Ubiquitous Community Support System for UbiComp2005
Takuichi Nishimura, Yutaka Matsuo, Masahiro Hamasaki, Noriyuki Fujimura, Keisuke Ishida,Tom Hope, Yoshiyuki Nakamura
Information Technology Research Institute, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology,
Aomi 2–41–6, Koto-ku, Tokyo, 135–0064 Japan

Email: taku@ni.aist.go.jp
Hideaki Takeda
National Institute of Informatics

Kosuke Numa
The Graduate University for Advanced Studies

Hiroshi Nagata, Osamu Nakagawa, Eiji Shinbori
Media Technology Research Center, Dai Nippon Printing Co., Ltd.

Satoshi Fujiyoshi, Kazuya Sakamoto
ALPHA SYSTEMS INC.

Toru Takahashi
ATR Media Information Science Laboratories

Abstract
One target of a ubiquitous computing environment is to create andactivate communities in which people interact in a lively mannerbased on their interests and situations. To achieve that goal, we
have been developing a “ubiquitous community support system(UbiCoSup)” for event spaces since 2002 because event spaces
have rich contents and interactions among certain interest groups
and myriad sub-communities. We have been developing theUbiCoSup by elaborately fusing web support systems based on
cyber world interaction and onsite support systems based onreal-world interaction. In 2005, we were kindly granted theopportunity to demonstrate the newest UbiCoSup for all attendeesof Ubicomp2005. This paper briefly describes the systemarchitecture and the characteristics of each system.

Keywords
Ubiquitous, Casual support, Casual user interface, Community
support, Event space, Real world interface, Social network,
Wearable computing, Web intelligence

1. Introduction
Increasingly, people will enjoy information services
while moving in the real world. Among aspects of“pervasive”, “ubiquitous” [1] and “context-aware” [2]computing, the most important is realization of a contextaware information service system that supplies proper
information “here, now, for me.”[3] Figure 1 shows theway in which this study specifically addresses the use oflocation as a salient clue to the context; it develops aGoal:
Increase
Satisfaction of
Attendants andEvent planners

Human, objects in 4D space

Ubiquitous
Event in Real World(conference, museum,EXPO, party)

After

time

BeforeWEB services

Figure 1 Ubiquitous Community Support for Events

system for event space. The event space includes
conferences, museums, expositions, concerts, parties, andso on with rich on-site contents that can benefit frominvestments of installing a ubiquitous environment. It isnoteworthy that contents in event spaces include not only
exhibits and demonstrations, but also the attendees
themselves.
We are particularly examining those technologies thatcreate and foster communities of attendees and event
operators. Because we believe the attendees can enjoy anduse the real-world event through connection with proper
contents and people. The system delivers rich contents
before the event period; attendees’ communities can growusing web services such as a human relationship browser
and scheduling system. In that process, the systemautomatically helps the attendees to communicate withother attendees using AI technologies. Such preparation
will activate the event and continue to enhance and expand
communities after the event.
Interactions on the web support systems are enhanced byonsite support systems. Each attendee can use a simple
device to log in to the web services and onsite services
such as ActionLog or Tabletop Community using theinformation kiosks with sensor/display network. The web
support system obtains interaction information between anattendee and the onsite system, and vice versa.
In this paper, we mention the newest UbiCoSup for
UbiComp2005, which is a revision of the systemdemonstrated on the Japanese Society of Artificial
Intelligence (JSAI2003, JSAI2004, and JSAI2005).
The next section explains outline of UbiCoSup for
UbiComp2005. Some systems are explained briefly inSection 3. Section 4 concludes this paper.

2. UbiCoSup for UbiComp2005
An attendee can use onsite support systems during theconference period and web support services from lateAugust until late October. The employed sub-systems forUbiCoSup are the following:z

Casual support

People, using an IC card, can easily use onsite
systems such as Tabletop Community, which realizes
artistic expression of people’s interaction among thecommunity capturing both scenes and sound. A user caneasily link the card to a personal login ID of the web
support system and the onsite system can support the user
merging the information from both the on-site and the websystem.
z

High-end terminal support

Information Clip and UbiBoard use a cellular phone
to enable users to achieve seamless information support
with a web support system. Both systems use paper,
whiteboards, and an online character reader. Thereby, they
firmly connect the real world and the cyber world.
zCommunication/Contents support

POLYPHONET obtains attendees’ relationships
from web sites and scheduling systems. This system is theintegration basis for other systems. ActionLog activates
communications by enabling real-time comments based on
automatically created attendees’ action logs. Furthermore,interesting systems exist, such as avatar communicationbased systems; TelMeA, an annotation based system;

Figure 2 Onsite usage scenarios

Ironomy, andNishihaLink.

presentation

categorization

method;Figure 2 shows onsite usage scenarios. Attendees canobtain IC cards and use the Tabletop Community on theinformation kiosk directly. They can also access the web
support system by linking the card to the web login ID in a
simple way. An attendee can also use cellular phone toview an interesting presentation on the program or on-site
posters and demonstrations by capturing the barcode.
Those onsite support systems are connected with web
support services by ActionLog.

3. Sub-systems of UbiCoSup
3.1 Casual Support
Takuichi Nishimura, Yoshiyuki Nakamura, YutakaMatsuo, Masahiro Hamasaki, Keisuke Ishida, Tom
Hope, ITRI, AISTWe define a casual interface as an intuitive, low-cost,privacy-free interface. We can dispose of it or change itvery easily according to the community. Consequently, thedanger of privacy infringement decreases because it isdifficult to track users without a common device. Therefore,
future users of such systems will continue to use not only
high-end devices such as cellular phones, but also casualdevices. Examples of casual devices are RF-ID tags, ID
cards, and remote controllers.
Based on the discussion above, we have developed theCoBIT[4][5] – a compact, battery-less information terminal–which can provide situated information based on a user’sposition and orientation. The CoBIT is a small, inexpensive
communication terminal that functions using only energy
from the information carrier and the user. We realized aCoBIT exemplary system that downloads soundinformation and uploads the user’s position and orientation,and potentially, signs from the user.
Such casual devices are important for various kinds ofpeople to access rich digital information services easily andcasually. Nevertheless, our target is to realize seamlessinformation support from casual support to personalizedsupport. Users can casually and safely choose to get
personalized information support by gradually inputting
personal information. Casual support for Ubicomp2005
enables the user to link at any time and cut the link with aweb support system.

We employed CoBITs for JSAI2003 and JSAI2004 toachieve sound information support in a quiet environment,
but we use IC cards for JASI2005 and UbiComp2005
because we are displaying a support system that does notuse private sound feedback.

3.2 ActionLog
Hideaki Takeda, National Institute of Informatics
Kosuke Numa, The Graduate University for Advanced
Studies
ActionLog is a Weblog authoring support system that
automatically generates entries with users' context. Context
is triggered by users' actions such as watching posters andusing demonstration systems. The published entries areaggregated according to their context and are presented.

3.3 Information Clip
Hiroshi Nagata, Eiji Shinbori, Media Technology
Research Center, Dai Nippon Printing Co., Ltd.
Many presentations or demonstrations exist at theconference, but attendees might have difficulty recalling
details and on-site impressions. We intend to provide anenvironment for information clipping by applying cellular
telephones. Scanning a clip signal like a QR code on thepaper program or RFID tags on a poster, an application
user can record an interesting demonstration and can save
pictures or comments as their impression. In addition, they
can communicate with a presenter via sharing their picturesand comments.

3.4 UbiBoard
Osamu Nakagawa, Eiji Shinbori, Media Technology
Research Center, Dai Nippon Printing Co., Ltd.
The UbiBoard is the bulletin board system that makes useof a digital pen. The same information as a handwritten
message in the real world is published to the bulletin board
on the net. A user can see your own message and its
associated reaction from the PC or the portable terminal
anywhere at any time.

3.5 Tabletop Community
Noriyuki Fujimura, Takuichi Nishimura, Yoshiyuki
Nakamura, ITRI, AIST
Satoshi Fujiyoshi, Kazuya Sakamoto, ALPHASYSTEMS INC.
Tabletop Community presents interactive artwork thatdepicts and defines interactions within a community. Theartwork consists of (either single or multiple) table-like
information kiosks and software systems. Every time thatusers (Active audience) of the artwork access the kiosk
using an RFID card, an omni-directional camera takes animage of all people around the kiosk. The system visualizes
these photographs of the people from the past to the present

as a hypothetical representation of the community aroundthe table.
The system was designed from an inspiration fromcommercial arcade photograph taking-printing machine,"Puri-Kura (Print Club)", which was popular among
younger generations in Japan to take photographs offriends. However, a distinction of this artwork is that it
represents the form of connection among photographic
images. Thereby, the system/artwork might assist
formation of a community over the time as well as creating
congregational art from the community interaction.

3.6 POLYPHONET
Yutaka Matsuo, Masahiro Hamasaki, Keisuke Ishida,ITRI, AIST
Recently, a vast amount of information related to research
activities is available on the Web. We developed a social
network extraction algorithms based on Web mining
technology. It is very important to find appropriate
researchers to collaborate in an interdisciplinary research
field. In addition, cooperation with local communities andindustrial communities is important for researchers. Our
goal is to support and promote efficient collaboration sothat research activities can have a greater impact on oursociety.
The POLYPHONET makes it possible to display aresearcher network and to seek individual researchers
through a collection of research works and publication data
posted on the entire world-wide web. The system extracts
various aspects of researchers' relationships in connection
to research activities. Moreover, it is possible to seek aresearcher’s name based on the interrelationship between
researchers. Through these capabilities, it becomes possible
to search for researchers in different disciplinary areasusing available data.
The POLYPHONET is partly integrated with a schedulingsystem which supports for users to make a personalized
schedule at a conference. It also provides functions toregister acquaintances, which increases the reliability of ahuman network. The POLYPHONET plays an importantpart by uniting the entire system with an elaborate userinterface design.

3.7 TelMeA Theatre
Toru Takahashi, ATR Media Information ScienceLaboratoriesTelMeA is an asynchronous on-line community system
employing animated avatars. Using the TelMeA Theatre,
participants can communicate using rich emotional
messages expressed by their avatars. TelMeA Theatre also
provides a method to refer shared context in the form ofimages and web pages. Messages are created easily using
its GUI editor. Then they are posted to the community
server to be referred by other participants.

4. Conclusion
We indicated the importance of addressing an event
space as a first step in realizing ubiquitous community
support (UbiCoSup). We explained the UbiCoSup for
UbiComp2005. Future efforts will combine mobile robots
and develop other event spaces that have different
community characteristics that are expandable to daily life.

5. Acknowledgements
Casual support and human networks have been supported
by New Energy and Industrial Technology Development
Organization (NEDO) as the project ID of 04A11502a. The
cellular phones with RFID tag reader in the conference
venue by courtesy of KDDI Corporation. The IC card
reader system and technology are supported bySynergymedia Corporation.

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