e-Services at the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics

Hideki Yamamoto

Senior Manager
Network Systems Division, ICT Business Division
Oki Electric Industry Co., Ltd.

When this article is published in February 2018, the 23rd
Winter Olympic Games will be happening in PyeongChang, in
our neighboring country, South Korea. The much anticipatedTokyo Olympics and Paralympics will be held two years and fivemonths later, in July 2020. In preparation for the Olympics andParalympics, various hospitality initiatives throughout Japan arecurrently in progress.
One such hospitality initiative is to develop new e-servicesusing ICT technology. These are not so-called black-box services,
but will be provided as services using open products. In particular,
the technologies needed to implement these e-services are openfrom the early stages, not only through demonstrations andtesting, but also through open system functionality and interface
requirements, and discussion at international standardization
meetings. Through discussion in such international venues froman early stage, we hope to develop these technologies globally inthe future.
This special feature focuses on work being done in ITU-T
SG16 to standardize e-services, and in particular, e-services
related to the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics.
In the first article, Rapporteur of the question under study on
digital signage (Q14/16), Mr. Kazunori Tanikawa from NEC, will
introduce initiatives related to digital signage. Standardization ofdigital signage is proceeding as a means to provide information
outdoors, on Olympic and Paralympic competitions and also on
tourism and disasters, if needed.
The second article, titled “New style of sports watching byImmersive Live Experience (ILE) and its standardization status,”
was contributed by Mr. Hideo Imanaka, from NTT Advanced
Technology and Mr. Yoshihide Tonomura and Mr. Kiyoshi
Tanaka from the NTT Service Evolution Laboratories. They

work on standardization for question under study on Immersive
Live Experience (ILE) (Q8/16), which can provide realistic
remote viewing that is almost like being at the sports venue ortheatre. The fundamental parts of this technology have alreadybeen standardized, and technical standards for international
interconnectivity will be standardized in the future.
In the third article, the history and current state ofstandardization for multilingual speech translation are describedby Mr. Shoichi Senda, from the National Institute of Information
and Communication Technology (NICT). He describes how an
R&D group was formed in Asia, lead by Japan, and later, anotherat the international level through the ITU-T, together with theefforts, achievements, and future prospects of these pioneers.
The final article, regarding accessibility, was written by Prof.
Masahito Kawamori from Keio University, who is Rapporteurof question under study on accessibility—making it easier fordisabled and elderly people to access information (Q26/16). Since
the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Convention
on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in 2006, it is increasing
in importance in countries around the world. This article gives
an overview of standardization efforts in Q26, not limited to theTokyo Olympics and Paralympics.
We expect to accelerate standardization efforts in the future,
towards realization of standardized hospitality e-services for theTokyo Olympics and Paralympics. At ITU-T SG16, we will also
continue to work on standardization for other new e-services
not discussed in this special feature, such as e-health, Intelligent
Transport Systems (ITS), IPTV, and digital financial systems.
We invite all those interested to participate in discussion regarding
standardization of new e-services and other issues.

New Breeze Spring 20181