Personal Information Devices: Portable to wearable, Stand-alone to connected, Players to sensors
Join us for a Distinguished Industry Speaker seminar by Dr. Akihiko K. Sugiyama (Damas.cus Corporation / Tokyo Metropolitan University), who will present the evolution of personal information devices—from the first digital audio players to today's wearable, connected, and sensing-enabled technologies. The talk will highlight the key advances in audio coding, semiconductor technology, and multimedia systems that have shaped modern consumer electronics.
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- 35 St George St
- Toronto, Ontario
- Canada M5S 1A4
- Building: Galbraith Building
- Room Number: 119
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- Co-sponsored by Javane Rostampoor
- Starts 04 August 2026 04:00 AM UTC
- Ends 06 August 2026 02:00 PM UTC
- No Admission Charge
Speakers
Dr. Sugiyama
Personal Information Devices: Portable to wearable, Stand-alone to connected, Players to sensors
This talk presents a history of personal information devices. The origin is an audio player dated back to the 1990s which was born at an intersection of audio coding algorithms to provide sufficient subjective audio quality and a sufficient memory size on a single chip. LSI technology was indispensable to its birth which had a revolutionary impact on the hardware business. The audio-only device was naturally extended to include video signals to cover multimedia applications commonly encountered today in our daily life. Integration with a mobile phone brought us continuous extensions to wearables, connected operations, and sensing functions.
Biography:
Akihiko K. Sugiyama, Dr. Eng.
Damas.cus Corporation/Tokyo Metropolitan University
40+ years of experience in developing telecommunications, speech, and audio signal processing systems for consumer and network system products. In addition to proven record of technology adoption in products and international standards as well as publication and granted patents, marketing and sales experience to develop over 300 new contacts in the world in two years and to perform proof-of-concept (PoC) evaluations with world-leading companies for technical licensing are unique as a research engineer.
Once representing Japan for ISO/IEC MPEG Audio standardization including an Interim Chair of the Audio Subgroup at the Angra dos Reis Meeting in Brazil, experiences extend to ITU and 3GPP standardizations as a delegate. Established a bridging career between industry and academia through 25+-year teaching experience at universities and supervision of 75 internship students. Delivered 246 invited talks in 110 cities in 32 countries, and received 25 awards including the 2024 Industry Innovation Award by IEEE Signal Processing Society. The sole inventor or a co-inventor of 273 registered patents in Japan and overseas. Fellow of IEEE as well as Honorary Member and Fellow of IEICE. A Distinguished Lecturer for Signal Processing Society (2014-2015) and Consumer Electronics Society (2017-2018), and a Distinguished Industry Speaker for Signal Processing Society (2020-2021), IEEE. Recognized as a Renowned Distinguished Speaker (The Rock Star) in 2020 by Consumer Electronics Society, IEEE.