Technological Innovation Fair 2010

Featuring a range of robot technology solutions to help attract customers and boost sales in commercial and public spaces

On March 3 and 4, 2010, Robot Laboratory held an event entitled "Technological Innovation Fair 2010" at Market Plaza on the third floor of the Business Innovation Center Osaka.

The event marked the fourth year for the fair, which features exhibits of products and services using robot technologies in an effort to help match companies with providers of innovative solutions. This year, 14 companies proposing a variety of products and services designed to attract customers and boost sales in commercial and public spaces presented 12 exhibits, a departure from past years when most exhibits were put on by companies developing either robots or constituent technologies.

Plenty of products with clear use cases

The 5th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human Robot Interaction was being held at the Business Innovation Center Osaka at the same time as the fair, and a group of special exhibit booths exploring human-robot interaction (HRI) set up by eight Japanese and overseas companies helped attract numerous overseas businesspeople and researchers to the venue. Attendees could be seen enthusiastically questioning the staff at each booth.

Thanks to the event's targeting of commercial facilities (department stores, shopping centers, etc.) and public spaces (train stations, hospitals, etc.), companies participating in Technological Innovation Fair 2010 were able to propose RT solutions for specific fields and industries with greater clarity than in years past. Many of the solutions presented are already available commercially, and it was common to see attendees and exhibitors engaged in specific business discussions at booths.

This year, a number of companies proposed solutions involving video technologies. Exhibits such as "Retail Signage (Electronic POP System for Promoting Sales and Energizing Showrooms" (Dai Nippon Printing Co., Ltd.) and "Digital Signage Operational Support" (East Inc.) gave the distinct impression that digital signage is steadily gaining acceptance as a new solution for commercial and public facilities.

Many of the products exhibited at the fair attracted attention from attendees due to their potential to make a direct contribution to streamlining services in current commercial facilities and public spaces. Examples include a special film that can be easily used as a monitor simply by applying it to the windows of stores and other establishments (Decorative System Co., Ltd.), a system designed to give customers information about waiting times (Jato Co., Ltd.), a customized touch panel development system (Software Engineering Co., Ltd.), and a merchandise management system using UHF-band RFID technology (ITEC Hankyu Hanshin Co., Ltd.).

Other companies presented solutions harnessing IT to automate complex operations. Exhibits such as "Website Self-translating System" (Kodensha Co., Ltd.) and a software-based videoconferencing service (Prosper Corporation and Nankai Travel International Co., Inc.) are likely to see extensive use by businesses that serve foreign tourists, including hotels and the travel and tourism industries.

"Virtual Fitting System" (Furutanisangyou Co., Ltd., and PFU Limited) and a new approach to sightseeing that utilizes personal mobility technology (IT Doraku Research Laboratory, Ltd.) offer novel capabilities lacking in existing services. Thanks to their powerful customer-attracting potential, these solutions are likely to see increasing use at commercial facilities and in the tourism industry as newsworthy examples of their deployment become known.

RT solutions on display included constituent technologies in the form of the "M2M Platform" (Digi International K.K.) and "Image Processing Sensor Using a Silicon Retina" (Neuralimage Co. Ltd.) exhibits. These exceptional technologies promise to streamline operations in such areas as remote monitoring management and the measurement of human traffic, suggesting the desirability of partnerships between system integrators and robot development companies going forward.

The fair included a series of business seminars on utilizing robot technologies in commercial and public spaces, and a large number of visitors attended a session introducing examples of digital signage and RFID technology use (Dai Nippon Printing Co., Ltd.) and a seminar exploring mechanisms for utilizing technology in sales (PFU Limited). Each seminar session introduced specific and relevant examples of service innovations in commercial facilities and public spaces, and the event proved to be a fruitful one for attendees.