The next phase of computers is to make them disappear — they become a part of the environment or 'smart technology,' says Archimedes Project Director Neil Scott. Scott has been pioneering the development of this technology for nearly three decades, most recently with the Archimedes Access Factory held during a 10-week period this summer.
On a shoestring budget, researchers from Stanford's Archimedes Project, graduate students, and industry mentors built a patented Intelligent Total Access System (ITAS). The system detects and interprets user intent through a variety of access devices and applies that intent to a targeted system such as a car, telephone, household appliance, or computer. This could mean that an elderly person using a wheelchair could open the shades with a voice command, a single eye movement of a person could open the garage door, or your mom could program the DVD with a PDA.
The access system, notes Scott, is intended to be useful for everyone. While it accommodates special access tools for people who are disabled, it also can be used as "productivity and convenience tools for everyone. The challenge is to get ITAPs (Intelligent Total Access Ports) to become ubiquitous—something that everyone wants and uses," he says.
The system developed by Archimedes consists of the personal accessor (a device that provides a user with a preferred interface) and the Total Access Port (an external port that connects any accessor to the user accessible controls and displays of the system that is being accessed). An accessor could be a laptop, touch tablet, handheld device, mouse mutant, eye tracker, switches, video or even biosensing. A universal communications protocol, also developed by Archimedes, connects one or more accessors to the Total Access Port (TAP). The ITAP uses neural networks, distributed software agents, and natural language processing to recognize and act upon user intent.
Several products from this developmental work are being licensed to commercial manufacturers. In addition, the tools developed are intended to assist researchers at universities from around the world and in industry to pursue additional research and testing of universally accessible interface technologies thus creating more accessible products to a broader market.
Scott sees several classroom applications derived from this system. He is hopeful that by developing low cost, universally accessible hardware systems, commercial manufacturers will be able to make enough of a profit to make the technology affordable and easy to find.
For more information, contact Scott at the Archimedes Project, Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford University, 650.725.3774, http://Archimedes.Stanford.edu.
