tlug: KPCA 10/22/97 Meeting

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  ***  Kansai Professional Computing Association News ***
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OCTOBER PRESENTATION:
"The Blue Laser Diode: Towards a New Japanese R&D Paradigm"
Speaker: Gerhard Fasol, President and founder of Eurotechnology Japan KK
10/22/97-Wed, 6:45-9:00pm. Club KARMA's event hall, 5 minutes from Osaka JR.

In the race to develop commercially viable blue laser diode, a relatively
small Japanese company (Nichia Chemical Industries, 700 employees) is about
2 years ahead of the world's corporate giants! Nichia surprised the world
with the introduction of blue light emitting diodes several years ago, and
is said to have working prototypes which last over 1,000hrs. Millions of
these are now sold per month, and they are or will soon be used in a range
of applications of importance to computing professionals.

The blue laser diode will be a crucial component for the next generation of
DVD, optical storage media, as well as a whole range of other applications.
These include large LED displays, scanners, and printers, not to mention
the potential to replace conventional light bulbs in many lighting
situations such as traffic and railway signals.
Due to the blue laser diode technology, HD-DVD 30 GigaByte disks will be
available in the near future. (This compares to the 0.65 GigaByte CD most
people are currently using)

Mr. Gerhard Fasol's talk will discuss the background to these discoveries,
and the implications it has for computing professionals. Mr. Fasol's talk
will also discuss trends in the Japanese R&D world. Trends such as how the
Japanese govts greatly increased public R&D expenditures will affect
Japan's R&D future course.  Advance information on the topic of this talk
can be found at: http://www.eurotechnology.co.jp/blueledslides.html

Gerhard Fasol is president and founder of Eurotechnology Japan KK. With
Shuji Nakamura, he is co-author of the recent book "The Blue Laser Diode"
ISBN 3-540-61590-3. Living in Japan since 1991, Mr. Fasol has worked for
Hitachi as Lab Manager, at Tokyo University as an Associate Professor.  He
is the first non-Japanese to complete a Sakigake Research Project for the
Japan Science and Technology Corp. Mr. Fasol is a founding member of a
national R&D initiative geared toward "Spin Electronics".

PRICE: Through special arrangements with Club KARMA, the meeting fee is a
mere 1000 yen(!). Drinks/food will be available starting at 300/600 yen.
Invite your friends!

SPEAKERS SOUGHT! The KPCA is looking for speakers for future meetings. Come
promote your pet project/product, your career.

Email any/all response to:
Dennis Grass, KPCA-President

FLEA MARKET:

DONATION REQUEST: A request of used/new Macintosh computer equipment for
the French School of Kansai.  The donation request last month provided a
number of computers and parts.  More are needed, especially SCSI HD's of
any size.

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RESPONSE PLEASE! FORM-med

__  I can probably attend on Wednesday, Oct. 22 (Blue Laser Diode)
__  Oops, I'm busy on the 22nd. Please keep me informed of future events.
__  I can probably attend on Wednesday, Nov. 19 (Outsourcing software to India)
__  I can probably attend on Wednesday, Dec. 17 (Artificial Intelligence)
__  I can probably attend on Wednesday, Jan. 21

__  Yes!  I am interested in speaking at a KPCA meeting.
        My proposed topic:



Next TLUG meeting is Saturday Dec. 13, 1997  (possibly Nov. 13?)
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