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Research paper : Cyber Assist project as service science (H. Nakashima et al.)−114−Synthesiology - English edition Vol.3 No.2 (2010) (tm) GH” (Fig. 9). “Aimulet” is a neologism inserting “I” into “amulet” where “I” stands for both information and “ai” (love) in Japanese. “GH” stands for “Global House”. Aimulet GH aimed at multilingualism by multiple frequency bands of infrared rays like air broadcasting. In the early planning phase of the Expo we wanted to cover five languages including Asian ones. Later experiments revealed that a sufficient bandwidth was unavailable, however, so that the actual implementation was in Japanese and English only. It is a future task of service engineering to close such a gap between theoretical possibilities and practical applications.Besides the audio explanation provided by Aimulet GH, sensors on the ceiling acquired visitors’ traffic lines by detecting signals from tags embedded in Aimulet GH. This data will be important for later design of event sites. Show & Walk: This was an event planned by performance artist Laurie Anderson, which provided artistic experiences to people visiting a Japanese garden installing sound sources and other artifacts (Fig. 10). Close to the principle of location-based communication, this suggested a new application field of CARC. We were responsible for the sound part only, and in the planning phase our researchers visited Laurie’s office in New York to discuss various possibilities with her staff. We first aimed at spatial localization of stereoscopic sound, but it was unsuccessful and ended up with the same audio technology as CoBIT and Aimulet GH.The terminal shown in Fig. 11, named Aimulet (tm) LA where “LA” is the initials of “Laurie Anderson,” was manufactured inexpensively enough to distribute in place of entrance tickets. We considered that this low-price terminal should be a powerful tool, as museums and other facilities are generally having a hard time collecting without loss the rented out terminals to visitors, and the collection is even harder in an outdoor environment like a Japanese garden with many gateways. We also incorporated the notion of ecology, which was the theme of the Expo, into the frame design of Aimulet LA, by housing it in a bamboo sheath, which was resource-saving and inexpensive, so that the terminals needed not be collected and visitors could take them home.Figure 11 is Aimulet LA viewed from the side of the photo receiver, which should face downwards when in use to avoid outdoor sunlight interference. The photo receiver uses spherical solar cells, which relax the directivity and provide a wide light-receiving area. In this connection, Aimulet LA was highly evaluated in terms of its usage of bamboo and solar cells, receiving a Good Design METI Minister Award for Ecology DesignNote 10) in 2006.Aimulet GH and LA are beneficial also because they need no battery replacement as solar cells supply their power. Since the replacement or charge of thousands of batteries is a huge burden, maintenance-free terminals without such need would be very useful in long-term events.6 Service engineering and ambient intelligenceAs the last issue of discussion, let us re-assess Cyber Assist research in the recent research map. CARC was performing “service engineering” research to realize “ambient intelligence” in the domain of “Cyber-physical system”.Fig. 10 Aimulet LA usage at Show & Walk (Left-hand side is Laulie herself)Fig. 9 Aimulet™ GH

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