Visually impaired individuals often face challenges related to physical inactivity, stemming from limited accessibility to sports activities. While assistive technologies and adaptive sports have made progress, high-intensity contact sports remain largely inaccessible. This paper presents an approach to improve the accessibility of kickboxing for visually impaired individuals. We prioritize simple, immediate solutions that maximize the use of residual vision, diverging from conventional assistive technologies that rely on auditory or tactile feedback. Employing a participatory design methodology, we involved visually impaired individuals throughout the development process of specialized kickboxing equipment. This approach enabled us to address user-specific needs and challenges directly. Our research contributes to expanding sports participation opportunities for the visually impaired and fostering a more inclusive sports environment. We detail the development process of our adaptive kickboxing equipment and discuss its effectiveness in enhancing the sports experience for visually impaired individuals.

Real-time captioning is a useful technique for deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) people to talk to hearing people. With the improvement in device performance and the accuracy of automatic speech recognition (ASR), real-time captioning is becoming an important tool for helping DHH people in their daily lives. To realize higher-quality communication and overcome the limitations of mobile and augmented-reality devices, real-time captioning that can be used comfortably while maintaining nonverbal communication and preventing incorrect recognition is required. Therefore, we propose a real-time captioning system that uses a transparent display. In this system, the captions are presented on both sides of the display to address the problem of incorrect ASR results, and the highly transparent display makes it possible to see both the body language and the captions.

We propose a novel method of spatial audio rendering using ultrasound. An ultrasonic phased array generates one or more focal points in air, and they act as point sources of audible sound when the ultrasound waves are modulated. Our sound-point loudspeaker has two major advantages over conventional ultrasound-based sound-beam (superdirectional) loudspeakers. The higher audience selectivity means that our sound-point loudspeaker can deliver sound to the ears of the target person, whereas a sound-beam loudspeaker delivers sound to not only the target person but also other persons standing in the same direction. The other advantage is lower exposure to ultrasound; while an audible sound beam travels along an ultrasonic beam in a soundbeam loudspeaker, audible sound can be heard along the direction perpendicular to the ultrasonic beam in our soundpoint loudspeaker. This paper reports the principles of our sound-point loudspeaker, prototype construction, evaluation, and applications.

We propose an immersive telepresence system for puppetry that transmits a human performer's body and facial movements into a puppet with audiovisual feedback to the performer. The cameras carried in place of puppet's eyes stream live video to the HMD worn by the performer, so that performers can see the images from the puppet's eyes with their own eyes and have a visual understanding of the puppet's ambience. In conventional methods to manipulate a puppet (a hand-puppet, a string-puppet, and a rod-puppet), there is a need to practice manipulating puppets, and there is difficulty carrying out interactions with the audience. Moreover, puppeteers must be positioned exactly where the puppet is. The proposed system addresses these issues by enabling a human performer to manipulate the puppet remotely using his or her body and facial movements. We conducted several user studies with both beginners and professional puppeteers. The results show that, unlike the conventional method, the proposed system facilitates the manipulation of puppets especially for beginners. Moreover, this system allows performers to enjoy puppetry and fascinate audiences.

We propose a system for transmitting a human performer's body and facial movements to a puppet with audiovisual feedback to the performer. The system consists of a head-mounted display (HMD) that shows the performer the video recording of the puppet's view, a microphone for voice capture, and photoreflectors for detecting the mouth movements of the human performer. In conventional puppetry, there is also the need for practice in the manipulation of the puppets to achieve good performance. The proposed telepresence system addresses these issues by enabling the human performer to manipulate the puppet through their own body and facial movements. The proposed system is expected to contribute to the development of new applications of puppetry and expand the interactivity of puppetry and the scope of entertainment.

We present a novel manipulation method that subconsciously changes the walking direction of users via visual processing on a head mounted display (HMD). Unlike existing navigation systems that require users to recognize information and then follow directions as two separate, conscious processes, the proposed method guides users without them needing to pay attention to the information provided by the navigation system and also allows them to be graphically manipulated by controllers. In the proposed system, users perceive the real world by means of stereo images provided by a stereo camera and the HMD. Specifically, while walking, the navigation system provides users with real-time feedback by processing the images they have just perceived and giving them visual stimuli. This study examined two image-processing methods for manipulation of human's walking direction: moving stripe pattern and changing focal region. Experimental results indicate that the changing focal region method most effectively leads walkers as it changes their walking path by approximately 200 mm/m on average.