■What is a Ubiquitous Communicator?

A Ubiquitous Communicator (UC) is a new information terminal, which is completely different from a PC or a PDA. The biggest characteristic of a UC is that it is a tool used for the interaction between a ubiquitous computing environment and people, and therefore it is called a "communicator."
There are three patterns of communications, which are "communication with objects," "communication with people," and "communication with the environment," and the ubiquitous communicator can perform those three functions. "Communication with objects" is to obtain information about objects by reading ucode tags, etc. which are embedded in objects in our surrounding. "Communication with people" literally means that a person has a conversation with another person using a UC or other communication infrastructure. "Communication with the environment" is that when a UC gathers information via a network from sensors installed in the environment and ucode markers attached to places, it becomes aware of the environmental context of the place so that it can control equipment and electric home appliances, etc. based on the context-aware information.

 

 

■Ubiquitous Communicator for business use

A Ubiquitous Communicator for business use is the ubiquitous communicator developed as a terminal that can endure heavy-duty use at business sites. It is equipped with environmental resistant features such as dust and water-proofing and robustness and incorporates high-speed barcode reader, RFID reader, and ten-key pad. In addition to IEEE802.11b/g wireless LAN, a PHS communication function can be added as an option. It can be used for many applications using ucodes in a wide range of fields.

 

 

■PDA-type Ubiquitous Communicator

A PDA-type Ubiquitous Communicator has a PDA-type large screen, displays rich content such as movies, still images, multilingual characters, and audio output. It focuses on intuitive operation with touch panel. With a push-style information service, it is an ideal information terminal that can receive signals from wireless markers and infrared light markers attached to places and provide navigation in towns and tourist areas just by user's carrying it.

 

 

■Reader Unit for UC

Reader Unit for UC communicates with the main unit of PDA-type UC using near-field communication (NFS). It can pick up signals from ucode RFID tags, ucode infrared markers, and ucode radio markers. There is also a wristwatch-type ucode RFID tag reader. So the users can choose one that fits their usage pattern.