Institute for Personalized Information Environment

Nobuo Asahi

Satoshi Yoshizawa

Makoto Hirose

Toshiro C Watanabe

Yutaka Hidai

Norikazu Saito

Tetsuya Yoshimura

Masajiro Fukunaga

Hirosi Iizuka

Takashi Kayamori

Katsumi Kunihara

Tadashi Hoshiai

Kazuhisa Okada

Hisao Miyauchi

Kazumi Matsuura

An architecture providing a human interface includes a user input device, a studio or workplace receiving an output of the user input device, the studio being capable of storing and sharing information, and a plurality of agents or functional modules connected to supply/receive data from the studio. The agents are connected in parallel and perform processing as distributed and cooperative processing of functions by the user. The agents are independent components having independent functions performing processing on data in the studio to receive and store items of information, respectively, from and to the studio as a shared information medium, the studio being accessible to the user and to the plurality of agents. Each of the plurality of agents can be independently started depending upon a status of the studio.

Information processing unit having function modules independently

An easy-to-use user interface device includes: parts forming means 13 for forming parts providing visual representations of functions of applications; parts storing means 1 for storing the information upon parts; operational environment constructing means 500 for constructing the operational environment by combining the parts together to construct operational environments; operational environment storing means 14 for storing the constructed operational environment; and operational environment using means for executing a task of an application via the operational environment read out from the operational environment storing means 14. The visual, semantic, and movement information upon the parts, representing the screen images, the associated functions, and movements thereof, etc., are stored and adjusted as the user uses the operational environment. The adjustments are effected automatically as far as feasible, thereby reducing the burden upon the user.

User interface device for creating an environment of moving parts with

A metaphor environment control system of human interfaces of any application program for computers, which represents a plurality of metaphors that express various functions of the application program and presents a user with a pertinent function according to the user's operations.

Metaphor environment control system

Growing community of inventors

Tokyo, Japan

Nobuo Asahi