Hill Hiroki Kobayashi

Human computer biosphere interaction: towards a sustainable society

This paper presents the authors vision of Human Computer Biosphere Interaction (HCBI): Towards a Sustainable Society. HCBI extends the subject of HCI from countable people, objects, pets, and plants to an auditory biosphere that is uncountable, complex, and non-linguistic. By realizing HCBI, soundmarks in a forest can help us feel as one with nature, beyond the physical distance. The goal of HCBI is to realize the benefits of belonging to nature without causing environmental destruction. This paper presents the concept overview, related work, the method and developed interfaces.

Tele echo tube: beyond cultural and imaginable boundaries

Currently, human-computer interaction (HCI) is primarily focused on human-centric interactions; however, people experience many nonhuman-centric interactions during the course of a day. Interactions with nature, such as experiencing the sounds of birds or trickling water, can imprint the beauty of nature in our memories. In this context, this paper presents an interface of such nonhuman interactions to observe peoples reaction to the interactions through an imaginable interaction with a mythological creature. Tele Echo Tube (TET) is a speaking tube interface that acoustically interacts with a deep mountain echo through the slightly vibrating lampshade-like interface. TET allows users to interact with the mountain echo in real time through an augmented echo-sounding experience with the vibration over a satellite data network. This novel interactive system can create an imaginable presence of the mythological creature in the undeveloped natural locations beyond our cultural and imaginable boundaries. The results indicate that users take the reflection of the sound as a cue that triggers the nonlinguistic believability in the form of the mythological metaphor of the mountain echo. This echo-like experience of believable interaction in an augmented reality between a human and nature gave the users an imaginable presence of the mountain echo with a high degree of excitement. This paper describes the development and integration of nonhuman-centric design protocols, requirements, methods, and context evaluation.

Wearable forest-feeling of belonging to nature

Wearable Forest is a clothing design that bio-acoustically interacts with distant wildlife in a remote forest through a remote-controlled speaker and microphone using a network. It expresses the bioacoustical beauty of nature in its unique aesthetic appeal for users and allows the users interact with a forest in real time through a network to acoustically experience a distant forest soundscape, thus merging man and nature without environmental destruction. This novel interactive sound system can create a sense of unity between users and a remote soundscape, enabling users to feel a sense of belonging to nature even in the midst of a city.

Fukushima Audio Census

Fukushima Audio Census (2017) is an interactive artwork designed for the CHI 2017 art program. Live audio is transmitted from strategically placed microphones in the exclusion zone of a contaminated forest located 10 kilometers from the Daichi Nuclear Power Plant in Japan. The artwork invites conference attendees to listen to forest sounds, retrieve past recordings, and talk with experts in the field of ecological neutrality. It thus creates a community among listeners at the conference, researchers, and creatures within the exclusion zone.

Acoustic Ecology Data Transmitter in Exclusion Zone, 10 km from Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant

Acoustic ecology data have been used for various types of soundscape investigations. Counting sounds in the soundscape is considered an effective method in ecology studies and offers comparative data for human-caused impacts on the environment. The authors constructed an Acoustic Ecology Data Transmitter in Exclusion Zone (Namie, Fukushima, Japan), 10 km from Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. It aims to transmit and store a live stream of sound from an unmanned remote sensing station in the area. They expect this data to prove useful for studies on topics, which include radioecology and the emerging dialects for future observations.

Poster: Spatio-Temporal Information Correction Mechanism for Wild Animal Wearable Sensors

This paper presents a Spatio-Temporal Information Correction Mechanism for Wild Animal Wearable Sensors. It is difficult to acquire the positioning information with GPS sensors in forests region. Furthermore, electric power sources and mobile communication infrastructures are often limited, because the provision of such resources is expensive in the wild (e.g., near the ground surface of the forest) and tend to be in areas with limited number of users. In this research, we propose a method, which does not depend on the sensor and a mobile communication, for correcting the acquisition of the time and location information.

Human–Computer–Biosphere Interaction: Beyond Human - Centric Interaction

Current human–computer interaction (HCI) is primarily focused on human-centric interactions. However, people experience many non-human-centric interactions during the course of a day. Interactions with nature, such as experiencing the sounds of birds and trickling water, can reinforce the importance of our relationship with nature. The paper presents the author’s vision of Human–Computer–Biosphere Interaction (HCBI) to facilitate non-human-centric interaction with the goal of moving society towards environmental sustainability. HCBI extends HCI from countable people, objects, pets, and plants into an auditory biosphere that is uncountable, complex, and non-linguistic. This paper describes the development and integration of non-human-centric design protocols, requirements, methods, and context evaluation.

Research in Human-Computer-Biosphere Interaction

Currently human-computer interaction (HCI) is primarily focused on human-centric interactions. However, people experience many non-human-centric interactions every day. Interactions with nature can reinforce the importance of our relationship with nature. This paper presents the author’s vision of human-computer-biosphere interaction (HCBI) to facilitate non-human-centric interaction with the goal of moving society towards environmental sustainability.

Tele Echo Tube

Tele Echo Tube (TET) is a speaking tube installation that allows acoustic interaction with a deep mountain echo through the slightly vibrating lampshade-like interface. TET allows users to interact with the mountain echo in real time through an augmented echo sounding experience with the vibration over satellite data network. This novel interactive system can create an imaginable presence of a mythological creature in undeveloped natural locations beyond our cultural and imaginable boundaries.

Opportunistic Data Exchange Algorithm for Animal Wearable Device Through Active Behavior Against External Stimuli

This paper proposes a method of communication wake control for encounters between three or more users of animal wearable communication devices when threatening behavior against an external stimulus is detected. Specifically, it identifies an encounter of three or more contacts using an acceleration sensor attached to an animal, and uses this as a trigger to wake the communication device to transmit and receive data between the devices. In order to evaluate this algorithm, evaluation experiments were conducted using four standard poodles. With the cooperation of veterinary researchers, we established conditions where strangers with cameras passed immediately in front of the dogs’ run, in order to provide the threatening behavior used to trigger communication wake control.