Special Edition on Human Friendly Technologies
The "earth-friendly" improvements, involving the use of surplus energy from manufacturing plants to the microorganism reactor that decomposes organic liquid waste using microorganisms, primarily bacteria, have made it possible to raise the ability to break down waste matter by 1.5 times. This paper reports on this capability to reduce 1,500 ton of organic industrial waste materials during the fiscal year of 2003.
Improvements in the design, performance and downsizing of electrical and electronic devices have been progressing in recent years. Due to this, the degree of difficulty with thermal design becomes higher, with the increased amount of heat generated and a concentration of heat and limitations to conventional heat measures. In such a heat conscious environment, it is our pleasure to introduce the "Stick-it Flexible" product, based on the Cerac α heat-radiating liquid ceramic paint that offers an effective heat solution with an entirely new heat dissipation method.
A technology has been developed that makes it possible to reflow lead-free solder with a high melting temperature while controlling the temperature rise of components mounted on substrates. A low cost switchover to lead-free solder was thus realized, without dramatic changes to the conventional design or components.
Universal design (UD), from which products are made with the intent of providing easy to use for as many people as possible, has drawn a lot of attention in recent years. In this paper, an overview of conditions surrounding recent UD will first be provided, followed by a description of its application at Oki Electric.
Due to the aging population increase, the concern for the elderly assistances of each equipment becomes to be necessary. To provide equipment that is easy for the elderly to use, Oki Electric has been conducting "usability tests" (surveying the usability of equipment operations) to study the overall aged-changes in cognitive characteristics, as well as the behavioral characteristics. This paper describes the usability tests of ATMs.
Descriptions will be given on characteristics and examples for implementing a mobile accessor technology on equipment to improve the usability and accessibility of public equipment, such as ATMs, by distributing functions and linking up with handheld devices, such as PDAs and mobile telephones.
A feasibility experiment of the "e-Check-in", conducted at Narita Airport, which adopted the biometrics authentication technology that has recently been drawing a lot of attention as a part of the IT utilized for airport security, is described. A summary of the effectiveness of the face-recognition technology that was adopted for the experiment, is also provided.
