100 Innovators From: Technology Review - October 2004 Nuria Oliver of Microsoft feels that as more and more computers connect to each other, they should also make better connections with their human owners. "Our overall goal is to endow computers with a perception and understanding of what is happening," she says. Combining microphones and cameras with statistically based machine learning, Oliver hopes to give computers the ability to read people's facial expressions or tones of voice and make judgments about their intentions or emotional states. Your computer might, for instance, see that you're busy and block instant-message interruptions. Oliver's techniques would also provide another way for those who can't use a keyboard - young children or the disabled - to communicate with computers. http://www.research.microsoft.com/%7Enuria/ http://research.microsoft.com/adapt/ - Eric C. Leuthardt is a resident physician at the Washington University School of Medicine. He showed that a patient could achieve real-time control of a computer via electrodes placed on the brain's surface. Such an interface could allow paralyzed people to communicate and, eventually, control prostheses. http://www.betterhumans.com/News/news.aspx?articleID=2004-06-10-2 http://www.vidyya.com/vol6/v6i162_4.htm http://www.whitaker.org/news/moran.html http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200406/s1131832.htm http://www.scienceblog.com/community/article2966.html http://news-info.wustl.edu/tips/page/normal/911.html