Abu Saleh Md Mahfujur Rahman

Spatial-geometric approach to physical mobile interaction based on accelerometer and IR sensory data fusion

Interaction with the physical environment using mobile phones has become increasingly desirable and feasible. Nowadays mobile phones are being used to control different devices and access information/services related to those devices. To facilitate such interaction, devices are usually marked with RFID tags or visual markers, which are read by a mobile phone equipped with an integrated RFID reader or camera to fetch related information about those objects and initiate further actions. This article contributes in this domain of mobile physical interaction; however, using a spatial-geometric approach for interacting with indoor physical objects and artifacts instead of RFID based solutions. Using this approach, a mobile phone can point from a distance to an annotated object or a spatial subregion of that object for the purpose of interaction. The pointing direction and location is determined based on the fusion of IR camera and accelerometer data, where the IR cameras are used to calculate the 3D position of the mobile phone users and the accelerometer in the phone provides its tilting and orientation information. The annotation of objects and their subregions with which the mobile phone interacts is performed by specifying their geometric coordinates and associating related information or services with them. We perform experiment in a technology-augmented smart space and show the applicability and potential of the proposed approach.

Ant colony-based many-to-one sensory data routing in Wireless Sensor Networks

An ant colony-based routing protocol is presented in this paper that is specifically designed to route many-to-one sensory data in a multi-hop wireless sensor network (WSN). Because a many-to-one routing paradigm generates lots of traffic in a multi- hop WSN resulting in greater energy wastage, higher end-to-end delay and packet loss, the proposed routing protocol also comes with a lightweight congestion control mechanism, which is capable of handling both event-based and periodic upstream sensory data flow to the base station. The proposed protocol works in two-phases. During the first phase, the protocol uses ant-based intelligence to find and enforce the shortest path and in the second phase, when the actual many- to-one sensory data transmission takes place, the protocol combines the knowledge gained during the first phase with the congestion control mechanism to avoid packet loss and traffic while routing the sensory data. When compared with the related algorithms, the proposed algorithm shows promising results.

Web 3.0: a vision for bridging the gap between real and virtual

Version numbering of the Web has become a common practice in recent years. The latest version is the Web 3.0. However, this term is still somehow ambiguous and IT experts do not seem to agree on a specific definition. We present a review of such different trends for the next generation of the Web, while providing our own view for a next generation Web version that makes a convergence between the real world and the virtual means of communication and information access, enabling an ambient intelligence scenario of pervasive and ubiquitous computing.

Bridging the Gap between Virtual and Real World by Bringing an Interpersonal Haptic Communication System in Second Life

The sense of touch has much importance in technology-mediated human emotion communication and interaction. Many researchers around the world are aiming to leverage the sense of touch in the communication medium between multi-user 3D virtual world and real environment. Driven by the motivation, we explored the possibilities of integrating haptic interactions with Linden Lab’s multi-user online virtual world, Second Life. We enhanced the open source Second Life viewer client in order to facilitate the communications of emotional feedbacks such as human touch, encouraging pat and comforting hug to the participating users through real-world haptic stimulation. These emotional feedbacks that are fundamental to physical and emotional development in turn can enhance the users interactive and immersive experiences with the virtual social communities in the Second Life. In this paper, we describe the development of a prototype that realizes the aforementioned virtual-real communication through a haptic-jacket system. Some of the potential applications of the proposed approach includes distant lover’s communication, remote child caring, and stress recovery.

Interpersonal haptic communication in second life

Potential of nonverbal communication as the communication medium between multiuser 3D virtual worlds and real environment are attracting the interest of many researchers around the world. Driven by the motivation, we explored the possibilities of integrating haptic interactions with Linden Labs multiuser online virtual world, Second Life. We developed an add-on to the Second Life communication channel in order to facilitate emotional feedbacks such as human touch, encouraging pat and comforting hug to the participating users through real-world haptic simulation. These social touch that are fundamental to physical and emotional development in turn can enhance the users interactive and immersive experiences with the virtual social communities in the Second Life. In this paper, we describe the development of a prototype that realizes the aforementioned virtual-real communication through a haptic-jacket system. Some of the potential applications of the proposed approach include remote child caring, stress recovery, distant lovers communication etc.

Authoring edutainment content through video annotations and 3D model augmentation

In this paper, a real world based interaction metaphor has been adopted to facilitate learning about physical objects in an entertaining fashion. The proposed system incorporates an intuitive video annotation approach in order to catalog and author information about physical learning objects in a scene. The system uses augmented 3D visualization schemes and provides adequate visual cues in order to leverage the hand gesture and voice based interactions with the learning objects. These real world interaction techniques make the system transparent from the young learners and help them to become engaged in their learning activities.

HKiss: Real world based haptic interaction with virtual 3D avatars

Many researchers around the world are aiming to leverage the sense of touch in the communication medium between multiuser 3D virtual world and real environment. In this paper we propose a system that brings 3D avatar centric virtual interpersonal communication events as a form of haptic stimulation to the real world users. In order to render the haptic stimulations, we considered a neck piece (tactile haptic device) that the real users can wear in a scarf-like suit. Further, we enhanced the Linden Labs multiuser online 3D virtual world, Second Life in order to facilitate the haptic communications. In our model when one of the virtual avatars kisses the other in Second Life, an event is triggered. The event is decoded by our system to send haptic based kiss to the real user via the Bluetooth-enabled neck piece hardware. Some of the potential applications of the proposed approach includes distant lovers communication, remote child caring, and stress recovery.

Mobile haptic e-book system to support 3D immersive reading in ubiquitous environments

In order to leverage the use of various modalities such as audio-visual materials in instilling effective learning behavior we present an intuitive approach of annotation based hapto-audio-visual interaction with the traditional digital learning materials such as e-books. By integrating the home entertainment system in the users reading experience combined with haptic interfaces we want to examine whether such augmentation of modalities influence the users learning patterns. The proposed Haptic E--Book (HE-Book) system leverages the haptic jacket, haptic arm band as well as haptic sofa interfaces to receive haptic emotive signals wirelessly in the form of patterned vibrations of the actuators and expresses the learning material by incorporating image, video, 3D environment based augmented display in order to pave ways for intimate reading experience in the popular mobile e-book platform.

Haptic based emotional communication system in Second Life

The sense of touch has much importance in technology-mediated human emotion communication and interaction. Many researchers around the world are aiming to leverage the sense of touch in the communication medium between multiuser 3D virtual world and real environment. Driven by the motivation, we explored the possibilities of integrating haptic interactions with Linden Labs multiuser online virtual world, Second Life. We enhanced the open source Second Life viewer client in order to facilitate the communications of emotional feedbacks such as human touch, encouraging pat and comforting hug to the participating users through real-world haptic stimulation.

Mobile PointMe-based spatial haptic interaction with annotated media for learning purposes

In this paper, we propose a framework to facilitate handheld device-based PointMe interaction with annotated media content, where the user points his/her handheld device to the media presentation screen in order to access services/information from the annotated media. Each annotation is encoded into customized learning object metadata (LOM) format that provides access point for available information about a specific media on the screen. By incorporating a fusion of infra-red (IR) motion points and accelerometer data of the handheld device, the system determines the learner’s PointMe location on the media screen. By using the pointed location spatial geometrical query is performed over the displayed annotated media in order to deliver learner’s level-specific interactive learning content to the user’s handheld device. The level customization is achieved by incorporating learner’s age, progress, etc., parameters in the media content delivery process. We design intuitive learning scenarios by leveraging the PointMe interaction scheme, where learners are challenged to answer quiz questions in learning-based games. This real-world interaction technique with the annotated media and seamless virtual learning information acquisition process makes the system transparent to young learners and encourage them to engage and concentrate on their learning activities. We develop a prototype and perform experiments in a technology-augmented learning space to show the suitability of the proposed approach.