Future Gadgets that Capture Peak Moments in Time: KATSUIE SHIBATA

November 12, 2015

This is part three of a three-part conversation between graduate student and up-and-coming sci-fi author Katsuie Shibata and Ricoh researcher Takuya Yamauchi on future technology and education. In this last installment, they offer their thoughts on photography and a futuristic camera.

A camera that delivers emotions and presents the key to life

• Yamauchi：

  In the story, a high school girl is portrayed changing through various experiences. Was there a time when an experience changed you?

• Shibata：

  As a writer, I am in a position to express myself. And this has increased my opportunities to connect with people.

• Yamauchi：

  I have not had much opportunity to express myself. Recently, however, I feel the importance of doing so. I think that is essential to take the first step to self-expression, and I would like to create a means by which others and particularly future generations are able to express themselves.

• Shibata：

  I think that establishing a means by which expression can take place is a great idea. In this vein, I want to ask you if there is a camera that you would like to create?

• Yamauchi：

  For me, the purpose of taking a photograph is to convey my thoughts and feelings. I’d like, therefore, to devise a gadget or camera that can deliver ideas and emotions directly.

• Shibata：

  Wow, a camera that reveals thoughts and feelings! Such a camera would be nice wouldn’t it? You could see if the photographer was happy or sad—like seeing a person’s aura. In that way, the camera could record memories of the photographer.

• Yamauchi：

  Combining technology with emotions would deepen this most important area of communication.

• Shibata：

  In the sense of preserving memories, this camera, interestingly, would function as the key to the story of the photographer’s life. Looking through a conventional photo album evokes a flood of memories and emotions, most strongly in the person who took the photographs. Those memories and emotions are not evoked in other people. When different people view the same album, what they perceive will vary.

• Yamauchi：

  Yes, sensations evoked by each photo will vary by person.

• Shibata：

  To date, only the photographer understands the background to a photograph. I want a camera that can reveal to anyone what traditionally only the photographer can see.

• Yamauchi：

  That camera would certainly be the key to the story of peoples’ lives.What do you think about the difference between still images and moving pictures?

• Shibata：

  With still photos, when viewing them, the emotions that surface will differ for the one who takes the photo and the one who is in it. By contrast, with moving pictures, of course, there is a degree of homogeneity to the experience. I think the difference is that still photography “memorizes,” whereas moving pictures “record.” Recording is important; however, I would like still photography that evokes memories.

The social media-ization of the camera and the greatest memories spark a new kind of expressive technology

• Yamauchi：

  To gain differing impressions of a photograph, we could ask various people their opinions during the photo sessions. That would be quite interesting. Also interesting would be a camera where you could see the same scene from different angles when you peer into the view finder. This would show the possibility of shooting the same scene differently to enrich the photographic expression.

• Shibata：

  I see, wow, that’s the social media-ization of the camera. You take your photographs based on external information that comes into the camera unit. I feel that it would be nice if technology could progress through the linking of individual experience.

• Yamauchi：

  If there were technology that could allow you to photograph the images you imagined, we would really have a tool that we could say conveys thoughts directly. I would like, as a member of a company that develops cameras, to make that technology a reality.

• Shibata：

  This is certainly something to look forward to. I use a camera, but my timing is awful, and as result I am a poor photographer. On top of that, when I take photos with other people only I look terrible, everyone else looks great [laughs]

• Yamauchi：

  Photos of me are also pretty bad [laughs]!

• Shibata：

  It would be nice to have a camera that would automatically correct bad photos. The shutter would only capture that perfect moment.

• Yamauchi：

  Yes, a camera that understands how to take a photo at that moment in time where everything is peaking.

• Shibata：

  That’s right. Whenever an amateur takes a photo, we end up with subjects who are unnaturally posed. How good would it be that no matter who takes the photo the result would be an ideal representation of reality? A camera, for example, that memorizes everything about a particular location would be wonderful.

• Yamauchi：

  Cameras in their present form would cease to exist.

• Shibata：

  That’s right. And to make them unobtrusive, they would be transparent.

• Yamauchi：

  Perhaps they could be in the shape and size of a contact lens. After that, it would just be a matter of what moment in time and what mood to memorize. If such a camera were created, there would be all kinds of photo opportunities that to date no one has ever imagined.

• Shibata：

  A gadget that allows humans to capture the moments that mean the most!

• Yamauchi：

  If that technology can be realized, I feel that it would have great value for engineers and for the future of humanity.

PROFILE

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  Katsuie ShibataAuthor

  Born in Tokyo in 1987. Katsuie Shibata began his career in 2014 with the sci-fi novel Nilya Island, winning the Second Hayakawa SF Contest. Presently he is a folklore and cultural anthropology graduate student in the Literature Research Department of Seijo University and is majoring in Japanese Commons Culture. He is researching the transformation of foreign folklore religious beliefs and propagation.　He has great respect for the feudal warlord Katsuie Shibata and addresses himself in the first person expression that was more common for men in the medieval period. Sporting a beard and mustache and traditional Japanese dress known as kimono, Shibata is gaining attention and there are high expectations in the sci-fi world for this promising author.

• 

  Takuya YamauchiImage & Intelligence Development Dept., System R&D Center, Ricoh Co., Ltd.

  Born in Chiba Prefecture in 1988. Takuya Yamauchi joined Ricoh in 2013 after completing a graduate degree at Chiba University. Leveraging his university major in color engineering, he was able to apply this understanding of the unique characteristics of human vision in image processing and evaluation of human sensibility. This served as a solid base in the research and development of high resolution imaging technology for digital cameras and production printers. At the same time, Yamauchi is aggressively in pursuit of greater understanding of the human mind in search of what do we as humans desire and what is truly appealing. His hobby is photography.