reports are published in many media.

According to the survey report, the top three applications for 5G essential patents (5G-EP) are Qualcomm (11.4%), Huawei (11.1%), and Samsung (9.2%). Among Japanese companies, NTT DOCOMO ranks sixth with 5.7%, while Japanese companies rank first.

In addition, NTT DOCOMO is ranked number one in the world when viewed from a career perspective.

5G-EP is extracted by the following procedure.

First, 15 types of 5G element technologies are extracted as patents to be searched based on a patent search formula. There were about 44,000 patents to be searched. Next, experts in this technical field will select patents that are targeted for the 5G main technology category (50 items) and that solve technical issues unique to 5G. The remaining patent is 5G-EP. It is about 15,000. The 5G-EP extracted under these conditions includes not only 5G-SEP but also patents for implementing 5G systems and services, and patents for differentiation, so 5G-EP is realized. The most important group of patents for. Against this background, the 5G essential patent (5G-EP) is named.

The Declared 5G-SEPs (D-5G-SEP) published by ETSI is a patent declared by each company on its own judgment. Not necessarily 5G-SEP. In fact, in this survey, 5G-SEP declaration patents included many declaration patents for 4G standards.

On the other hand, 5G-EP are patents that are deemed necessary for the realization of 5G, so they are useful information from the viewpoint of analyzing the degree of focus on 5G technology development.

In addition, we believe that patents that are mandatory for 5G and have been declared 5G-SEP are likely to be true 5G-SEPs. In addition, the use of information on D-5G-SEP, 5G-EP and the patents to be searched based on them may significantly improve the efficiency of the evaluation of the essentiality of individual patents.

From this perspective, the report defines and analyzes 5G-SEP promising patents(5G-SEP PP).

By the way, the number of 5G-SEP PP is about 4,000.

https://www.soumu.go.jp/main_content/000666393.pdf

https://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/html/20200127/k10012261181000.html

https://mainichi.jp/articles/20200121/k00/00m/010/195000c

https://www.nikkei.com/article/DGXMZO54896280X20C20A1EA1000/

https://www.nikkei.com/article/DGXMZO54659990R20C20A1EE8000/

Legislation on the “right to repair” is being discussed in the United States, and some states have already reached consensus in its parliament. (See https://repair.org) “Right to repair” requests repair manuals and repair parts disclosure to manufacturers so that consumers can repair home appliances, etc. The manufacturer is somewhat negative about this requirement from the viewpoint of safety and security, but in Europe, the “right to repair” is considered in the Eco-Design Directive. (For example, https://www.positive.news/economics/claiming-the-right-to-repair/) Green policies, the realization of a circular economy, etc. are declared from the legislation side while consumers seek the rights in order to reduce living expenses. In connection with this, the Nordic Council has published a circular economy report on mobile phone industry in the three Nordic countries. The mobile phone industry is well analyzed for repairs, refurbishing, recycling, second-hand sales, relationships with manufacturers, and challenges. (David Watson, et.al “Circular Business Models in the Mobile Phone Industry”, Nordic Council of Ministers, TemaNord 2017: 560)

Nowadays, desktop PCs can run without any problems for more than 10 years, and their lifetime is due to support for basic software, such as Windows 7 facing the support termination in January 2020. On the other hand, smartphones have now improved APU performance enough for applications, so their lifetime dose not rely on a performance issue. It seems to be determined by the degree of deterioration of the lithium battery. Currently, most of the repair methods for products are published on the Internet with demonstrations. Necessary tools and parts are easily available on the internet (for example, https://jp.ifixit.com/). If you have a dedicated tool, you can replace the battery fixed to the smartphone by carefully proceeding with detailed work. However, there are parts that cannot be touched from the viewpoint of safety and security, so exercise your right to repair home appliances with caution. Plus, the manufacturer warranty will also be lost. For the repair rights, the Open Repair Alliance is conducting consortium activities.

Nobuo FUJII was working for NTT R&D and NTT Groups where he studied and developed transport network operation systems. He also worked for ITU-T and other standard organizations, fora and consortia so as to develop operation system architectures and interfaces. He is an IEICE fellow. He joined CCI in 2014.

In the investigation related to agricultural IoT, I met the term “animal welfare”. Efforts in each country are evaluated by Animal Protection Index (API) from the viewpoint of protection of animals widely, not only from animal welfare perspective. The API ranges from A rank to G rank, Japan is in D rank. Countries that are ranked A are Britain, Switzerland, Austria and New Zealand. Evaluation items for ranking are (1) recognition of animal protection, (2) governance structure and system, (3) application of animal / well-fair standards, (4) provision of humanitarian education, and (5) Communication among stakeholders and improvement of awareness. The target is all animals from pet, livestock to wild animals.

Well, the relationship between Agriculture IoT and Animal Welfare is in the place where various sensors are used to record the traceability of livestock. By accumulating the information gathered by the sensor, it will be recorded accurately in what kind of environment the individual livestock was raised. In addition, by using sensor information in a timely manner, real-time remote management of livestock is also made possible. The latter is mainly used for labor saving of livestock industry and improvement in productivity, but the former contributes to the safety of food and the added value of food in addition to labor saving of recording.

In the meat industry in Europe and the United States, there are cases where rankings of five stages in terms of animal welfare conditions are attached to meat that is sold in the market. The Global Animal Partnership (GAP) established in the United States and the UK in 2008 made rules and the GAP ranking according to the rules is displayed on meat products. There is agricultural production process management (Global Agricultural Practice: GAP) in Japan, but it is different from this.

I would like to pay attention to the fact that IoT is applied continuously for many areas.

Nobuo FUJII was working for NTT R&D and NTT Groups where he studied and developed transport network operation systems. He also worked for ITU-T and other standard organizations, fora and consortia so as to develop operation system architectures and interfaces. He is an IEICE fellow. He joined CCI in 2014.

LTE based technologies are now spreading well. Your smart phone easily gets LTE signals in almost all countries in the world. Though LTE bands vary depending on local carriers in a country, you can use data communication function without any problems as far as your smart phone supports the appropriate LTE band. According to the Ericsson Mobility Report in 2017, total mobile subscriptions number is 8 billion now and 3 billion of which are LTE based technology. It also estimates that mobile subscription number will reach 9.1 billion in 2023 with 5 billion LTE subscriptions. Regarding my case, I privately use an MVNO sim in Japan, Telkomsel simPATI in Asian countries, and Orange mobicarte-sim in Europe and North America since they offer affordable data roaming fees comparing with Japanese Mobile Operators.

LTE based technologies were developed by 3GPP. By limiting radio bandwidths to 200kHz and giving enough connections for IoT devices, NB-IoT standard was developing. By applying unlicensed band such as 5GHz, MulteFire specifications were developed. Well-established LTE based technologies are now applied for various radio frequencies associated with an appropriate bandwidth. This softens the devise development barrier and a rapid market creation is expected.

MulteFire specfications were developed by MulteFire Alliance based on 3GPP release 13 in February 2017. In 3GPP standards, PLMN(Public Land Mobile Network) has AAA functions. In MulteFire specifications, they define PSP(Participated Service Provider) and NHN(Neutral Home Network) and reuse 3GPP standards by mapping terms between  PLMN and PSP/NHN.

Addition to 3GPP release 13 standards by MultiFire Alliance is very limited. The addition includes the use of IETF EAP(Extended Authentication Protocol) for mutual authentication between UE and PSP and an online singup service (OSU-service). You can download MultiFire specifications from MulteFire Alliance Homepage, https://www.multefire.org/

Some sources announced that 5G services will be launched in 2020. However, LTE based technologies will be dominant for the time being and many systems and networks will be based on LTE based technologies.

Nobuo FUJII was working for NTT R&D and NTT Groups where he studied and developed transport network operation systems. He also worked for ITU-T and other standard organizations, fora and consortia so as to develop operation system architectures and interfaces. He is an IEICE fellow. He joined CCI in 2014.

Searching sensor and actuator interfaces on Webs, not a few industry standards are identified. Many of them are for manufacturing or factory automations. On the other hand, studies on IoT (Internet of Things) are in progress. It is possible to develop new sensors and actuators for IoT. However considering that the effective use of well populated sensors and actuators in markets, it is more practical to develop inter-operability of IoT not on a device level.

As many use cases have been developed considering the effective use of IoT technologies, such as smart cities, systems are converged to a three layer model which includes IoT devices, IoT gateways and IoT cloud. Interfaces are defined between layers and level of abstraction of IoT increases as going away from IoT devices. For instance, IoT devices are defined as piece of information on IoT cloud. When a use case allows a latency of information exchange between application and IoT devices, inter-operability of IoT should be developed on IoT cloud level. And when a use case does not allow latency, such IoT device should be owned by the use case.

Inter-operability of IoT is developed by defining an entity corresponding to IoT devices on an information system. This entity is also recognized as an object and very similar to managed objects used for network operations and management. Given not a few classes of IoT will exist, these object definitions should be machine readable and well manipulated by applications.

As a mechanism to meet above mentioned requirements, HyperCat project is progressing in UK, in which objects are defined in JSON notations following Restful architectural style. HyperCat project should be cautiously monitored.

Nobuo FUJII was working for NTT R&D and NTT Groups where he studied and developed transport network operation systems. He also worked for ITU-T and other standard organizations, fora and consortia so as to develop operation system architectures and interfaces. He is an IEICE fellow. He joined CCI in 2014.