The SH-Mobile Laboratory project, chaired by Mr. Shinichi Takemura, is researching the "Vision of a mobile ubiquitous environment in 2010". This article describes the results that the project obtained in 2004, as reported at a meeting in April 2005.

Renesas established SH-Mobile Laboratory in April, 2004 as a part of the its SH-Mobile Consortium activities, charging it to explore key aspects of the future of the ubiquitous society. Chaired by cultural anthropologist Shinichi Takemura and directed by information designer Yasushi Watanabe, the laboratory is staffed by members from diverse backgrounds, including media artist Kazuhiko Hachiya, architect Hiroshi Ohta and journalist Tadakazu Fukutomi.

The laboratory research framework has been set to two years. During the phase-I period (April 2004 to March 2005), the laboratory was asked to form a vision and come up with ideas on the mobile phone use, based on predictions of the work style and information behavior expected in 2010. During the phase-II period (April 2005 to March 2006), the lab will work to actualize that vision and those ideas.

Mr. Watanabe, who serves as the laboratory director, commented on the purposes of the SH-Mobile Laboratory: "First of all, we must imagine and visualize the idea of ubiquitous media of the future — not visible to us now — and the experience of a person who will use it."

The laboratory's 'Vision of mobile media in 2010' is being drawn not from the technology and business viewpoints, but from the perspectives of culture, design and art, without bias for the mobile phone and other hardware of today. The researchers are examining the future of the ubiquitous mobile technology and society within frameworks such as individual behavior and experience, urban space, and community.

During the phase-I research period in 2004, the laboratory — with core members playing the key roles — conducted various studies and research activities. Those activities included seven work sessions, three questionnaires and two interview surveys that probed interesting significant possibilities for electronic products.

During the work sessions, for example, various aspects of the future of the ubiquitous society was thoroughly discussed and scrutinized. Topics of the sessions were as follows: (1) City and Mobility, (2) Imagination, Haptics, and Mobile Phone, (3) Current Trends in Product Design, (4) Current Trends in Game Design, (5) Conceiving Idea of Mobile Phone of the Future, (6) Mobile Phone of the Future Ideas Sheet, and (7) Workshop Results and Tasks for the Next Year.

As an introduction to the presentation of phase-I research results in April 2005, Shinichi Takemura, chairman of the SH-Mobile Laboratory, gave a speech titled "Vision of the mobility future." In it he looked at the ubiquitous society from a broad perspective using the concept of three information revolutions. He defined the appearance of Library of Alexandria, the famous treasury of knowledge of about 2300 years ago, as the first information revolution. He then cited the invention of printing, which drastically advanced the popularization and personalization of knowledge, as the second information revolution. Subsequently, Mr. Takemura argued that the third information revolution will be the emergence of the "ubiquitous mobile society," which will fuse real, actual space with informational space and change the whole world to one big living museum.

Further, Mr. Takemura dwelled upon the differences between American-type and Japanese-type ubiquitous societies. While the American type is associated with entrances to the cyberspace everywhere, the Japanese type — in which the leading role belongs to the mobile phone — can be characterized as fusion between reality and cyberspace. Mr. Takemura pointed out that it is the Japanese type that provides valuable hints on the next-generation information environment.

Mr. Watanabe, who serves as the research director at the SH-Mobile Laboratory, next outlined the research process at the laboratory. One of the distinguishing aspects he pointed out was the use of the back-casting method for inspiring imagination, unbiased by business and technology practices of today. Using this method, the participants imagined the future and set their time clocks to 2010. Then they retrospectively turned back in time — looked back at the present from the perspective of the future — and defined and described what must be done to reach the future they imagine. This proved to be an effective way to predicting the future, free from various limitations of actual current-day reality.

The research approach the laboratory adopted was a workshop format, a method of collaboration based on interaction with corroborative participation and personal experience. Under the direction of Mr. Watanabe, the four core members of the laboratory have been developing their workshops side by side. That provided a fertile field for innovative ideas. In research report presentations at the April meeting, the core members made proposals for the mobile media, based on ideas conceived through the first year of research activities. Summaries of those report presentations follow.

With the mobile phone, a familiar urban view would change into a vivid scenery. The "ubiquitous walker" will sharply sense the surrounding informational environment and reconstruct information that isn't usually available to the human senses, data that is invisible to human eye. Users will get access to the diverse, rich content of knowledge related to their location, stored behind the objects that might seem familiar and dull. A new, diverse experience will enter the urban life, one that facilitates an active engagement with the location and gives people the ability to share their experience with others.

The information recomposition process includes the acquisition, accumulation, and further visual reconstruction of various types of information: data from RFID tags implanted at the location, data scaled by sensors embedded in the handset, and various image and audio/voice data captured by a camera or microphone. The reconstructed multimedia scenes will come to life not only on the user's handset display. When users approach big wall-size displays or tabletops installed in urban public locations, for instance, they would forward selected content to the larger screen to share the experience with others.

A peek into the future is available at the Onomichi Mobile Tourist Navigation "Ubiquitous Museum" web site. There you can read with your mobile phone the QR code on the owl's image in the street corner of the virtual Onomichi, and a Naoya Shiga's 100 year-old image will be transmitted to your handset. Moreover, after seeing the picture, you can add own comments and leave them behind as a QR encoded message for others. This will re-create the whole urban scenery into a living archive that embraces the vast historical background concealed behind the object and information related to personal experiences.

People, cars, and the town will all become sensors. And as an example of visualization of the data, imagine a real-time rain map composed using data from sensors installed on the windshield wipers of automobiles. In reality, when working on a project concerning sakura — a Japanese cherry tree — we asked local volunteers to recite a tanka poem when they see sakura buds opening to bloom. Then we put all data on the map and visualized the "sakura-blossom front" advancing north.

For a case study on "commonizing" (sharing) personal experiences, we can cite the "Snow mail" experimental project conducted in Marunouchi, Tokyo. At a Christmas illumination event, pictures taken and transmitted by participants with mobile phones were displayed flitting down on a large screen as if they were snowflakes. This gave participants a feeling of becoming an intimate part of the big-city content.

The "ubiquiTABLE" changes a simple table — the tool that many people use together — into an information device. In the center of the tabletop there is a "river of information" with freely flowing information. A user can just view the data stream or pick up a piece of information that interests him and check the details. Sometimes information from a nearby ubiquiTABLE will also appear, triggering a new communication chain.

In the future, the information environment in public zones is expected to expand and improve. Therefore the next development task will be to construct a communal information environment — for instance, one that links mobile phones and the ubiquiTABLE.

To bridge the gap between real space and informational space, it is necessary to juxtapose the human body, space, and information. The best solution for doing this is the wearable mobile phone. Consider, for instance, the fact that today we often stop on the street when using the mobile handset to read or send mails. With the advent of the wearable mobile phone, we will see both the mobile display screen and the real-world picture at the same time... while we continuing walking.

We conducted a survey based on the concept of the "most desired tool". Specifically, we asked the following question: "Which futuristic tool among those featured in science fiction, animated movies or manga comics do you most want to have?" The most popular answer among respondents was the dokodemo door — a portable instant teleportation device from the Doraemon animation series.

Here are three ideas for utilizing the "dokodemo door concept within time-space situations different from the usual everyday life; for example, on a trip, a sightseeing adventure, a date, etc.

• Virtual Postcard — Send a naturally taken high-resolution video message to a friend via a virtual reality pipeline you access from a public phone booth at a street corner, just as if you were sending a postcard on a trip.

• Access Search — While you are on a trip, search for transport to a desired destination in real time and obtain street guidance optimized for trains, walking, taxis and other modes of transport. You can also instantly link to restaurant guides or other types of information listings.

• Virtual Diving — Despite the fact that you are on land, enjoy 3D images and sounds as seen and heard by a fish swimming in the water. This will give you a visual super-space experience that expands the impact of the exhibits while you're visiting a city aquarium.