Scientists explore how we could interact with computers

Imagine ordering your meal in a restaurant by a simple tap on the table, transmitting your choice direct to the kitchens. Or placing an order for goods by making your selection on the surface of the shop window.

It may sound like science fiction, but this could be the way we interact with computers in the future, thanks to a pan-European research project, led by experts at Cardiff University, Wales, UK.

“The v

Researchers have successfully tested a system that can replace a cellular tower’s room full of communications hardware with a single desk-top style computer, making the technology affordable for small, rural communities.

The software is also capable of running emergency communications-such as police, fire and ambulance channels-on the same device as the civilian system, eliminating the need for a separate network of emergency communications towers.

“Rural customers are the firs

The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Md., has opened the door to using reliable digital video as evidence in court by developing a system that identifies an attempt to alter digital video evidence.

“It’s not too hard to make changes to digital video,” says Tom Duerr, APL’s project manager. “But our system quickly and conclusively detects any alterations made to the original tape.” For the past two years Duerr has led development of the project for th

Scientists at the Institute of Sound and Vibration Research (ISVR) at the University of Southampton are nearing the end of the first phase of a study to assess whether the use of mobile phones has any adverse effect on the hearing of healthy young adults.

The study into Potential Adverse Effects of GSM Cellular Phones on Hearing (known by the acronym GUARD) is part of a joint European project funded by the European Commission being carried out simultaneously in several countries across Europ

Using phone numbers, remote controls and computer keyboards will likely seem quaint within a decade as new capability to turn human speech into accurate, efficient computer code radically changes the ways we live and work.

That’s the outlook of Lawrence R. Rabiner, associate director of the Center for Advanced Information Processing (CAIP) at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, in an overview of speech processing, “The Power of Speech,” in the journal Science, available Friday

Seeing really is believing

“Virtual product demonstrations that allow individuals to interact with merchandise create more vivid mental images of the consumer using the products, thereby increasing the likelihood they’ll purchase the item,” said Ann Schlosser, UW Business School assistant professor of marketing.

“We’ve found that the more easily individuals can envision themselves using a product, the more likely they are to buy it.”

Schlosser studied how consumer

Innovative students and professors at the University of Rochester have created a navigational assistant that can help inform a visually impaired person of his whereabouts, or even bring new dimensions to museum navigation or campus tours for sighted individuals. The system, nicknamed “NAVI” for Navigational Assistance for the Visually Impaired, uses radio signals to gauge when someone is near passive transponders that can be as small as a grain of rice and located on the outside of a building, on a s

In a recent study that examined perceptions of gays and lesbians by others, Kansas State University psychology professor Richard Harris asked one group of people to think of a positive gay or lesbian character from a television show or movie and asked another group to think of a negative gay or lesbian character from media. A third group, the control group, was asked to think about an unmarried media character, but sexual orientation was not mentioned. All three groups were then asked to complete a p

Contrary to popular belief, using the Internet may not improve a person’s chances of finding a job.

That surprising finding will be presented Tuesday (Aug. 18) during a session on economic sociology at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association in Atlanta by Christine Fountain, a University of Washington doctoral student.

“The punch line is everyone thinks the Internet is a great new way to help people find a job. But it really is not,” said Fountain,

It will never be the same old song again–this was the concept for MS3, a Hungarian musician when he created a software solution he calls „digital improvisation” or DI. The „di” music file format he developed enables the users to listen to one song in endless number of versions. „Imagine Madonna’s new releases were recorded in di format. Whenever you hit the ’’Play’’ button, a different remix of the same song is played back. You never get bored of your cd then” said Mester, now hea

Web Services is currently one of the hottest issues in the software industry. There are good reasons for predicting a success of Web Services. However, there are still a number of open issues. Is Web Services just another technology hype or the beginning of a new era in the evolution of information and communication technology? What will be the role for telcos in the emerging Web Service scenarios?

The new issue of ‘Eurescom mess@ge’, the quarterly magazine for R&D in telecoms, presents answ

Students in an online class who learned networking through a commercially available simulation scored higher and retained more course information than students taught with a traditional network-diagramming software package, says a Penn State researcher.

“Those students also demonstrated better understanding of the networking concepts and indicated they spent more time on course assignments,” said Brian Cameron, instructor in Penn State’s School of Information Sciences and Technology (I

Web users are picky and impatient, typically visiting only the first three results from a query, with one in five searchers spending 60 seconds or less on a linked Web document, according to Penn State researchers.

“People make instantaneous judgments about whether to stay on a site, and if a site doesn’t the give the right impression, users will bypass it,” said Dr. Jim Jansen, assistant professor in Penn State’s information sciences and technology (IST). “A page has to be well-d

University of Southampton scientists create a computer agent that aims to make life less complicated

A new computer agent that will work through users’ mobile phones and organise their business and social schedules, has been developed by scientists at the Department of Electronics and Computer Science (ECS) at the University of Southampton.
The agent is an example of how the next generation of World Wide Web will work. An artificial intelligence programme has been devised which a

Researchers at the University of Southern California have created a new tool for organizing and visualizing collections of electronic mail. It is designed to help legal researchers, historians, archivists, and others faced with challenges in dealing with large email archives.

For examples, consider the following cases:

* A large corporation has just received a subpoena for all email messages on a specific question. Traditional keyword searches return an enormous volume of ma

The University of Pennsylvania has installed a virtual reality system that allows a participant full-body interaction with a virtual environment without the hassle of bulky, dizzying 3-D glasses. The system will be demonstrated for journalists and others Thursday, May 15.

Key to the installation, dubbed LiveActor, is the pairing of an optical motion capture system to monitor the body’s movements with a stereo projection system to immerse users in a virtual environment. The combination