Oral examination of bachelor thesis was held in hybrid style(seminar room + online), and Mr. Ryo Ooka, Mr. Ryotaro Matsui, Ms. Tomohiro Mozumi and Mr. Satoki Kimura made an oral presentation.

INTERACTION2023 was held, and Yudai Tanaka and Yuki Tachibana, M1 students, gave demo presentations.

M1 student Yuki Tachibana won the Interactive Presentation Award (public vote).

Prof. Yoshifumi Kitamura gave an invited talk “空間共有コミュニケーションを実現する技術動向　～豊かなコミュニケーションの実現～” within the special session at the 2023 IEICE General Conference．

A paper is accepted in proceedings of the ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (ACM CHI 2023). This paper will be presented at ACM CHI 2023 in April.

• Maakito Inoue, Kazuki Takashima, Kazuyuki Fujita, Yoshihumi Kitamura. BirdViewAR: Surroundings-aware Remote Drone Piloting Using an Augmented Third-person Perspective, Proc of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems.

Prof. Yoshifumi Kitamura gave a talk at the Industry-academia collaboration seminar “The 152nd Terakoya Sendai.”

We enjoyed a farewell party.

We hosted two dance workshops below.

• Playback Theater in Education
• Contact Improvisation – Body Philosophy Dance Workshop

International Symposium on Human-Computer Interaction 2023 was held at the Research Institute of Electrical Communication (RIEC) as a hybrid symposium.

The RIEC Annual Meeting on Cooperative Research Projects was held. Many people related to our laboratory participated in the meeting and gave talks and poster presentations.

Prof. Yoshifumi Kitamura gave a Keynote talk at “International Tourism and Convention Forum 2023 in Sendai.”

Prof. Kazuyuki Fujita was granted the title of “Tohoku University Prominent Research Fellow,” which is given to young researchers who challenge original research that opens up new frontiers.

Prof. James E.Young (University of Manitoba, Canada) and Dr. Monica Perusquía-Hernández (NAIST) gave us talks.

The following commentary article was published in Journal of Information Processing (JIP).

• Ken Fujiwara, Miao Cheng, Chia-huei Tseng, Yoshifumi Kitamura. AI Understands Human Emotions and Gets Close to People: Reading Emotions from Bodily Movements: The Development of the Motion Unit AI. Journal of Information Processing, Vol.64, No.2, pp.e25-e31 (2023-01)

The following commentary article was published in the January 2023 issue of SENSAIT.

• Yoshifumi Kitamura, Ken Fujiwara, Taku Komura. Emotion Estimation from Human Body Movements and Generation of Emotionally Rich Movements of Characters – Toward the Realization of Humanity-rich Telecommunication.

We enjoyed a year-end-party and welcomed new members.

WISS 2022 (The 30th Workshop on Interactive Systems and Software) was held.

Mr. Taichi Tsuchida made an oral presentation.

• 土田太一，藤田和之，池松香，Sayan Sarcar，高嶋和毅，北村喜文．TetraForce: スマートフォンの表裏両面に対する垂直・剪断方向の力を入力可能な磁気式インタフェース．

There was a tour visiting our laboratory in the last day of the workshop.

Yokohama Global MICE Forum was held at Pacifico Yokohama and Prof. Yoshifumi Kitamura gave a lecture entitled “Designing the Next Normal of Academic Conferences”.

SIGGRAPH Asia 2022 was held in Daegu, South Korea.

Mr. Kumpei Ogawa and Mr. Yukai Hoshikawa demonstrated their works at the Extended Reality (XR) session.

Mr. Maakito Inoue and Mr. Gilles Pflumio joined as Student Volunteers and involved in the conference.

• Kumpei Ogawa, Kazuyuki Fujita, Kazuki Takashima, Yoshifumi Kitamura. Demonstration of PseudoJumpOn: Repetitive Step-up Jump in Virtual Reality.
• Yukai Hoshikawa, Kazuyuki Fujita, Kazuki Takashima, Morten Fjeld, Yoshifumi Kitamura. Demonstration of RedirectedDoors: Manipulating User’s Orientation while Opening Doors in Virtual Reality.

Future Society Design Program of Tohoku Forum for Creativity “Contributions of XR Technology to Education and Society: The Metaverse and International Collaborative Creation” International Symposium 1: The Metaverse and XR Technology Educational Applications and International Collaboration was held.
Prof. Yoshifumi Kitamura gave a lecture and Associate Prof. Kazuki Takashima participated in the panel discussion.

ISS 2022 (ACM Interactive Surfaces and Spaces Conference) was held in Wellington, New Zealand.

Mr. Taichi Tsuchida’s paper and Mr. Takahiro Nagai’s paper were accepted and they made oral presentations.

• Taichi Tsuchida, Kazuyuki Fujita, Kaori Ikematsu, Sayan Sarcar, Kazuki Takashima, Yoshifumi Kitamura. TetraForce: A Magnetic-Based Interface Enabling Pressure Force and Shear Force Input Applied to Front and Back of a Smartphone.
• Takahiro Nagai, Kazuyuki Fujita, Kazuki Takashima, Yoshifumi Kitamura. HandyGaze: A Gaze Tracking Technique for Room-Scale Environments using a Single Smartphone.