Electronic Jeeves to Smooth Your Social Interactions
From: IST Results - 10/24/2006

Rather than computers being simply a "black box on the desk, and we have to
engage with them in a rigid way," an IST project called CHIL aims to create
machines that put human needs first. The inspiration is a butler, who appears
out of the background as needed, says the University of Karlsruhe's Alexander
Waibel, CHIL project coordinator. CHIL is meant to be deployed in a meeting
room, lecture hall, or classroom, and is still currently in the final stages
of development. "Collector" is a tool that is context-aware, which could, for
example, detect whether or not an employee wishes to receive calls or not, or
if they would only like to receive calls from family members. The system,
which uses cameras and microphones, would learn the preferences of individual
users and make decisions accordingly. "Memory Jog" is designed to "jog the
memory" of a meeting participant who may, for example, forget the name of the
person who just spoke. The device would not only recall the name, but whisper
it in the user's ear using technology known as "targeted audio," which uses a
narrow band audio beam. This system is able to transmit a voice to a single
person's ear as they move about, remaining inaudible to everyone else around.
Another application, "Attention Cockpit," is intended for use in meetings.
Its modular interface allows entering and manipulation of information by
different participants. The system will provide a kind of virtual table, on
which items can be brought up or saved for later. Finally, "Translation
Goggles" provide real-time written translation of speech imposed in a tiny
heads-up display. At this point in development of the CHIL project,
applications are being tweaked to appear and disappear as needed more
accurately and seamlessly. 

Memory Jog (MJ). It helps the attendees by providing information related to
the development of the event (meeting/lecture) and to the participants. MJ
provides context- and content-aware information pull and push, both
personalized and public. 

Read the entire article at:
http://istresults.cordis.europa.eu/index.cfm/section/news/tpl/article/BrowsingType/Features/ID/88757

Contact:
Professor Alexander Waibel 
Universitaet Karlsruhe (TH) 
Interactive Systems Labs, ITI 
Am Fasanengarten 5 
D-76131 Karlsruhe 
Germany 
+49 721 608 4730 
ahw@cs.cmu.edu 
waibel@cs.cmu.edu

Links:
CHIL
http://chil.server.de/

CHIL: Computers in the Human Interaction Loop
http://isl.ira.uka.de/index.php?id=22

No longer lost in translation
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_388625.html

Deciphering Languages
http://www.jumpingelectrons.com/Technology/Translation.asp