There were about 80 participants at the study session

People in charge of development at Sharp, Arisawa Manufacturing, Sanyo Electrical, Namco, NHK (in order of lectures) were invited to this study meeting as lecturers to introduce the development trends of 3D display, and they gave reports on the actual development environment from the current status to the future. A space was set up in the meeting hall and demonstrations of the display software of each company were given.

Mr. Minoru Taniguchi

I have 3 points to report regarding the latest state of activities of the 3D Consortium.

The first points is that we held a study session on May 28th and services/contents study session but at that time we reported that there were 5 executive members, 90 standard members and 13 associate members. About one month after that new members joined and the number of members has gone up by 8. There are 96 standard members and 15 associates and if we add to this the 5 executive members, our 3D Consortium parent organisation currently has 116 members.
I will now introduce the standard members and associates that have joined. The 6 new standard members are Ricoh, xxx, AZ Visycom, Broadband, Topcon, Mitsui Production.
The 2 associate members are Professor Yoshikawa of Nihon University College of Science and Technology, and photographer, Seitaro Shimizu. Please put your hands together to welcome them. (Applause)

The second point is my report on the approach towards and developments overseas. There are two aims behind the concept of branching off overseas. One is to get feedback on the overseas 3D market which we can all use in our business. The second is to communicate the status of our activities in Japan overseas and to spread the business opportunities of all of you worldwide. Today, local time, a world conference on virtual reality is being held in Luxembourg and we will communicate our message as the 3D Consortium. In July this year, we will communicate a similar message at SIGGRAPH in the US and will create a firm plan through activities in both the US and Europe. On the domestic front, there have been invitations to the Consortium in various forms from other organisations. For example there are on July 1st-2nd "the 3D Image Conference 2003", on July 4th-5th "the GIS Conference 2003", on July 16th-17th, "Digital Contents World 2003 in Hiroshima", on July 19th "the Seminar on Circulatory Organ Image Technology", on October 14th-16th the "Asia Design International Conference".
As well as communicating the message of the 3D Consortium, we also aim to raise the profile of our activities and are trying to strengthen our activities both at home and abroad. I would be grateful for your positive participation and proposals. We have also received several offers from our members to act in a volunteer capacity as an office if we wish to create a branch overseas. While building on our internal activities, we also want to make waves externally.
Finally, we have 5 stands among the exhibition stands at the back of the hall but I will now talk about the spread of the 3D platform which will link directly to the formation of the domestic 3D market. Last week the SH505i made its debut as the first device with a 3D Display platform. Two companies are already looking at commercialising PC and displays to follow on from the mobile phone at the end of year commercial battle. I would like everyone to think about the spread of the platform aimed at the consumer market as the mobile phone market and large scale 3D displays spread and the business opportunities this entails.
At any rate, we have made the first large step towards creating the market which is the main mission of the 3D Consortium. This is the third point of my report, which is instead of a greeting.