tering and discovering application capabilities as services, and WSDL, a language for describing Web services, have all made some progress towards implementing Web services.

But when personal Internet users were asked their requirements for these ID-management type services, the main concerns cited were privacy protection and low-cost network fees; in addition, over half of users surveyed cited information security, indicating that safety is going to be a key issue in the further spread of these kinds of services.

## Technology Development Strategies in the United States, Europe, and Japan

Advanced nations including the United States and Europe all aggressively pursue R&D in the IT sector. In the United States, a little under 50% of the budget for IT R&D was spent on advanced computing, enhancing the investment in long-term computing. In the European Union, with framework programs being implemented, 3.6 billion euro was spent on the "User Friendly Information Society" (IST).

When researchers in the IT field were asked what country or region they expected would lead research in the future, more than 85% answered U.S.A. for basic research, more than 70% for applied research. When asked to compare the level of R&D in the United States and Japan, the technologies where Japan was cited as having a lead were wireless handsets, information appliances, supercomputers, voice synthesis, language processing, and electronic and optical materials (Exhibit 1-34). When comparing the number of patents issued to the U.S.A. and Japan, the United States had a vast lead in terms of Internet-related patents, by a factor of 4.6, although looking at the long-term trend, the difference in the number of Internet-related patents has been shrinking.

While the United States has been the leader in Internet-related technology developments, the trend towards ubiquitous network, which will broaden the demographics of Internet users, is a promising one for Japan, which will be able to make its mark in the world by leading in areas that will grow more important: mobile communications, information appliances, human interface technology. Research and development on other technologies that will be important for creating a ubiquitous network environment—service discovery and structuring, access control—are also areas where progress is being made, and which will be necessary to create an environment with a rich level of services that is uniformly available.

Exhibit 1-34 Network Devices that Internet Users Would Like to Be Able to Use

Technology	Japanese technical strength relative to the U.S.
Network	Mobile communications	Base stations, switches	Poor
Handsets	Good
Internet	Poor
Optical communications	OK
Intelligent appliances	Good
Computing	Computer systems	Poor
Supercomputers	Good
Information management (massive databases)	Poor
Human factors	Voice processing	Speech recognition	Poor
Speech synthesis	Good
Language processing (machine translation, etc.)	Good
Image processing	OK
Intelligent systems (artificial intelligence)	OK
Components	Electronic devices	OK
Electronic and optical materials	Good
Sensors	OK
Major components (displays, hard drives)	OK
Software	Programming languages	Poor
Systems	Poor

Notes: "Good" indicates an advantage for Japan.

"OK" indicates parity between Japan and the United States.

“Poor” indicates an advantage for the United States.

Source: State of Science and Technology in the Communications and Information Sector,

Council for Science and Technology Policy (May 2001).