Akihiro Kosugi

Question-Answer Cards for an Inclusive Micro-tasking Framework for the Elderly

Micro-tasking (e.g., crowdsourcing) has the potential to help “long-tail” senior workers utilize their knowledge and experience to contribute to their communities. However, their limited ICT skills and their concerns about new technologies can prevent them from participating in emerging work scenarios. We have devised a question-answer card interface to allow the elderly to participate in micro-tasks with minimal ICT skills and learning efforts. Our survey identified a need for skill-based task recommendations, so we also added a probabilistic skill assessment model based on the results of the micro-tasks. We also discuss some scenarios to exploit the question-answer card framework to create new work opportunities for senior citizens. Our experiments showed that untrained seniors performed the micro-tasks effectively with our interface in both controlled and realistic conditions, and the differences in their skills were reliably assessed.

Remote IT education for senior citizens

Information technologies (IT) have great potential to improve the everyday lives of senior citizens, but their lack of skills prevents them from exploiting the possibilities. Skilled seniors can effectively teach unskilled seniors based on their deep understanding of the barriers and needs of their generation, but skilled seniors are scarce. Distant learning methods could be a solution, but their unfamiliarity with IT and strong preference for face-to-face learning are challenges. To make the distant course closer to the face-to-face experience, we developed a remote education system with real-time gesture visualization integrated with multiple audio and video streams between the teachers and learners. In this paper, we will introduce our remote course system and the course design, and then report results of the trial remote course approach.

Hands-Free Collaboration Using Telepresence Robots for All Ages

The use of telepresence robots brings the impression of physical presence to remote collaborations, which is beneficial in terms of establishing a closer relationship in a short time. However, operating a robot requires substantial cognitive effort. This can cause problems in practical situations involving older users, where the cognitive load interferes with the main task that needs to be performed. We have developed a telepresence robot system that addresses this problem by lowering the barriers preventing the operation of a robot. Its basis is the concept of an “observation window” that allows the robot to be operated without using hands or having to wear additional devices. This lightweight, less intrusive technology is expected to be desirable even for older users. This poster describes the mechanism and implementation of our system and reports its effectiveness in practical use by people of all ages, including older users.

Augmented Live Communication Workspace Platform to Assist and Utilize Cognitive Abilities of Senior Workers

Live communication over long distances is indispensable for seniors, and tools have evolved to improve the sense of presence: sight is added by video and robots represent bodies at remote locations. Emerging technologies that assist cognitive abilities may improve the communication quality beyond reality. However, they have been independently developed and cannot be integrated easily. This results in not only raising the development cost but also hampering new technology being installed in this area. Therefore, we propose a platform for remote and live communication that supports portable and fast data transfer connections as fundamental functions and possesses a plug-in framework that enables features to be extended dynamically on the basis of a common interface. In this paper, we explain the design of this platform and describe some plug-in based applications and scenarios built on it as examples validating the concept.

Facilitating Remote Communication Between Senior Communities with Telepresence Robots

Rapid aging and low birthrate of the society is a big issue especially in suburban district of Japan. Since social participation is one of the major factors of well being, online communication helps the elderly in suburban community maintain social relationships by receiving various kinds of services provided from urban area. Our research group introduced a remote IT classroom for senior citizens as an example of local senior communities support each other by connecting those communities through the Internet. This remote IT classroom is based on video conferencing system, and the IT lecturer and his assistants in urban district taught participants live in suburban district how to use tablet devices. From previous study, assistants pointed out that they had difficulties in establishing conversation with the students. Thus we propose the use of telepresence robots in order to overcome this issue. Results from the remote IT classroom indicated that the application of telepresence robots lowered the barrier for initiating conversation between remote assistants and local students.