English

Kazutaka Kurihara, PhD (Information Science and Technology)

Professor, Department of Computer Science, Tsuda University

CTO, coolied Inc.

2012 Ig Nobel Prize winner

CV, Japanese site

YouTube

I do research that uses information technology to surprise people. I try to keep my research open to society, so please feel free to get in touch about any of the following.

• Invitations for talks, lectures, panels, and judging are welcome here.

  • I speak regularly at companies and universities.

• Proposals for joint research with the Kurihara Laboratory are welcome here.

  • We have a track record, and the arrangement can take many forms.

• Requests for interviews from television, newspapers, magazines, and web media are welcome here.

  • I do these regularly.

• Requests for interview-based consulting are welcome here.

  • I have advised on product and service development, and have taken part in idea-generation processes over long periods.

• Enquiries about graduate study are welcome here.

  • I accept students from outside Tsuda University into both the master's and doctoral programs. The fields I can supervise are human-computer interaction and entertainment computing. I aim to teach carefully and attentively to each student. Students I have supervised have won awards at conferences and technology contests, been selected for the IPA Exploratory Software Project and certified as Super Creators, gone on to graduate schools abroad, and been appointed as JSPS Research Fellows. A list of the laboratory students' work is available here.

Working Address:

2-1-1, Tsuda-machi, Kodaira-shi, Tokyo, 187-8577, JAPAN

E-mail: qurihara [ at ] gmail.com

X (Twitter): qurihara

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/qurihara

GitHub: https://github.com/qurihara

News

• Ayaka Maruyama, a second-year doctoral student in the Kurihara Laboratory, was appointed a JSPS Research Fellow (DC2)! 2026/4/1

• The paper by Ayaka Maruyama, a first-year doctoral student in the Kurihara Laboratory, “Mathematical Model Analysis of Card-Grabbing Motion in VR Hyakunin-Isshu Karuta and Its Application to Adjusting Skill Differences under Two Rule Sets,” received an Encouragement Award in the Telecom Interdisciplinary Student Awards of the Telecommunications Advancement Foundation! 2026/3/19

• An English-language documentary about me and the Kurihara Laboratory was broadcast on NHK World! 2026/1/4

• “Majikaruta,” developed with Ayaka Maruyama (a first-year doctoral student in the Kurihara Laboratory), Yohei Yanase (Unity Technologies Japan), and Risa Kitagawa (Ochanomizu University), received a Special Prize at Creative Hack Award 2025, Japan's foremost creative technology award! 2025/12/8

• The Kurihara-style Impact Button received a Special Prize at Creative Hack Award 2025, Japan's foremost creative technology award! 2025/12/8

• The Random Seasoning Container, developed by Yaeno Kageyama, a first-year master's student in the Kurihara Laboratory, received the Okinaka-juku Award at Heroes League 2025, Japan's largest contest for information technology making! 2025/12/6

• “Majikaruta,” developed with Ayaka Maruyama (a first-year doctoral student in the Kurihara Laboratory), Yohei Yanase (Unity Technologies Japan), and Risa Kitagawa (Ochanomizu University), received a Special Prize at Heroes League 2025, Japan's largest contest for information technology making! 2025/12/6

• The work presented at WISS 2025 with Ayaka Maruyama (a first-year doctoral student in the Kurihara Laboratory), Yohei Yanase (Unity Technologies Japan), and Risa Kitagawa (Ochanomizu University) received the STORES Award, a corporate prize! 2025/12/5

• Received the Outstanding Research Award at the Entertainment Computing Symposium 2025! 2025/8/27

• “e-Kurihara Laboratory,” a subscription that supports the development of fighting-game devices, passed 50 members! 2025/7/29

• Appeared on “Fighting Game Laboratory #24” on the YouTube channel of the professional gamer Tokido! 2025/7/8

• Received the ProtoPedia Prize at ProtoPedia Award 2025. 2025/7/7

• Received the Audience Award at the MCP Hackathon (Generative AI Hackathon vol.05)! 2025/7/4

• Chika Omori, a fourth-year undergraduate in the Kurihara Laboratory at the time of the presentation, received the Student Outstanding Award for her paper presentation at the 75th Meeting of the IPSJ SIG on Entertainment Computing! 2025/6/23

• Work with Ayaka Maruyama, a second-year master's student in the Kurihara Laboratory at the time of the presentation, received the Research Encouragement Award (Silver) at the 75th Meeting of the IPSJ SIG on Entertainment Computing! 2025/6/23

• My YouTube channel passed 1,000 subscribers. 2025/4/22

• Appeared on “Fighting Game Laboratory #22” on the YouTube channel of the professional gamer Tokido! 2025/3/30

• The SpeechJammer paper was apparently used as material for the English entrance examination of the Faculty of Engineering, Tokyo University of Science! 2025/3/22

• Ayaka Maruyama, a second-year master's student in the Kurihara Laboratory, received the Research Encouragement Award (Silver) for her paper presentation at the 75th Meeting of the IPSJ SIG on Entertainment Computing! 2025/3/19

• Ayaka Maruyama and Miu Moritani, second-year master's students in the Kurihara Laboratory, received a Presentation Award for their talks at IEEE GCCE 2024, a peer-reviewed international conference! 2024/11/25

• Riho Kambe and Ayaka Maruyama, second-year master's students in the Kurihara Laboratory, received the Outstanding Presentation Award in the general session at the Entertainment Computing Symposium 2024! 2024/9/4

• Kasane Kobayashi and Yuma Ariyoshi, fourth-year undergraduates in the Kurihara Laboratory, received the Research Encouragement Award (Silver) for their paper presentation at the 71st Meeting of the IPSJ SIG on Entertainment Computing! 2024/6/21

• Ayaka Maruyama, a second-year master's student in the Kurihara Laboratory, was certified as a Super Creator in the FY2023 IPA Exploratory IT Human Resources Project! 2024/6/3

Research Interest

I am good at building controversial systems. My interests are in human-computer interaction and entertainment computing.

A list of the research done by students in the Kurihara Laboratory is available here.

Projects

Chordika and Recorika: Credit-Card-Sized 3D-Printed Whistles

Hyakunin-Isshu Reinterpreted for the Reiwa Era: A Screensaver of Classical Waka Poems Given Positive Readings by AI

HeroesLeague Analysis: A Multi-Angle AI Analysis of Entries to a Making Contest

protopedia-mcp: An MCP Server that Lets AI Assistants Search the Works on ProtoPedia

CinemaGazer for Netflix/Hulu/Disney+: A Chrome Extension for Watching Videos at High Speed

Majikaruta: Competitive Karuta Playable Anywhere in the World, with Ayaka Maruyama

Kurihara-style Impact Button (patent pending)

Making Whistles with AI: Designing a Whistle that Plays a Tune Just by Blowing

Inclusive Kyogi Karuta Using XR Technology, with Ayaka Maruyama

Hyakunin-Isshu vs. Whac-A-Mole, with Ayaka Maruyama

ChatGPT Fighting Game Project: Controlling a Fighting Game with Rough Verbal Instructions

Research on Horse Racing: Betting Behavior and the Favorite-Longshot Bias in the Pari-mutuel System, with Yohei Tutiya

(There are many projects from this period, and I am still adding them.)

Activities Related to the COVID-19 Crisis

PublicDice: A Tamper-Resistant, Reproducible Pseudo-Random Number Generator Using a Blockchain

A Simple Speaking-Rate Meter: An App That Measures Japanese Speaking Speed Using Deep Learning

Live Coding Street Fighter 2: Live-Coding the Controls of a Fighting Game, with Nobuhiro Doi

Crowdfunding Project: Making Things That Make People Laugh, and Then Think, 2019, with Koji Tsukada

GameControllerizer: Middleware for Programming Inputs to Existing Games, with Nobuhiro Doi

Picognizer: A JavaScript Library for Detecting and Recognizing Synthesized Sounds, with Aiko Uemura and others

ChanJar: A Water Bottle That Freely Changes the Mixing Ratio of Two Liquids, with Kaho Matsumoto and Mana Murakami

A System for Guiding the Audience's Gaze during Presentations, with Risa Murakami and Sakura Tsukagoshi

A System for Reviewing Presentation Videos to Reduce Psychological Burden, with Maiko Utsumi

Nagara Games: Reusing Everyday Motions as Inputs for Multiple Games, with Yui Ishii

Reducing the Presenter's Mental Burden with a Presentation Companion Robot, with Mika Hashimoto

An Easy-to-Use Online Video Subtitle Reading System for People with Dyslexia, with Futaba Otake

Shokyokusei Design Sengen (Declaration of Design for the Passive): Passive people, speak up — well, you don't have to.

srt.js: A JavaScript Framework for Video Extension, Embedded in YouTube Subtitles

2FF YouTube Viewer: A YouTube Player for Watching at Very High Speed

The Universal Background Filter: A Service That Turns Social Media Profile Pictures into an Animation of the Flags of the World, in the Hope of World Peace

Openness-adjustable Headset: A Headset with Adjustable Openness, with Misaki Moro

AnimalCatcher: A Digital Camera That Draws Out the Varied Behavior of Animals, with Koji Tsukada and others

SIGSHY: The Study Group on Passiveness

A Support System for People Anxious about Others' Gaze, Based on a Social Welfare Approach Using a See-Through Head-Mounted Display, with Saki Hagiwara

Tetris 3D Modeler: 3D Tetris That Lets Anyone Easily Create Data for a 3D Printer

Blame Aversion and a Practical Wizard of Oz, with Kazunori Terada and others

TimeFiller: A Media Platform That Naturally Fills Everyday Life with Content, with Keita Watanabe and others

A System for Encouraging Interaction at Conferences That Even Extremely Passive People Can Use with Ease, with Takeshi Nishida and others

MarProject: Automatically Searching for Face-Like Rocks in NASA Satellite Images of Mars and the Moon Using Face Recognition, with the members of Niconico Gijutsubu and others

A Method for Accelerating Pointing by Exploiting the Absence of Gaze, with Shota Yamanaka

An E-book Essay: The Ig Nobel Way of Thinking

SpeechProtector: A Speech Protection System for Preventing Reporting Bias

CinemaGazer: A System for Watching Videos at Very High Speed

SpeechJammer: A System Utilizing Artificial Speech Disturbance with Delayed Auditory Feedback

TokyoPowerHeart: A Cute Tool for Reporting the Operating Status of Tokyo Electric Power

Choosing “Books That Matter to Us” from Hondana.org with the Statistical Analysis Tool tailstat

sPieMenu: A Knowingly Occluded Pie Menu and the Localization of the Audience's Gaze, with Naoshi Nagano

Geoface Project: Detecting Face-Like Structures in Google Maps Satellite Images Using Face Recognition

PPTwi: A Presenter Support Tool for an Age in Which Presentations Are Broadcast

tailstat: A Statistical Analysis Tool for the Long-Tail Era

SlideChecker: A Basic Method for the Automatic Quantitative Evaluation of Presentation Slides

On-Air Forum: A Communication Support System for Viewing Real-Time Content, with Takeshi Nishida

Borderless Canvas: A Knowledge-Emergent Multi-display Discussion Tool Using a Zoomable User Interface

Micro-slips and Human-Computer Interaction

Dining Presenter: A System for Cooking Color and Narrative, with Maki Mori

Irgel: A Music-Box-Shaped System for Presenting Information in the Home, with Maho Oki

Kotodamulti: A Flexible Presentation Tool for Diverse Multi-display Environments

Presentation Sensei: A Presentation Training System Using Speech and Image Processing

A Flexible Timeline Editing Interface Using Constraint Solving

Speech Pen: Predictive Handwriting Based on Ambient Multimodal Recognition

KOTODAMA: A Pen-Based Electronic Presentation System and Its Evaluation in Educational Settings

• Other Projects

• Projects with the Miyashita Laboratory, Meiji University

• Shadowgraph+, with Yuichi Murata

Publications

Publications page

News Archive

• Ayaka Maruyama, a first-year master's student in the Kurihara Laboratory, received the Outstanding Research Award at the Entertainment Computing Symposium 2023! 2023/9/2

• Ayaka Maruyama, a first-year master's student in the Kurihara Laboratory, was selected for the FY2023 IPA Exploratory IT Human Resources Project! 2023/6/2

• Ayaka Maruyama, a fourth-year undergraduate in the Kurihara Laboratory, received the Student Outstanding Award for her paper presentation at the 67th Meeting of the IPSJ SIG on Entertainment Computing! 2023/5/31

• Minako Matsumoto, a fourth-year undergraduate in the Kurihara Laboratory, received the Research Encouragement Award (Silver) for her paper presentation at the 67th Meeting of the IPSJ SIG on Entertainment Computing! 2023/5/31

• Received the Audience Award (first place by vote) at the ChatGPT Hackathon! 2023/4/22

• Ayumi Oka, a second-year master's student in the Kurihara Laboratory, received the Silver Prize of the Excellent Student Paper Awards for her talk at IEEE GCCE 2022, a peer-reviewed international conference! 2022/11/11

• Mamiko Shimada, a fourth-year undergraduate in the Kurihara Laboratory, received the first prize of the Student Award for her talk at IEEE LifeTech 2022, a peer-reviewed international conference! 2022/3/31

• Received the CyberAgent Award for a paper presented at WISS 2021! 2021/12/10

• Ayumi Oka, a first-year master's student in the Kurihara Laboratory, was selected for an Excellent Presentation for her talk at ADADA 2021, a peer-reviewed international conference! 2021/12/5

• The micro:bit-mountable GameControllerizer board went on sale at Switch Science! 2021/4/26

• I began a monthly essay column in the Shimotsuke Shimbun, published on the third Saturday of each month! 2021/4/17

• Updated my activities related to the COVID-19 crisis! 2020/4/8

• Returned to Tsuda University after a one-year sabbatical at the University of Washington! 2020/4/1

• Successfully raised research funds through crowdfunding (Kodansha Blue Backs Outreach)!

• The section written by Takeshi Nishida in our book Shokyokusei Design Sengen was used in a high school entrance examination in Japanese!

• The GameControllerizer board is on sale at Switch Science.

• The book Shokyokusei Design Sengen is on sale at Amazon.

• I am writing about life in the United States on my blog.

• I became a visiting scholar at the University of Washington! I will be living in Seattle for a year. 2019/4/1

LINK

A study on promoting collaborative education using information technology in eastern Japan, part of the Future School Promotion Project of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications

Older Blogs

A Family of Five Surviving in Seattle (completed)

Eisetsu Lab

Kazutaka Kurihara, Computer Scientist: Taking On the Presentation Dojo

http://blog.livedoor.jp/qurihara/

twilog

Schedule

(c) Kazutaka Kurihara