Masayuki Iwai, Masafumi Mori, and Yoshito Tobe

School of Engineering, Tokyo Denki University, Japan
Core Research for Evolutional Science and Technology, JST, Japan
Architect Avant Associates, Inc., Japan
Department of Urban Engineering, The University of Tokyo, Japan

This paper deals with a supporting system for shoppers in urban area. One our motivation behind this proposal is navigating people from unexpected accidents due to ill conditions of the street surface. Since camera devices cannot sense the street surface in the absence of sufficient light, we use a mechanical input. We propose an Probing Stick and Monolog System. Probing Stick consists of a stick with an accelerometer and a wearable computer, both of which are wirelessly connected. It notifies a user of the level of danger at the street surface as an alert. Monolog system proposed with sensor assisted shopping experimentation system for handicappers. This short paper describes UWS basic architecture, signal processing, and results of preliminary experiments.

Interesting to the workshop!

Few of you have asked for a little extension for the pervasiveshopping2009 position paper. Extension accordée!

Pix via selwyn yeo on flickr.

Throughout the history of retail, new types of merchandise have introduced new styles of shopping. At the end of the 19th century, the department store was invented to boost consumption with the increasing variety of goods in the emerging downtown of the modern city. Integrated in the urban dwelling environment, the convenience store made its apparition in the 60’s along with the wide spread of the metropolitan network. After the mid 80’s, Internet shopping was born and radically innovated the landscape of commerce. Shopping is not just merely an activity of selling and buying things, but became an important component of contemporary life style that we can call an urban entertainment.
The contribution of technology in the retail sector has been significant for decades. The large scale database of
merchandise facilitated massive sales check in real time; the Internet introduced different shopping behaviors like rating items [the Japanese chain ranKing ranQueen is a good example]. The concept of ubiquitous and pervasive computing has leveraged innovative potentials in commerce by offering immersive experience of consumption in both virtual and physical situations.

Position Papers’ abstracts will appear in the adjunct proceedings.
The organizers are committed to disseminate the findings to a larger community through a publication including field data, insights, participants’ proposals… all of which will be organized and published in a selected journal (Final agreement pending).
Organizers will package the results of the workshop into a report and widely distribute it through online channels. The material collected, as well as participants papers will become part of a publication that will also include the final papers of every participant.

1. Send a 1-3 pages (Maximum) position paper with your reflections on shopping.
2. Provide some information about yourself: affiliation, background, related projects.
3. Send proposal to main organizer: abbas(dot)yasmine(at)gmail(dot)com Subject line: Pervasive2009 + SHOP
Notification: Organizers will review the position papers and based on the quality, variety in contribution, and originality of the proposal select a group of 10 to 12 participants.
4. Selected participants will be notified of their participation by End of February 2009

SHOP / I DON’T NEED HELP, I’M JUST BROWSING!

Pervasive computing technologies have leveraged innovative potentials in commerce by offering immersive experience of consumption in both virtual and physical situations.
The one-day workshop is an anthropological and design investigation of pervasive shopping practices—from both the consumers and business owners’ point of views—that involve the physical and the digital. Participants will investigate a particular retail typology, the convenience chain store, and explore the potentials of pervasive technology in this particular context. The objective is for participants to rethink the convenience shopping experience, taking into account the social, cultural and business contexts, and to offer strategies using or developing innovative technologies that enable business growth opportunities.