Yoshia Saito

Trust Issues in Disaster Communications

The Great East Japan Earthquake on March 11th, 2011 caused severe damage to the northern coast of the main island in Japan. Since then we have been working to help out the affected area in terms of IT support such as internetworking and providing PCs. Through our support activities we came across an interesting issue concerning collaboration with people from heterogeneous backgrounds. We call this problem disaster communications in this paper. We found that trust plays an important role in such communications. In this paper we report our experiences during our support activities and our findings.

Usability issues in security

Usability issues in security have been discussed such that users could use the security tools easier. On contrary we presume another aspect of usability issues in security; an interface which causes a slight disturbance and discomfort so that a user would be aware of security threats and risks. The idea is that we should not feel Anshin to be secure. Anshin is a Japanese indicating the sense of security. We need a risk-aware interface to notice an insecure situation so that we would install security countermeasures. It is a warning interface for the insecure situations. We show how we could implement such an interface in a mail system to prevent users from sending email messages to incorrect destination addresses.

Implementation of an Internet Broadcasting System with Video Advertisement Insertion Based on Audience Comments

In recent years, mid-roll advertisements which insert a video advertisement at the middle of the video content appear gradually. However, the mid-roll advertisements usually interrupt video viewing because it inserts a video advertisement at the fixed or random time. To solve this issue, we propose an algorithm for mid-roll advertisement insertion based on audience comments. The algorithm determines timing for advertisement insertion not to interrupt audience’s video viewing as much as possible by detecting some characteristics in the amount of audience comments at the appropriate timing. In this paper, we conduct a preliminary experiment to invent an algorithm for video advertisement. We also implement a prototype system for video advertisement insertion with the proposed method.

A Proposal of an Interactive Broadcasting System for Audience-driven Live TV on the Internet

Traditional video services on the Internet are of a broadcasting service nature such as streaming and video-on-demand (VoD). Recent services incorporate more of the interactive nature of network applications such as easy video sharing and those with a chat function. Meanwhile, we have been conducting experimental Internet broadcasting in practice and found it difficult for non-professional broadcasters to provide audiences with satisfactory contents since they do not have a large budget or the technical knowledge to produce broadcasting contents compared to the professional ones. In this paper, we propose an audience-driven broadcast service model in which audiences can send their wish to a broadcaster such that they would like to see some specific objects while broadcasting; the broadcaster can reply back to the request as well. We implemented a prototype system for audience-driven live broadcasting and studied its effects and problems based on the results from the experimental broadcast at our university graduation ceremony and our campus festival. This paper reports our experiments and findings of the audience-driven live broadcasting.

Evaluation of traffic dispersion methods for synchronous distributed multimedia data transmission on multiple links

We propose a multimedia data transmission method, Multitrack, that achieves high-speed and efficient data transmission between multiple mobile hosts and the Internet. This method enables terminals that have a low-speed link to the Internet to receive and play a high quality streaming video, and mitigates the load on the server. Multitrack is used in a cluster-type network where multiple mobile hosts are connected to each other with short-range, high-speed links. High-speed communication with hosts outside the cluster is realized by using multiple wireless links from each mobile host in the cluster and the Internet in parallel and dispersing data traffic to them. By using Multitrack, users of the hosts in the cluster can see a high quality streaming video by sharing the received multimedia data. However, because of the differences in the bandwidth and the delay, it is important to disperse traffic according to the quality of multiple links in order to offer stable multimedia data transmission. We propose an effective traffic dispersion method for this environment, and evaluate this method and other methods by simulations.

A proposal for a still picture Internet broadcasting system with dynamic picture quality adjustment based on audience requests for smartphone broadcasters

3G Internet connections are required for Internet broadcasting with smartphones in outdoor where wireless LAN connections are unavailable. However, it is not easy for the smartphone users broadcast over due to lack of the 3G transmission speed for video streaming in real time. Cell phone carriers, furthermore, tend to shift flat-rate data services to pay-as-you-go data services. 3G data traffic on smartphones should be reduced. In this paper, we propose a still picture Internet broadcasting system with dynamic picture quality adjustment based on audience requests for smartphone broadcasters to achieve stable Internet broadcasting anywhere and optimize amount of data traffic. Since the required bit-rate of still pictures is much smaller than that of the video streaming, still picture Internet broadcasting can reduce data traffic. We introduce a scheme of dynamic picture quality adjustment based on audience requests so that the data traffic can be optimized. This paper reports the design and implementation of the proposed system on a Googles Android terminal. Furthermore, we show the result of an experiment on minimal picture quality.

A study of reconstruction watcher in disaster area

The Tohoku Region Pacific Coast Earthquake and its Tsunami caused serious damage to the Pacific coast in northeastern Japan. We suggest it is important to share the serious situation in the disaster area to gain public understanding and support. In this paper, we propose a Reconstruction Watcher which lets people share reconstruction progress visually to gain public understanding and to support the disaster area. To find practical issues and confirm the feasibility of the Reconstruction Watcher, we went to the disaster area and tried to show the serious situation to the public. This paper reports our challenges and findings.

Evaluation of traffic dispersion methods for synchronous distributed multimedia data transmission on multiple links for group of mobile hosts

In this paper, we propose a multimedia data transmission method, Multitrack, that achieves high-speed and efficient data transmission between multiple mobile hosts and the internet. Users of the hosts in a cluster can see a high quality streaming video by sharing the received multimedia data cooperatively with the other hosts. In Multitrack, it is important to disperse traffic according to the quality of multiple links in order to offer a stable multimedia data transmission. We also propose an effective traffic dispersion method for this environment, and evaluate this method and other basic methods by simulations.

A Study on the Clothes Recommendation for a Cold Region of Japan

This study presented the survey results of clothes recommendation based on Clo value for the clothes recommendation system based on weather information. The Clo value is an indicator of the clothing insulation and warmth. In general, the clothes recommendation services use the method to calculate the clothes recommendation based on the Clo value from weather information. However, there is no definition on how to calculate the optimal clothes recommendation based on Clo value in previous researches. Moreover, in Iwate, which is located in the cold district area of Japan, the Clo value is low, although the temperature is low during winter. In other words, people in Iwate are lightly dressed in winter. This research fills in the gap since there is no survey on clothes information and calculation for an optimal clothes recommendation based on Clo value has been conducted in the cold district area in Japan. Thus, in this study, we conducted surveys to collect the clothes information during winter and autumn in the cold district area. We also collect the information regarding what types of clothes people wear during these seasons. As a result, we conclude that the people in Iwate are lightly dressed and they wear coats, scarf and gloves. In winter, the rate of people wearing coats was increased regardless of the temperature and the Clo value.

Message from the CDS Workshop Organizers

It is our pleasure to welcome you to the 4 IEEE International Workshop on Consumer Devices and Systems (CDS), associated with the IEEE International Computer Software and Applications Conference, COMPSAC, organized this year in Atlanta, Georgia USA. The aim of this workshop is to discuss and advance the state-of-the-art, research and development in the area of consumer devices and systems, and to promote the study of both fundamental and practical aspects of such devices and systems.