Masayuki Ihara

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.

Heart rate monitoring through the surface of a drinkware

There is a growing demand for daily heart rate (HR) monitoring in the fields of healthcare, fitness, activity recognition, and entertainment. Although various HR monitoring systems have been proposed, most of these employ a wearable device, which may be a burden and disturb ones daily living. To achieve the goal of pervasive HR monitoring in our daily living, we present the HR monitoring method through the surface of a drinkware. The proposed method employs the surface of a drinkware as a broad sensing region, by expanding the principal of a basic photo-based HR sensor. The sensing surface works even with a curved shape, and it can be applied on various types of drinkwares. This approach enables unobtrusive HR monitoring during the beverage consumption. As a prototype, we implemented the proposed method on an ordinary transparent tumbler, and evaluated its HR monitoring performance.

A gesture recognition algorithm for vision-based unicursal gesture interfaces

Network communication services such as Skype or gaming applications using interactive TVs with cameras and IR-sensors have begun to appear. Vision-based recognition systems using hand gestures to control applications such as TV menus are gaining popularity in the market. It is crucial that the VGI is simple, easily used and allows users to comfortably command TVs. For simple and easy to use VGIs, we focus on vision-based unicursal gesture interfaces (VUGI) which recognizes both the shape of a unicursal figure drawn by a user and orientation indicated by the start position of the unicursal figure. In this paper, we propose Support Vector Machines (SVM) using Distance to Border (DtB) features to increase the number of recognized unicursal gestures. We evaluated the performance of the proposed algorithm in an experiment and the mean recognition rate of eight unicursal figures was 94.6% and the maximum recognition processing time was 9.56ms.

Towards More Practical Information Sharing in Disaster Situations

This paper presents how to design a more practical information sharing service for disaster situations based on the requirements learned from many disaster experiences in Japan in the past. In designing technologies to be used in disaster situations, it is important to add resiliency that can handle changes in the situation. To provide more people with an information sharing service, the technologies should be independent of Internet availability and should work on many types of user devices. We develop and evaluate a resilient information sharing platform and some applications, all of which can work with Wi-Fi and a web browser. This paper also details the results of field experiments and describes the importance of the “service usability” concept in making those technologies truly practical.

Visual feedback: its effect on teleconferencing

We present shared visual feedback for supporting conversations in contingent auditory environments like teleconferences. To facilitate the initiation of conversations in such environments, it is critical that the caller be able to grasp the auditory channel between the callers mouth and the receivers ear, and to vocalize at the voice level proper for the receiver. To achieve this goal, feedback of the voice level as measured at the receivers ear is needed. Our starting points were a first generation prototype that displays visual feedback on the callers screen and a second generation prototype that projects visual feedback onto the floor in the receivers room. To enhance the speakers assurance and to make installation easier, a third prototype is implemented as a LED device and a microphone. An experiment is conducted on the third prototype and its effectiveness in supporting natural conversations in telecommunication sessions in daily use environments is confirmed.

An Information Display System with Information Scrapping User Interface Based on Digital Signage Terminals and Mobile Devices for Disaster Situations

In the East Japan Earthquake of 2011, a lot of people stranded at a station in a metropolitan city gathered and stayed in front of digital signage terminals displaying disaster information. The situation had the potential to cause a secondary disaster such as crowding accidents. To solve this problem, we propose an information display system with information scrapping user interface based on a digital signage terminal and mobile devices. Users can watch disaster information on the screen of their own mobile device by access to a digital signage terminal through Wi-Fi connection. The information scrapping user interface allows users to save target disaster information on the screen of their own mobile device and meta-information related with the target information by encircling the target information roughly. The main effect of this system is to shorten the time needed to access disaster information and save the desired information in a mobile device. We conduct a field experiment to evaluate the performance of the proposed system. The main effect of the system was confirmed by comparing with noting or taking photos of desired information among disaster information displayed by a digital signage terminal.

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.

Short Paper: How Do People Choose a Means for Communication in Disaster Situations?

In disaster situations, people try to communicate with acquaintances for a variety of reasons. In general, they try to immediately communicate with family or important friends to confirm their safety. To understand the damage situation, they may try to communicate with neighbors whom they don’t often communicate with in daily life. This paper introduces the results of surveys of people who experienced the Great East Japan Earthquake, 2011 and the Kumamoto Earthquake, 2016 in Japan to discover what communication modalities were used and why they were chosen.

Designing User Experiences of Novel Technologies

User experience is critical for the success of new services based on novel technologies. This paper analyzes user experience design for new services with the use case of behavior observation of smartphone-signage collaboration in public spaces. We employ the AIDA model with its four steps of attention, interest, desire, and action, to analyze the observation results of user behaviors in a public exhibition space.