●The reason why I changed to Denso IT Laboratory
“I believe that what I can come up with is more interesting than what a company can come up with, which is exactly why I wanted to do my favorite research at my own will. When I was thinking of changing jobs, I chose Denso IT Laboratory from several alternatives at the end because I thought I could realize such a wish of mine in this company. To tell the truth, I wasn’t interested in cars. However, when I saw a lot of new technologies and patents on the company website, I understood that a lot of studies were freely conducted regardless of genres. So I thought I would be able to make use of my field of research here. I entered Denso IT Laboratory with a fresh mind as a researcher as if I was going out into the working world for the first time.”
Denso IT Laboratory consists of a small group of talented researchers. The company website focuses more on introducing researchers, contents of research, new technologies, and patents, rather than on the corporate outline or business summary. This is because Denso IT Laboratory bears the function of the R&D company within the Denso group. Researchers with experience in the automobile industry as well as various other backgrounds have gathered here to conduct research of their choice. Mr. Yoshida mainly concentrates on studying ways to optimize the image processing technology by bringing mobile technology and cars together. He demonstrates his research outcomes in various ways, including presenting at conferences and publishing a book titled “iOS SDK Hacks - iPhone application development techniques explained by professionals”. Mr. Yoshida’s achievements are not limited to research - he has also succeeded in developing an actual product.
●What I have been able to realize at Denso IT Laboratory
“I like mobile technology; I bought both iPhone and iPad as soon as they were launched in the U.S. It’s not only for my hobby; I was also curious as to what I could do with the latest mobile devises and I wanted to do it fast. The product “Navicon”, which coordinates the car navigation system with the iPhone, was also developed with my passion. I developed the demo version in a short period of 6 months after iPhone was first launched in the U.S. in June 2007, because I thought a new world would open up once many people in Japan started using the iPhone, if a device we use in our daily life could be connected to the car navigation. An engineer at Denso saw the demo and found it interesting, which led to its employment in the premium SD navigation system for Toyota cars. With this system, a smart phone can be used as a remote controller of the car navigation system, as well as for transferring internet search result from the iPhone. It took almost 3 years to launch, I was happy when it was finally turned into a product.”
Mr. Yoshida’s great advantage is his skills of programming in C, C++and Objective-C among others. Since he was in the previous company, Mr. Yoshida has been covering the entire process for making prototypes from research to development by himself. Programming is his hobby; he has made various iPhone applications available for public, and the very reason why Mr. Yoshida is able to discover many research themes to put ideas into shape.
●What’s attractive about Denso IT Laboratory
“Since I started working at Denso IT Laboratory, I have never been commanded by the company or superordinate to undertake any fixed research; which also means that you have to think and take your own initiative. What’s encouraging is the fact that we have fellow researchers around. For a technique I am not familiar with, I can ask others for their assistance - we can produce high-quality research output with speed by complementing each other. It’s interesting to have researchers with many different opinions: I have a strong desire to put interesting products into the society in every possible way, there are other researchers who prefer to write outstanding research papers, and others who value productivity in order to contribute to business. New discoveries and good ideas can arise from gaps of our conversations. We also have study sessions to understand abstruse publications together during working hours, so we can keep our aspirations. I will continue to create products which realize people’s wishes in this really nice working environment for researchers.”
