Hello all!
This is Luiz Sampaio, M2 student.

From the last days of September to the almost end of October, I was in Finland for internship at University of Oulu, belonging to research group of prof. Petri Pulli. It was a great experience in many ways, for the chance of visiting another research group and the chance of visiting an European country as well.

When I arrived there, the temperature was still quite comfortable (around +12°C) but after the third week it was already reaching -6°C, with sensation of -14°C! It wasn’t snowing yet, but the golden autumn leaves made the landscape even more beautiful.

Following are some of my impressions about Oulu and Finland in general:

• It’s possible to use credit card for absolutely everything, including to pay the bus fee, which I think it’s especially interesting, because it may cause some delay in the bus schedule.
• People and nature coexist in harmony. Many houses seems to be built inside the forest.
• It’s easy to get fat. All dishes are big and delicious.
• At the university’s cafeteria, milk and home made beer (alcohol free, obviously) are available and beverages for lunch.
• at the university’s lobby, there are a lot of hangers where people can put their coats. It’s really convenient because you don’t need to carry your stuffs around the campus.

Additionally, for those ones who got used with the extreme kindness of Japanese people, and especially shop staffs, Finnish people can look a bit cold. It’s really hard to catch a smile from them. However, I don’t believe they are rude, I think the tough weather makes them just more reserved.

Traditional Finnish architecture

Traditional Finnish dish, with reindeer meat.

I made some local friends that kindly drove me to some places that are only possible to go by car. One of them is Hailuoto, an island near Oulu that usually is accessible by ferry, but during the winter an official ice road over the sea connects the island with the mainland. I also had chance to watch an ice hockey match, and as people say, it is definitely much more exciting to watch it in live than on tv.

About my assignments in University of Oulu, I made a website for prof. Pulli’s research group. They have many members and many good work has been produced there, but they don’t have any place where they can promote their results. I’m still waiting for the data from the researchers to upload to website, but you can check a draft version at http://mobileservicesdesignforall.co.nf/.

I also joined to a workshop promoted by University of Oulu, where researchers from Computer Vision and related areas presented some interesting topics.

I am extremely thankful for all those could make this experience possible, especially the faculties in NAIST and University of Oulu. This is an experience and will be in my memories and I hope I can go there someday again to visit the friends I made.

Hello there! This is Fujimoto, a D3 student.
I would like to report about an Internship at Disney Research Zürich.
I had been to Zurich in Switzerland for three months as an internship student.

Disney Research is a company which works on the research topics used for
Disney World and Disney movies. Luckily, because my research theme in Japan was partially appropriate with one of research themes for this year’s internship students, I was able to acquire a intern opportunity. I was pinching myself everyday!
Taking an advantage of this opportunity, I would like to thank whom it may concern deeply again.

Informing about what I did there and the detail of the company itself is not permitted, I report not to go beyond this rule.

Four Disney Researches exist all over the world. Three are located in U.S. and one is located in Switzerland. Disney Research Zürich I had stayed includes several groups (e.g. CG, CV, Animation, Imaging, 3D modeling, Sensing, Robotics). Each group consists of around from three to seven researchers (including postdoctoral fellow) and one group leader manage and administrate it. The group I participated in is “Vision and Sensing” group, research themes of which are CV, the auto control of many robots, the projection technology and so on.

I had been working on the research about the real time projection technology by a projector. One of the most interesting things for me was that I could work with people who have different professional skills. For example, if I want to use beautiful texture images for the projection, I can talk to lab artists who can design and make the beautiful image and ask them to make it. If I need the specific sized platform for the special optical hardware, the professional of the hardware can design and print it by 3D printer. I found that this company is the environment where researchers can really focus on the research itself (a research departure of other companies may be also like this).

Needless to say, the level of the research by Disney’s official researchers is quite high so that about 10 papers are accepted for SIGGRAPH (the top of top conferences in the field of CG and so on) papers every year! I am really honored to have a opportunity of the internship in this company though I sometimes felt disappointed my skill. I am sure I have learned a quite lot from this experience!

I really want to get into details about this, but ,,, See you then!

Hi. I’m Max Krichenbauer reporting on this years IMD study trip.
We went to Okinawa for three days of intense studying. We stayed at the Southern Beach Hotel, an very nice resort directly at the ocean. However, since it was a study trip, we did not have too much time to enjoy the beach.

Every student of the lab gave a presentation on related cutting-edge research topics, which were prepared prior to the trip. Additional time for discussing the paper and asking questions was included. All presentations were given in English.
The professors graded the presentations on both style and content, and prices were awarded to the best presenters.

In the evening, we went together to a restaurant to enjoy local Okinawa food and drinks. For many of us who had never eaten sea grapes (海ブドウ) or Chanpuru before, it was a great experience. Furthermore, Kojima proved to be an expert on Awamori, the traditional Okinawa drink. Afterwards some of us went to Naha, to experience the Night-Life of Kokusai-Dori (国際通り).

Thus, not only did we study a lot, we also had a lot of fun there.