The 日本バーチャルリアリティ学会 (Virtual Reality Society of Japan) organized its 12th annual conference in 福岡 (Fukuoka, Japan) between the 19 and 21 September 2007. My talk "基本欲求を満たすウェアラブル・コンピュータ：子供と高齢者の特徴" ("Fundamental Needs in Wearable Computing: Specificities of Young People and Older Adults") occurred during the session on wearable computing.
After my 10-minutes talk, the chairman asked me to discuss the importance of psychology in wearable computing. This request was pertinent because Japanese research usually focuses on wearable technologies without considering broad issues related to human factors. I indicated that psychology, culture, and age considerations are critical for the creation of wearables suited to the general public, and for the adoption of the technologies. One could ignore this point, develop technologies and wait for somebody else to properly exploit them but this has several drawbacks: (1) nobody may do the proper work because our wearable community is quite small, (2) some features may conflict with human needs and may be difficult to correct afterwards, (3) delays in technological adoption limits potential users' benefits and inventor's financial benefits.
Before finishing, a researcher working on head-mounted displays asked: "How shall we prepare our experiments with children?". I indicated that this is a thorny issue because experiments with children raise ethical problems: our experiments may negatively affect children's health or development due to our ignorance regarding human development from birth to adulthood. Therefore we should at least work with experienced and authorized psychologists and medical doctors.
Read the post "Publication #16" for details about the publication. An overview of my work on young people and older adults was presented two weeks before during a seminar (see related post) at 연세대학교 (Yonsei university) in 서울 (Seoul, South Korea). Details about the specificities of older adults were published in France in April (Publication #12), and details about young people will be presented in South Korea in November (Publication #17).
The conference went on finely and I could benefit from a tour of 九州大学大橋キャンパス (campus Oohashi of Kyushu university). I was particularly impressed by the 環境適応研究実験施設 (research center for human environmental adaptation), which was created to clarify the conditions for healthy and comfortable living environments, with a focus on human environmental adaptability. Its 744m2 building contains: (1) an hyperbaric & hypobaric chamber to simulate deep sea and high altitude air pressure, (2) an illumination chamber to test feelings about light and its impact on e.g. the biological clock, (3) a combined factor chamber with control over air temperature, air humidity and air velocity, (4) a thermal chamber to simulate cold places, (5) a living environment chamber with a bathroom, kitchen and toilets but without windows and clocks, (6) a water immersion chamber, and (7) a thermal radiation chamber. The knowledge gathered by this center as well as the potential for experiments are particularly suited to the development of wearable computers and intelligent environments dedicated to the improvement of the general public's quality of life.
Finally, I discussed with 佐藤 誠 (SATO Makoto), who was my supervisor at 東京工業大学 (Tokyo Institute of Technology) in 2002, and who is still developing haptic systems such as the SPIDAR.
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