1969, BSc, 1971, MSc and 1982, PhD in Electronic Engineering, Kyoto University in 1969, 1971 and 1982 respectively. 1971, with NTT, worked mainly on speech recognition technology; 1994, President, Media Integration and Communications Research Laboratories, Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute; 2002, Professor, School of Science and Technology, Kwansei Gakuin University. Since March 2008, current position and Professor, National University of Singapore, research interests include interactive media, entertainment technologies and communication robot-agent. Recipient of awards including Telecom System Award, Telecommunication System Foundation (1999, 2000 and 2001); Best Paper Award, Artificial Intelligence Society, Japan (2000).