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Research paper−107−Synthesiology - English edition Vol.3 No.2 pp.107-123 (Sep. 2010) 2.1 Cyber Assist projectThe plan of the Cyber Assist project was first published in 1999[1], whose background situation remains valid up to now:The concept of Cybernetics was proposed by an American mathematician Wiener in “The Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine”[2]. He described the concept of control system with information feedback. We want to give such feedback systems (nervous systems) to cities, where central nervous systems process high-level information while peripheral nervous systems relay sensor information and communicate with human occupants.This movement has already begun. As information infrastructure such as the Internet became available, it became rather easy for ordinary people to get hold of worldwide information. The utility of the network will increase rapidly in the near future. It is also anticipated that people will carry their own personal information processors and communicate with social information systems through them.The Internet provides us alternative means to activities we have been doing without it, for example, buying goods and making reservations to hotels and airplanes. But the power of information processing did not stop there and opened up new possibilities that had been impossible or difficult beforehand. At the same time, as the consequent, many problems such as information screening, security and privacy issues may elicit themselves. To cope with those problems, we need personalized information processing systems. Along the line, research on personal agents has already begun. We need technologies to select necessary information out of vast flood of data and to communicate safely. Law and social framework have to be readjusted in large of course. 1 IntroductionThe Cyber Assist project was conceived in 2000, and its R&D was mainly led by the Cyber Assist Research Center from 2001 to 2005. The project was one of the leading edge activities of ubiquitous computing and service science in Japan, as well as one of the foresighted activities in the world. The main point of the project is the construction of human-centered information systems and putting them into service in the real world.In general, it takes decades for a new technology to get high recognition by society. For example, object-oriented software development, which is currently in the main stream, was first introduced in late 1970’s and began spreading to society around 1990. It took another 10 years for it to become the main methodology. Compared to this, the Cyber Assist Research Center existed very briefly and therefore left many unfinished issues.However, the goal of Cyber Assist is getting wide recognition under different research and development themes. The purpose of this article is to point out those relationships and to re-evaluate the activities of Cyber Assist as a synthetic research that establishes a new framework of research and development. In particular, we want to relate the activity to practice of “service kogaku” Note 1) that is getting attention recently. In the rest of this article, we first review the goal and activities of the research center based on the documents produced by the center and then evaluate them.2 Goal of research and development and its realization methodWe first describe the goal of the Cyber Assist Research Center and the structure of the center to realize the goal.- A project that began ten years too early -Hideyuki Nakashima1 and Koiti Hasida21. Future University Hakodate 116-2 Kamedanakano-cho, Hakodate 041-8655, Japan, 2. Social Intelligence Technology Research Laboratory, AIST 2-3-26 Aomi, Koto-ku 135-0064, Japan Original manuscript received September 15, 2009, Revisions received February 23, 2010, Accepted February 23, 2010 The Cyber Assist project was launched in 2000, and its R&D was conducted at the Cyber Assist Research Center at AIST from 2001 to 2005. This project was a leading activity followed by ubiquitous computing and service science in Japan as well as one of foresighted projects in the world. It should be highly evaluated even in the present time. The project had its focus on human-centered information system that provides services in the physical world.This article rebuilds the goal and activities of the research center on the basis of documents produced then, and provides future research directions.Cyber Assist project as service scienceKeywords : Cyber Assist, service science, ambient intelligence, ubiquitous computing[Translation from Synthesiology, Vol.3, No.2, p.96-111 (2010)]

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