We are developing a wearable musical instrument system that (1) enables individual and daily portability of playing a song as well as listening to it, (2) enables ad hoc musical sessions with passers-by who have same systems and similar taste, (3) enables ad hoc collaborative music composition, (4) and enables active direction of everyday life virtually. In this paper, a prototype system was developed and examined. According to the results, we propose a concept "Dressable Music", that an active direction of everyday life using wireless-networked and wearable musical instruments, and propose a design of "CosTune" system which is expected to actualizes the concept.

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We propose a new method to display information based on the saccadic eye movement. Using this method, we can make small-size devices. The device based on this method can be a very simple one composed of two blinking light points and around a vertical blinking light array. This method uses the saccadic eye movement for displaying information, so its viewer can be limited to people who are actively looking for it. Considering these features, this method is suitable for wearable and ubiquitous computing.

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Augmented Reality(AR) is a promising technology which is able to augment the information of the real environment with virtually displayed informations. Wearable Computer(WC) is another promising technology which augments a personal information environment. The fusion of AR and WC is an ideal solution of personally augmentation of the real environment. However, because a HMD has limited field of view, the above systems are not able to augment the real environment outside of field of view. Therefore, an efficient and friendly visual information displaying which navigates the user's view to outside of HMD is necessary for practical wearable AR systems. This paper discusses what type of visual navigating the most suitable for wearable AR systems is. For the evaluation of the navigation, a prototype system which supports astronomical observation is constructed. A gyro sensor and an image sensor are utilized for the detection in user's view direction, and the registration between the user's view and the star map is realized by a realtime image processing in video see-through paradigm. The system installs several types of visual guidance to find a particular star. Evaluations with the prototype result their efficiencies and subjective impressions.

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It is necessary for the motion devices of "parasitic humanoid" to present motion timing and which joint and direction to move exactly. To satisfy these conditions, it is necessary that the presented stimulus connects directly with the corresponding motion. In this paper, we propose "periosteal-reflex-induced motion device" as a new motion device for parasitic humanoid. Utilizing periosteal-reflex, this device presents which joint and direction to move more directly than any other previous motion devices. We also report an experimental result, which implies availability of our new device.

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Time lag between the human motion and display output is a large obstacle that prevent the Head Coupled Display from application. A novel HMD "Reflex HMD", with time lag compensation was proposed and the preliminary prototype was constructed. The angular movement is measured by gyroscope in this HMD, modulates the driving signal for LCD panel, and shifts the viewport within the image supplied from the computer. The merit of this system is 1) the independece of computer platform, operating system, and application, 2) low cost and light weight, 3) precise compensation without causing additional delay. An experiment with the prototype ReflexHMD successfully showed that the delay of about 100 milliseconds (six frames) was decreased within one frame.

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This paper describes the development and evaluation of a mobile torquefeedback device, the GyroCube, not based on the earth ground support. Using three orthogonal motors, torque of any desired direction and magnitude is generated by controlling the acceleration of the rotation of the motors simultaneously. The effectiveness of the device as a wearable torque display is confirmed by two types of experiments: the objective measurement of the output torque, and the subjective measurement by twenty participants.

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In this paper, we propose a method for simulating interaction force between a virtual object and user's fingers in object manipulation. The contact force, including friction, is computed by introducing physical law into the contact detection algorithm. The motion of objects is simulated based on both the interaction force and the dynamics of the object. We implemented the proposed method in a virtual environment with force feedback and confirmed that we can perform object manipulation tasks using two fingers.

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Small creatures surround us in our everyday life. In our large-scale world, we sometimes are not aware of their existence. Sometimes, these small creatures even anger or annoy us by their presence. With this instillation, we can understand and communicate with these creatures. This installation is composed of a flat display monitor such as PDP, a rod set between the flat monitor and the table, a microscopic video camera, a 2-dimensionally movable stage and small insects on the stage. The rod is connected to an insect-sized rod inside the display. Movements on the large rod are mechanically converted into micro-sized movements on the small rod. The display screen shows a magnified view of the insect-sized interior. The size is scaled such that the micro-rod in the display seems to be really connected with the large rod on the outside. Participants can thus seamlessly move this virtual rod to interact with the small creatures in the display. This installation offers a new type of virtual reality, which can make worlds with very different scales from ours appear seamless and naturally accessible to us.

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It is necessary to describe the relative position and movement of virtual objects in a virtual space. Thus it is required to describe mathematically the virtual objects with physical characteristics and their operation owing to their physical phenomena. From this viewpoint, virtual objects are synthesized as multi-viscoelastic mathematical models with connections of masses and viscoelastic springs. Any destruction of the virtual materials is shown by computer graphics according to their real time operation. The present model has flexibility of its size and shape because any connection of any number of masses is possible to construct virtual material. It is not necessary to formulate new deferential equations at every sampling time, which makes it possible to represent any change of the shape owing to the break down of material. Thus, the proposed method is useful for the representation of the force and movement of virtual objects in the space of virtual reality.

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The purpose of this research is to investigate the psychological influence of a water display, which shows images on a transparent and continuous water membrane surrounding a head mounted hemisphere. We developed a water display that incorporates the aesthetic of both the artist and the engineer, providing a viewer with an unusual sense of underwater immersion without ever getting wet. Moreover, the system provides comfortable mist and a surrounding water sound. The water display has proven to be particularly well received by subjects. Future water displays could be used by the entertainment and amusement industry.

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