How has Japan become a major economic power, a world leader in the automotive and electronics industries? What is the secret of their success? The consensus has been that, though the Japanese are not particularly innovative, they are exceptionally skilful at imitation, at improving products that already exist. But now two leading Japanese business experts, Ikujiro Nonaka and Hiro Takeuchi, turn this conventional wisdom on its head: Japanese firms are successful, they contend, precisely because they are innovative, because they create new knowledge and use it to produce successful products and technologies. Examining case studies drawn from such firms as Honda, Canon, Matsushita, NEC, 3M, GE, and the U.S. Marines, this book reveals how Japanese companies translate tacit to explicit knowledge and use it to produce new processes, products, and services.

The knowledge-creating company : how Japanese companies create the dynamics of innovation

The various methods and devices described herein relate to devices which, in at least certain embodiments, may include one or more sensors for providing data relating to user activity and at least one processor for causing the device to respond based on the user activity which was determined, at least in part, through the sensors. The response by the device may include a change of state of the device, and the response may be automatically performed after the user activity is determined.

Automated Response to and Sensing of User Activity in Portable Devices

Nowadays, numerous journals and conferences have published articles related to context-aware systems, indicating many researchers' interest. Therefore, the goal of this paper is to review the works that were published in journals, suggest a new classification framework of context-aware systems, and explore each feature of classification framework. This paper is based on a literature review of context-aware systems from 2000 to 2007 using a keyword index and article title search. The classification framework is developed based on the architecture of context-aware systems, which consists of the following five layers: concept and research layer, network layer, middleware layer, application layer and user infrastructure layer. The articles are categorized based on the classification framework. This paper allows researchers to extract several lessons learned that are important for the implementation of context-aware systems.

Context-aware systems

Peripherals and data processing systems are disclosed which can be configured to interact based upon sensor data. In one embodiment, a peripheral, which is configured to be used with a data processing system, includes an interface to couple the peripheral to the data processing system, and at least one sensor, such as a proximity sensor, to sense a user of the peripheral, and a processor coupled to the interface and to the at least one sensor, wherein the processor configures the peripheral in response to data from the at least one sensor. The peripheral may communicate sensor data from its sensors to the data processing system, which may be a wireless PDA, and the data processing system analyzes the sensor data from its sensors and from the peripheral's sensors to decide how to configure the peripheral and/or the data processing system based on the sensor.

Methods and systems for automatic configuration of peripherals

Apparatuses and methods to sense proximity and to detect light. In one embodiment, an apparatus includes an emitter of electromagnetic radiation and a detector of electromagnetic radiation; the detector has a sensor to detect electromagnetic radiation from the emitter when sensing proximity, and to detect electromagnetic radiation from a source other than the emitter when sensing visible light. The emitter may be disabled at least temporarily to allow the detector to detect electromagnetic radiation from a source other than the emitter, such as ambient light. In one implementation, the ambient light is measured by measuring infrared wavelengths. Also, a fence having a non-IR transmissive material disposed between the emitter and the detector to remove electromagnetic radiation emitted by the emitter. Other apparatuses and methods and data processing systems and machine readable media are also described.

Integrated proximity sensor and light sensor

Here we describe research addressing the next generation of mobility technology, which will deliver "the right experience in the right moment." The maturing field of pervasive computing yields the technology and the challenges described here. We focus on rich interactive mobile experiences triggered by context information available from the users, their environment, and a wealth of context-enabled content. We call such applications mediascapes.

Mediascapes: Context-Aware Multimedia Experiences

A method and system for interfacing a digital device (251) with an interactive display surface (IDS) (101) is presented. The IDS (101) detects the digital device (251) when it is brought into proximity, and attempts to identify the device (251). The IDS (101) communicates with the device (251), and displays interactive representations of information (253) stored on the device (251).

Method and system for interfacing a digital device with an interactive display surface

This work has its roots in the HP Labs Cooltown project, whose core principle is that the integration of our physical world with the Web offers unique opportunities to enable ubiquitous computing applications. This paper describes our latest results in building a model and a software architecture called the Web presence manager (WPM) to support this physical-virtual integration. This software layer implements and specifies the services and information provided by Web representations of physical entities such as people, places, or things. We detail an extensive context-enhanced media-oriented application built on top of our platform. Our application enables mobile and context-aware access to personal contents and rendering on local appliances in a variety of ubiquitous computing environments.

Integrating the physical world with the web to enable context-enhanced mobile services

Awareness of others' interests can lead to fruitful collaborations, friendships and positive social change. Interviews of groups involved in both research and corporate work revealed a lack of awareness of shared interests among workers sharing an organizational affiliation and collocated in the same building or complex but still physically separated (e.g., by walls or floors). Our study showed that loosely coupled groups were less likely to discover shared interests in the way that many tightly collocated groups do, such as by overhearing conversations or noticing paraphernalia. Based on these findings we iteratively developed a system to capture and display shared interests. Our platform includes an e-mail sensor to discover personal interests, a search algorithm to determine shared interests, a public peripheral display and lightweight location-tracking system to convey those interests. We deployed the system to two groups for two months and found that the system did lead to increased awareness of shared interests.

Building Connections among Loosely Coupled Groups: Hebb's Rule at Work

Using a web presence manager infrastructure (see Appendix), actions, appliance events, and presences are continuously and automatically captured and stored as historical metadata for each physical context managed. The metadata is mapped interactively for all users. Personal content for each user, such as digital file usage, is indexed in association with each physical context. Users personal content from autobiographical web presence manager past events is displayed upon each registration of the user's presence in a current physical context with content recall directly related to the current physical context. Personal content mapping to available services is also provided.

Patrick Goddi

Papers

Mediascapes: Context-Aware Multimedia Experiences

Method and system for interfacing a digital device with an interactive display surface

Integrating the physical world with the web to enable context-enhanced mobile services

Building Connections among Loosely Coupled Groups: Hebb's Rule at Work

File processing using mapping between web presences