Positron emission tomography (PET) plays important roles in cancer diagnosis, neuroimaging and molecular imaging research; but potential points remain for which big improvements could be made, including spatial resolution, sensitivity and manufacturing costs. Higher spatial resolution is essential to enable earlier diagnosis, and improved sensitivity results in reduced radiation exposure and shortened measurement time. Therefore, research on next generation PET technologies remains a hot topic worldwide. In this paper, innovation and future technologies for the next generation PET scanners, such as time-of-flight measurement and simultaneous PET/MRI measurement, are described. Among them, depth-of-interaction (DOI) measurement in the radiation sensor will be a key technology to get any significant improvement in sensitivity while maintaining high spatial resolution. DOI measurement also has a potential to expand PET application fields because it allows for more flexible detector arrangement. As an example, the world’s first, open-type PET geometry “OpenPET”, which is expected to lead to PET imaging during treatment, is under development. The DOI detector itself continues to evolve with the help of recently developed semiconductor photodetectors, often referred to as silicon photomultipliers.