October 30, 1996
Computers with “ears” and other user interfaces to be unveiled at UW as part of international conference
The mouse helped popularize personal computers because many people found the hand-held device easier and more natural to use than complicated keystroke commands. But pointing and clicking is still a far cry from the way we interact with the rest of our environment.
Researchers are now developing new technology and software that allows computer users to simply speak or hand-write commands. These and other innovative computer-user interfaces will be demonstrated 7 to 10 p.m. Nov. 6 at the University of Washington as part of an international symposium on user interface technology and software.
“The interface is extremely important because it is the first part of the system people encounter and it is through the interface that people accomplish their tasks,” said Francesmary Modugno, a research associate in the UW Computer Science and Engineering Department and co-chair of the demonstrations committee for the symposium. “Ideally, we want the interfaces to be so invisible that the computer becomes almost an extension of the user.”
The demonstrations, hosted by the Department of Computer Science and Engineering and the Human Interface Technology (HIT) Lab, will be held in Sieg Hall and Fluke Hall on the University of Washington Seattle campus. Among the projects being demonstrated are:
*An innovative technique developed by the UW’s HIT Lab for grasping objects in an immersive virtual environment where simple tasks like orienting oneself next to an object and picking it up can be difficult. This project will be demonstrated in the lab’s virtual emergency-room environment.
*Zooming web browser technology developed by researchers at the University of New Mexico and New York University that maps the path users take from link to link on the World Wide Web to keep them from surfing in circles or getting lost.
*WHISPER, a speech-based interface developed at Microsoft Corp. that features a 60,000-word vocabulary allowing broad, conversational commands by a variety of speakers and that can even be used in a noisy room.
*A multimodal interface from the Oregon Graduate Institute that allows people at different locations — such as military commanders and front-line soldiers on a battlefield — to interact electronically in real time using speech-based, pen-based or text-based input.
*Ahoy!, a software tool developed in the UW Computer Science and Engineering department, that can automatically locate an individual’s home page on the World Wide Web by combining information from standard search engines, e-mail address services and its own database.
The 1996 User Interface Software and Technology Symposium — sponsored by the Association of Computing Machinery’s special interest groups on graphics, computer- human interaction and software — will bring together up to 200 of the leading computer user interface researchers from academia and industry around the world. The symposium is being held for the first time in Seattle, Nov. 6-8, at the Westin Hotel.
“I think that having such an important conference here in Seattle recognizes the important role that this area plays in the development of user interface technology,” said Modugno, who specializes in human-computer interaction research. “Places such as Microsoft, the HIT Lab and the UW computer science and engineering department along with several smaller companies in the area will play a vital role in developing and marketing the next generation of user interfaces.”
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