Atsuhiko Maeda

Coool: A life log collector integrated with a remote-controller for enabling user centric services

In this paper, we propose a life logger integrated with a remote controller, which is a personal device. It uses several sensors to collect the history of the users control of consumer appliances as well as his/her actions, stores all data in real time before sending it to PCs or servers, and is small enough to carry at all times. The aim of data integration is to acquire the users context from his/her actions; personalized services are then provided that suit the context. We develop a prototype and evaluate its performance. The prototype uses Arrow Tags to act as a remote controller for Internet surfing via a TV screen; we designed Arrow Tags to allow the easy selection of any link currently shown by pushing the direction keys, the user can keep his/her gaze fixed on the television screen. Experiments show that Arrow Tag makes it possible for users to easily and comfortably select web page links. To support context mining, the prototype uses our algorithm that can estimate transportation modes from the outputs of GPS and acceleration sensors. Tests show that transportation mode estimation is about 95% accurate. Judging from the experiments results, we can conclude that the life logger, integrated with a remote controller, has the potential to stimulate the development of many context-aware services.

Area-based photo-plethysmographic sensing method for the surfaces of handheld devices

Capturing the users vital signs is an urgent goal in the HCI community. Photo-plethysmography (PPG) is one approach; it can collect data from the finger tips that indicate the users autonomic nervous system (ANS) and offers new potentials such as mental stress measurement and drowsy state detection. Our goal is to set PPG sensors on the surfaces of ordinary devices such as mice, smartphones, and steering wheels. This will offer smart monitoring without the burden of additional wearable sensors. Unfortunately, current PPG sensors are very narrow, and even if the sensor is attached to the surface of a device, the user is forced to align and hold the finger to the sensor point, which degrades device usability. To solve this problem, we propose an area-based sensing method that relaxes the alignment requirement. The proposed method uses two thin acrylic plates, a diffuser plate and a detection plate, as an IR waveguide. The proposed method can yield very thin sensing surfaces and gentle curvatures are possible. An experiment compares the proposed method to the conventional point-sensor in terms of LF/HF discrimination performance with the participant in the resting state, and the proposed method is shown to offer comparable sensing performance with superior usability.

Expanding kinds of gestures for hierarchical menu selection by unicursal gesture interface

We propose Unicursal Gesture Interface (UGI) which is a thumb gesture to expand the number of gestures possible from a TV remote with a touchpad. UGI pairs a shape with orientation to create a command. The shapes are unicursal figures whose paths start and end at the same position and that are easy for the users thumb to remember. UGI allow user to access different layers of hierarchical menu and to select network content comfortably. As an example of Electronic Program Guide access, we evaluate the performance four kinds of UGI. The mean recognition rate of the UGI is 96.1%.

Unicursal gesture interface for TV remote with touch screens

We propose a new gesture interface based on unicursal figures for TV control via touch-screen personal devices. The interface is a powerful but simple way of accessing the multiple functions of modern TVs. Unicursal figures are made without lifting the thumb from the screen and sequences of commands can be issued without needing to confirm the thumbs position. Trial use confirms the feasibility of this interface.

Arrow tag: a direction-key-based technique for rapidly selecting hyperlinks while gazing at a screen

Television sets and video game consoles equipped with a web browser have appeared, and we are now able to browse web pages on television screens. However, existing navigation techniques are too difficult in this situation. In this paper, we propose Arrow Tag, a new link selection technique for web browsers on TV. In this technique, sequences of arrow signs called Arrow Tags are assigned to the links of the web pages, so users can select the links by pushing the four direction keys a few times, while keeping her/his gaze fixed on the television screen. User studies show that Arrow Tag significantly outperforms the conventional techniques of Focus Move and Number Tag. Moreover, most participants preferred Arrow Tag over either Focus Move or Number Tag.

Gesture identification based on zone entry and axis crossing

Hand gesture interfaces have been proposed as an alternative to the remote controller, and products with such interfaces have appeared in the market. We propose the vision-based unicursal gesture interface (VUGI) as an extension of our unicursal gesture interface (UGI) for TV remotes with touchpads. Since UGI allows users to select an item on a hierarchical menu comfortably, it is expected that VUGI will yield easy-to-use hierarchical menu selection. Moreover, gestures in the air such as VUGI offer an interface area that is larger than that provided by touchpads. Unfortunately, since the user loses track of his/her finger position, it is not easy to input commands continuously using VUGI. To solve this problem, we propose the dynamic detection zone and the detection axes. An experiment confirms that subjects can input VUGI commands continuously.

ClearPlate for capturing printed information: a scanner and viewfinder in one optical unit

As it is becoming more common for various handheld devices to be equipped with a camera, applications that use image recognition are increasing. Therefore, improving the usability of these devices by enhancing their image capture characteristics is becoming more important. We present ClearPlate - a new optical unit for image capture. It has a physically transparent viewfinder through which the user can observe the target directly without offset; the framed image is captured by the built-in camera. We also present a user study that evaluates ClearPlate performance in the 2D barcode acquisition task. Results show that ClearPlate significantly outperforms the camera-phone-based approach with regard to 2D barcode acquisition.

A new text input method for TV remotes using tilt sensor

The latest television sets, set-top-boxes, and video game consoles are now equipped with browser and network services to support video on demand etc. As the amount of network content is increasing, users are demanding TV remotes that offer more efficient text input methods to find a desired content on the service.

ClearPlate: An optical unit combining a scanner and a viewfinder for an image capture device

We present ClearPlate-a new optical unit for an image capture device. It has a physically transparent viewfinder through which the user can observe the target directly without offset; the framed image is captured by the built-in camera. We also present a user study that evaluates ClearPlate performance in the 2D code acquisition task. Results show that ClearPlate significantly outperforms the camera-phone-based approach to 2D code acquisition.