We introduce a novel simple interaction technique for finding and browsing data in a huge hierarchical database using only two keys. We can enjoy various kinds of movies, musics, books, etc. distributed from many service providers like Amazon and Netflix. However, finding a data from a huge database is not a trivial task. Users can either find an entry using keywords, or using a menu based on a hierarchical structure of the database. After successfully finding an entry, the user should confirm that he wants to watch it by clicking a “select” button. If the user finds that the data is not the one he wanted, he should go back to the previous state and perform the selection again.

In the past, when only a small number of “channels” were available from broadcast TV stations, the only thing users could do was using a television dial to select a “channel” and watch the broadcast data. Although the number of the sources were limited, the user interface for selecting a station was simple. We introduce a simple interaction technique called “Gear”, with which users can select an entry from a very large hierarchical database and browse it instantly, just like we could select a channel and enjoy a TV program using old television dials.

Toshiyuki Masui is a Professor of Faculty of Environment and Information Studies, Keio University, Japan. Before joining Keio University, he worked at many IT companies and laboratories, including Fujitsu, Sharp, Sony, AIST, and Apple. For many years, he has been working on improving the user interface of computers, mobile phones, and information appliances in the coming age. In 2001, he developed a predictive Japanese text input system, “POBox,” for Sony’s mobile phones, and the technology is now the standard input method on almost all the Japanese mobile phones. In 2006, he got headhunted by Apple for the development of iPhone’s Japanese text input system, and his ‘flick-based’ Japanese text input method is now the standard for almost all Japanese smartphones.

He is the inventor of the “Gyazo” image capturing service, the “Scrapbox” information management system, and the “Helpfeel” help management system provided by Nota Inc., Japan, where he serves as the CTO. Around 10M users are using Gyazo worldwide, and Nota acquired $2M from Japanese VCs for the service in 2014.

His current research interest includes text input techniques, information retrieval, information visualization, IoT technologies, and authentication techniques.

Prof. Masui received BS and MS in Electrical Engineering from The University of Tokyo, Japan, in 1982 and 1984, respectively. He received Ph.D. in Computer Science from The University of Tokyo in 1997.