While floral tributes are commonly used for the public commemoration of victims of disasters, war, and other accidents, flowers in vases color everyday life. In this research, these features of flowers are intertwined with the recent phenomenon of online memorials to develop a virtual floral tribute concept that includes physical rituals. We designed SenseVase, a smart vase to detect flowers placed in it, and a 3DCG Virtual Memorial that illustrates floral tributes given by people using SenseVases at home. This paper describes how we developed our design concept by reviewing previous literature and social aspects, and presents a video illustrating the concept. To validate the current concept, we interviewed several experts knowledgeable in public commemorations, virtual and online communities, and the floral business. Through a discussion of our findings from the design process and interviews, we propose a new direction for how HCI technology can contribute to public commemoration in addition to personal memorialization.

Funerals are irreplaceable events, especially for bereaved family members and relatives. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has prevented many people worldwide from attending their loved ones’ funerals. The authors had the opportunity to assist one family faced with this predicament by webcasting and recording funeral rites held near Tokyo in June, 2020. Using our original 360-degree Telepresence system and smartphones running Zoom, we enabled the deceased’s elder siblings to remotely attend the funeral and did our utmost to make them feel present in the funeral hall. Despite the webcasting via Zoom contributing more to their remote attendances than our system, we discovered thoughtful findings which could be useful for designing remote funeral attendances. From the findings, we also discuss how HCI designers can contribute to this highly sensitive issue, weaving together knowledge from various domains including techno-spiritual practices, thanato-sensitive designs; and other religious and cultural aspects related to death rituals.

This paper presents an approach for coupling robotic capability with human ability in dynamic motor skills, called "Human-Machine Mutual Actuation (HMMA)." We focus specifically on throwing motions and propose a method to control the release timing computationally. A system we developed achieves our concept, HMMA, by a robotic handheld device that acts as a release controller. We conducted user studies to validate the feasibility of the concept and clarify related technical issues to be tackled. We recognized that the system successfully performs on throwing according to the target while it exploits human ability. These empirical experiments suggest that robotic capability can be embedded into the users' motions without losing their senses of control. Throughout the user study, we also revealed several issues to be tackled in further research contributing to HMMA.

This paper describes a field study conducted with our system, T-Leap, a telepresence system connecting one person (the Viewer), situated indoors, with multiple destinations (the Nodes), that roam outdoors. Here, each Node is a person wearing a module that includes a 360-degree camera and a microphone-speaker. Through our study, we demonstrate that T-Leap enables the Viewer to perform various interactions with the Nodes including being helped by them, collaborating with them, and guiding them. These interactions were demonstrated through three studies completing different tasks: 1) Nodes purchasing souvenirs for the Viewer, 2) Nodes finding objects in the park, and 3) Viewer guiding Nodes to purchase things. The studies were primarily conducted with Taiwanese locals and Japanese visitors in Taipei. Throughout the studies, we found that T-Leap worked especially well for mediating communication between a Viewer with local knowledge acting as a guide and several Nodes who were being guided. To conclude the paper, we broadly discuss our findings, the lessons we learned from our field study, and present recommendations for the future development of mobile and wearable telepresence systems.

Japan is a super-aging society, one marked by a steadily silvering population and shrinking birthrates. Social effects range from a decline in intergenerational homes to new tensions between the generations as elders delay retirement or return to work. Towards improving relations between the generations, two versions of an inclusive, intergenerational game employing “shared action,” or time-movement synchrony, were developed: a finger-based version inspired by medical exercise technology from gerontology and a smart shoe-based version as a familiar form factor. A series of three exploratory studies were conducted with young Japanese adults and elders. Findings suggest that the foot version was most suitable overall and reveal initial, complex effects of age and gender on empathy measures that can inform affective computing initiatives within and beyond the cultural milieu of modern Japan.

We propose “ExLeap”, a minimal telepresence system that creates leaping experience. Multiple “nodes” with an omnidirectional camera, mic and speaker transmit the video to clients, and on the client, videos are rendered in 3D space. When moving to another node, by crossfading two videos, the user can feel as if she/he leaps between two places. Also, on each node, the user can talk with people in that place. Each node consists of very simple hardware, so we can put them on multiple places we want to go to. Moreover, because the system can be used 24/7 by multi-user simultaneously and is very easy to use, it creates various types of chances of communications.

Surface and object recognition is of significant importance in ubiquitous and wearable computing. While various techniques exist to infer context from material properties and appearance, they are typically neither designed for real-time applications nor for optically complex surfaces that may be specular, textureless, and even transparent. These materials are, however, becoming increasingly relevant in HCI for transparent displays, interactive surfaces, and ubiquitous computing. We present SpecTrans, a new sensing technology for surface classification of exotic materials, such as glass, transparent plastic, and metal. The proposed technique extracts optical features by employing laser and multi-directional, multi-spectral LED illumination that leverages the material's optical properties. The sensor hardware is small in size, and the proposed classification method requires significantly lower computational cost than conventional image-based methods, which use texture features or reflectance analysis, thereby providing real-time performance for ubiquitous computing. Our evaluation of the sensing technique for nine different transparent materials, including air, shows a promising recognition rate of 99.0%. We demonstrate a variety of possible applications using SpecTrans' capabilities.

Accessibility information can allow disabled people to identify suitable pathways to reach their destinations, but it is difficult to obtain new accessible pathway information rapidly because of limited local information disclosure. Thus, it is necessary to develop a comprehensive system that acquires barrier-free information from various sources and makes that information available in an intuitive form. In this study, we aimed to develop a social platform to obtain and present appropriate information depending on the user's situation, such as the user's disabilities and location, and to share the barrier-free information provided by other users.

In this paper, we propose a ubiquitous augmented reality system that expands projected augmentations in wide area by using visible light communication and wireless tag. The system consists of wireless tags and a high-speed projector (DMD Discovery 3000), operating in 8kHz, attached on mobility platform. The projector transmits structured light patterns that contain different information in each pixel. Wireless tags can recognize their own locations in projected area by receiving structured light patterns projected from the projector. Since 3D coordinates of individual tag is stored in the system, projection point is estimated with 3D coordinates and pixel coordinates of each tag in projected area. According to the estimated position and orientation, augmented reality content is superimposed. The set of structured light patterns are projected in sufficient speed that human eye can only perceive the superimposed content. We have also evaluated the accuracy of superimposing augmented reality content on real world from moving projection points.

Several indoor positioning systems have been studied to offer a public service based on one's location information. We have studied an indoor localization system using original fiducial markers. The original markers can be designed freely by users; therefore, they can be used for interior decoration. Using this system, you can obtain the three-dimensional position and pose of your camera by capturing the image of the markers arranged on the floor. However, there are some problems associated with the use of this system in a public space, such as a decline in the marker recognition rate by a change in the surrounding light condition and an instability in the marker recognition rate depending on the type of marker used and the camera angle. In this study, we enhanced the robustness of an indoor localization system used in a public space and increased the number of recognizable markers.

Because marker-based position tracking system is inexpensive and easy to use, it has the potential to make the system more feasible for homes or businesses and broaden the current suite of augmented reality (AR) techniques. To apply marker-based systems to homes or businesses, blending markers with environments naturally is important. Our innovative approach to marker-based 3D position tracking uses seamless patterns encrypted with positional data. Although users can obtain 3D positional data by processing marker images similar to many existing marker-based systems, our markers are designed with interior decoration in mind. That way they can be installed in walls, floors, or ceilings. Unlike existing systems whose fiducial markers were designed first and foremost to be processed by computers, ours are visually attractive. By integrating positional information within the interior design, our system enables users to enjoy the benefits of position tracking without being constantly aware of the system's presence. We developed a method for making patterns in which positional information is encrypted and a method for calculating the 3D position of a user by decoding those patterns. We then constructed a system using three patterns that were made by the proposed method and evaluated that system

Recent development in mobile and ubiquitous computing technology with broadband wireless network has realizing the location based application for mobile and wearable computers. According to the wide spreading number of cellular phone with GPS receiver, it has become easy to provide location based application in outdoor scene. On the contrary, there are several positioning technologies for indoor scene, such using wireless sensors or image processing technology. However, those technologies are still not utilized in daily environment due to the cost inefficiency and the complexity in system setup. Considering the problems in previous positioning system, it is necessary to overcome the following four features to utilize the system in daily scene.