Human Interfaces

1. Preface (101 KB)

---[Jun-ichi Tanahashi, Senior Vice President Fujitsu Laboratories Ltd. ]

2. Video Communication System that Facilitates Informal Communication among Distributed Offices (364 KB)

This paper presents our prototype system called OfficeWalker, which supports informal communication among distributed offices. It allows quick and easy access to a remote recipient by checking the recipient's availability prior to conversations by video connections. And it facilitates unintended interactions with the recipient's neighbors by notifying them of the identity of the caller and presenting them as a virtual visitor. We conducted a user experiment to evaluate the impact of the system on distributed cooperative work. The results showed that OfficeWalker allows quick and easy access to remote partners and partially facilitates unintended interactions. The experiment results also suggested that OfficeWalker enhances awareness of remote partners' situations, which is believed to be important for coordinating activities for a successful collaboration. ---[Akihiko Obata, Kazuo Sasaki ]

3. Guidelines for Designing Human Interfaces for Children and their Application to the Koron-net Communication System (185 KB)

When information is used for communication, it becomes what we at Fujitsu refer to as "information media." These days there are many opportunities for children to use information media such as e-mail and BBSs. A designer of a human interface (HI) for children must understand the gap between an information media and its users. We have developed human interface design guidelines to bridge this gap from the cognitive and ethnological viewpoints. We applied our guidelines to the design of Koron-net, which is a communication system designed for children. This paper describes our guidelines and a trial use of Koron-net between three primary schools that was conducted to examine our design approaches. ---[Kazuhiro Ohishi, Hajime Nonogaki]

4. Autonomy and Artificial Life Forms for Amusement and Use as Agents (122 KB)

This paper describes the attributes that can be given to artificial life forms and intelligent agents so that they appear to be alive and posses their own individuality. Also, this paper describes possible architectures for realizing these attributes. ---[Koichi Murakami ]

5. Human-machine Interface Using Humanoid Cartoon Character (338 KB)

This paper describes our Cartoon Character Interface (CCIF). The CCIF is a graphical user interface that features a humanoid cartoon character that acts as an anthropomorphic agent. First, we report on the effectiveness of humanoid characters in human-machine interactions and how users accept such characters. Next, we describe a simulator for creating scenes for the CCIF for use in a sales terminal and describe the results of an experiment to evaluate how the CCIF affected the terminal's operability. We confirmed that the CCIF made the interface of the terminal easier to use. Finally, we introduce a cartoon animation composer for creating CCIFs. ---[Satoshi Iwata, Takahiro Matsuda, Takashi Morihara ]

6. Human Interface Design at the Fujitsu Design Laboratory -Expansion of Activities and Design Domain- (682 KB)

In response to the growth of information equipment and systems, the domain of human interface design activities at the Fujitsu Design Laboratory has been expanded and more closely integrated with the various processes of product development. Because of requests from users to make information systems easy to use, comfortable, and efficient, the Design Laboratory has integrated not only the conventional design process for designing shapes and colors but also the upstream processes for designing information exchange and interactivity between humans and a system. The Design Laboratory is studying and promoting processes called "Human-centered design processes." These processes reflect users' opinions, ideas, and characteristics onto the specifications of products and services. ---[Keita Matsumoto ]

7. Application of Single Hand Keys Input Scheme to Pocket Computer (287 KB)

This paper describes an input scheme for a pocket computer. The scheme "Single Hand Keys (SHK) for mobile computers" has been applied to the Palm III pocket computer made by 3Com Corporation. In this paper, we explain our SHK KeySeg, which is a small keyboard designed for the Palm III and its support programs. Then we discuss the human-machine interface we have designed and implemented for the support programs. We will also touch on future activities for realizing the next generation of mobile information tools. ---[Masakatsu Sugimoto ]

8. Interactive Character Recognition Technology for Pen-based Computers (262 KB)

This paper describes Fujitsu's latest interactive (i.e., online) handwriting character recognition (OLCR) technology. To compensate for stroke order and stroke connection variations of handwritten Japanese characters, we have developed a hybrid character recognizer which integrates an online and an offline (OCR) recognition module. In an experiment, our hybrid recognizer achieved an 86.8% recognition accuracy while the online and offline modules scored 84.3% and 72.4%, respectively. The hybrid recognizer can recognize more than 4400 Japanese characters using a 400 to 800 KB dictionary. The recognition speed is about 30 ms per character with a P2/266 MHz CPU. For context processing, we have developed a character-class Bi-gram based context processing module. In an experiment, our context processing module improves the recognition accuracy from 82.7% to 90.5% for non-kanji characters and from 90.6% to 93.8% for kanji characters with only a 40 KB dictionary. Also, to improve recognition accuracy for a specific user, we have developed an adaptive context processing (ACP) technology which lets the system automatically learn user-input strings and applies the information to the context processing. In an experiment, we observed that the recognition accuracy was improved from 86.1% to 95.4% when the ACP was applied. ---[Kazushi Ishigaki, Hiroshi Tanaka, Naomi Iwayama ]

9. Advances in Speech Recognition Technologies (143 KB)

This paper describes the research and development activities for speech recognition conducted in the 1990s at Fujitsu Laboratories Limited. Our interests have been focused on extending the functions and performance of speech recognition technologies developed in the 1980s. Advances in small implementations of speech recognition, recognition of continuous speech, and recognition of speech in noisy environments are described. ---[Shinta Kimura]

10. Speaker Position Detection System Using Audio-visual Information (186 KB)

This paper describes a speaker position detection system that achieves a high degree of accuracy using a multimodal interface that integrates audio and visual information from a microphone array and a camera. First, the system detects the position and angle of the microphone array relative to the camera position. Next, audio processing detects sound source positions and visual processing detects the positions of human faces. Finally, by integrating the sound source positions and face positions, the system determines the speaker's position. The system can integrate audio and visual information, even if the spatial relationship between the microphone array and camera is initially unknown. The system achieves a high detection rate for the speaker's position in a noisy environment. ---[Naoshi Matsuo, Hiroki Kitagawa, Shigemi Nagata]

11. Super High Quality MVA-TFT Liquid Crystal Displays (176 KB)

This paper describes a technology for applying the vertically aligned (VA) system to Multi-domain Vertical Alignment (MVA) liquid crystals to fabricate TFT liquid crystal panels. We achieved a wide viewing angle (160° vertically and horizontally) and a rubbing-free process which contributes to a high throughput performance by using four-domain alignment. To obtain four-domain alignment, we created chevron-patterned ridges on the substrate (each ridge has two slopes). This paper also describes some ongoing developments which further improve the display characteristics of MVA-TFT liquid crystal displays and their production productivity. ---[Yoshio Koike, Kenji Okamoto ]

12. High-resolution Plasma Display Panel (PDP) (266 KB)

We have developed two types of high-resolution plasma display panels (PDPs): a 25-inch SXGA (1280 x 1024) panel for engineering workstations (EWSs) and personal computers (PCs), and a 42-inch 1024 x 1024 panel for HDTV. First, this paper investigates the discharge characteristics of small PDP cells. Then, this paper describes some of the features of the new panels, for example, the improved characteristics of their cells and their unique Alternate Lighting of Surfaces (ALIS) discharge method, which improves both the resolution and the brightness of the panels. ---[Keiichi Betsui, Fumihiro Namiki, Yoshikazu Kanazawa, Hiroshi Inoue ]

13. High-accuracy Color Reproduction (Color Management Systems) (213 KB)

TGamut mapping is a key technology which realizes good matching between original, displayed, and printed colors. We examined the application of gamut mapping algorithms to device profiles to achieve color transformation in color management systems (CMSs). As a new performance evaluation method, we focused on errors that occur during this transformation. To obtain a mapping method suitable for implementation, we developed a new gamut mapping algorithm called "Chroma Proportional Clipping (CPC)." This algorithm preserves chroma and tone while reducing interpolation errors. The reproduction of chroma and tone was evaluated subjectively, and the reduction of errors was evaluated based on color differences. Compared with three conventional algorithms, CPC was given the best mean score in subjective evaluations of color matching. Also, CPC has a relatively small reduction of errors of 14.2 CIELAB units. ---[Shoji Suzuki, Masayoshi Shimizu, Satoshi Semba ]

14. Development of Production Environment for Motion Contents for Humans,Animals,and Other Structures (201 KB)

This paper proposes an efficient method for producing contents which describe the motions of complex structures, particularly humans and animals. Previously, the simulation of human and animal animation was a time-consuming task that had to be done by highly skilled people. To make this process faster and easier, the authors propose to use several motion dynamics techniques to generate smooth motions and mechanisms for integrating these techniques. This paper describes a system developed by the author that is based on this proposal and describes various key technologies developed by the author's recent research activities; namely, a generalized motion dynamics algorithm, an efficient collision analysis algorithm, and a high-speed component software technique. ---[Fumio Nagashima ]

15. Efficient Data Entry System Based on Document-recognition Technology:AutoENTRY (243 KB)

This paper describes an efficient data entry system called "AutoENTRY" which uses object-oriented features to construct a system for business use. The system can be used to flexibly and easily design a system to suit the user's needs. The new system incorporates several new technologies developed by Fujitsu for job modeling, adjusting the object-oriented features, and recognizing various objects (e.g., form layouts, characters, items). The new system solves problems regarding the specialization of documents for optical character readers, reduces the enormous cost and time required for developing a new system, and facilitates integrated management of multi-platform systems. This paper outlines the object-oriented and customer-oriented AutoENTRY system. ---[Kazunori Yamamoto, Masaki Kondo, Takayuki Matsui, Shinichi Eguchi ]

16.Hand-held Terminal with Multi-code Reader (345 KB)

Fujitsu has developed a hand-held terminal that incorporates a scanner with a CCD camera for capturing image data such as handwritten signatures and reading every type of one-dimensional and two-dimensional code in use in today's business world. This terminal is the same size as conventional hand-held terminals for reading one-dimensional barcodes. This paper discusses the features and key technologies of the new hand-held terminal. A two-dimensional barcode can contain 10 to 30 times more coded information than a one-dimensional barcode of the same area. The terminal's error correction function allows it to read blurred or distorted data. Data can also be read from any direction. Two-dimensional codes are expected to be widely used in the near future, and standards are already being established in the United States and Japan for different business categories. ---[Yasuya Tanaka, Yoji Satoh, Motofumi Kashi]

17. Code Generator for HPF Library on Fujitsu VPP5000 (103 KB)

The Fujitsu VPP5000 supports the data parallel language High Performance Fortran (HPF). The HPF Library gives a user access to intrinsic functions that are particularly useful in a data parallel environment. The implementation of HPF Library presents the challenge that all data types, all data kinds, all array ranks and all input distributions need to be supported. The number of specific functions runs into the billions so it is not feasible to code each individually. This paper presents a method to solve this problem. We have developed a library generator, which consists of templates and a template processor along with an interface to the HPF compiler. We show that instead of implementing billions of specific functions, we only need to implement five templates. ---[Matthijs van Waveren, Cliff Addison, Peter Harrison, Dave Orange, Norman Brown ]