An environment for collaborative content acquisition and editing by coordinated ubiquitous devices

Digital content is not only stored by servers on the Internet, but also on various embedded devices belonging to ubiquitous networks. In this paper, we propose a content processing mechanism for use in an environment enabling collaborative acquisition of embedded digital content in real-world situations. We have developed a network management device that makes it possible to acquire embedded content using coordinated ubiquitous devices. The management device actively configures a network that includes content-providing devices and browsing devices to permit sharing of various items with digital content. We also developed a Functional web mechanism for processing embedded web content in the real-world without a keyboard. This mechanism adds various functions to conventional web content. These functions are activated by messages from a Field in a content processing device. We construct a practical prototype system, which is simple enough for children to use, that we called the "Virtual Insect Catcher". Through a test with 48 children, we demonstrated that this system can be used to acquire embedded web content, retrieve related content from the Internet, and then create new web content. We will also describe the proposed mechanism and the system testing.