Advances in hardware and software computing have enabled us to transmit a great deal of multimodal data such as video stream, documents, music and speech. Until now, verbal communication has been a main issue for distant communication by mobile devices, such as a conversation by telephone and cellular phone. Visual communication through images and video stream are also used with TV telephone and videoconferencing. Moreover, force and haptic communication will be included in future communication devices.

Focusing on such a nonverbal aspect of communication, we consider that delicate information such as emotion and intention can be transferred by repeating a simple information exchange. We, therefore, aim at developing an interface for exchanging nonverbal information such as human intention and emotion by transferring a simple action, button pressing, without interpretation of the action. This interface can provide a "play" by communication, which enables people to share time and space in distant places. We, therefore, propose a 1-bit communication network and a mobile-size bidirectional I/O device to pursue a seamless remote interaction for general to toddler, elderly and disabled people. By using this interface, people can not only feel the communication partner closer by an intuitive communication, but also to feel a sense of connectedness by a user's active action. The emergence of a new human-human interaction will rise up with the developed interface through a simple signal communication.

We consider that a fundamental factor of communication among humans is a transmission and reception of "some kind of intent." We thus propose a communication scheme based on 1bit information as typified by button-pressing action, namely 1-bit communication network. Without the interpretation of information, i.e. the context of button-pressing, we aim to realize a flexible communication by limited information as small as possible. We developed a bidirectional I/O device, called FeelLight, which are always on-connected, for transmitting an event caused by user's active and simple action.

The developed device is based on 1 bit communication and exchanges only little information. However, people can share the presence with family and friends by a pressing action in split seconds at any time and place, even in transit or on the walking. Moreover, without limiting the use of interface, users can form their own community with their own protocol. We believe that a simple communication achieved by this device will cause the further sophisticated communication together with voice, video and force in telepresence.