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I’m writing this above Alaska on my way back from a short trip to Japan visiting old friends, and feeling my age – I can’t stand up from the futon on the tatami mat as easily as my last trip 9 years ago. Felt like “Back to the future” – small shops replaced by huge Aeon malls, a full-size Costco in Kyoto – but sadly Panasonic’s Central Research Laboratory, shiny and new in 1993, has been razed and apparently replaced by a windowless data center.
Big news of the year is that my daughter, Grace, has married Isaiah Montoya, and they are happily living in Santa Clarita, California. He’s from a large family, now a little bit bigger.
Keiko continues her painting, this year my favorite was a Burmese cat. Ben is 80% retired but still working with large language models at Metabob, trying to remove “almost” from “AI builds code that almost works.” Sometimes I wonder if my career produced anything useful more than "I'm hungry I want lunch" for the 2005 Prius, but seeing this year's release of the Airpods 3 that do language translation, I'm reminded of our work at ATR in 1999 on wearable translators and being asked when this would be commercially available. Answer: 26 years.
https://youtu.be/IcFGYKrVsyQ?t=90
Please stay healthy in body and in spirit. 2026 will be a challenge. Animum rege ne regaris
Ben and Keiko Reaves b.reaves@ieee.org http://brss.us/xmas2025
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