Pervasive, Human-Centric Computing or What it will be like to live in two worlds at once

Abstract

In the past, as computers were large, expensive, with limited usage, hardware and software systems could be constructed as though they were the center of the universe. By now, their size and expense have improved to the point where computers are found in ever-increasing numbers in wider ranges of environments, and their usage has increased to the point where we are dependent on them, both to be available and to perform properly. The time is ripe for computers to enter our world (and perhaps infest it), for computer systems to adapt to humans rather than the other way around. This talk will cover some of the technologies that will help computers enter our environment and discuss our experience building speech, gesture, and location interfaces as well as our struggles to integrate. The ultimate goal is to avoid replacing "the frustration of computers not doing what we want them to do," with "the frustration of computers doing what we do not want them to do."