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The article reports on artificial intelligence (AI) that can improvise to accompany live music performances. Topics include a concert held at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) that utilized this technology and the development of such software in 1987 by musician and composer George Lewis.

The article provides information on ability-based design, a design approach for interactive systems based on users' abilities rather than disabilities. It explains how this method shifts responsibility of enabling access from users to the system before looking at contexts that limit technology use which can be addressed with ability-based design.

The author presents his thoughts concerning the impact of advances in computer technology, computer interactivity, and the complexity of digital objects on the preservation and curation of materials. The author argues that there is no single authoritative material or act of preservation and that such notions to the contrary should be abandoned.

The article discusses the engineering of discomfort as a means to engage computer user experience by integrating perspectives from human-computer interaction and performance studies. Topics covered include a way for designers to employ visceral and cultural discomfort, effects of uncomfortable interaction on users, the involvement of a tradition of discomfort in the arts, the prototype amusement park ride called Breathless and the primary forms of discomfort, It also discusses ethical challenges posed by discomfort.

The article focuses on the importance of sample sizes in the effectiveness of usability studies. It states that the number of users tested affects the discovery of usability problems in improving interactive design. It suggests that an extended statistical model could be useful in estimating the number of undiscovered problems which would allow researchers to incrementally add participants to the user study until most of the problems are discovered. It suggests that variance is not harmless for binomial statistical models and mentions that Gaussian distributions have separate parameters for the analysis of variance which uncouples it from the mean.

The article examines Skinput, a technology in which skin on the human body can be employed as computer input-output equipment by the analysis of mechanical vibrations throughout the body. The technology's use of a sensor array worn as an armband is considered, particularly its employment as an on-body finger input system that is both portable and minimally invasive. The coupling of Skinput with a pico-projector to create an interactive graphical interface directly on the human body is discussed.

The article discusses Mobile Spatial Interaction (MSI) and how users of hand-held mobile devices can use the interface to interact with their everyday physical, natural, and urban surroundings. The magic wand, smart lens, virtual peephole, and sixth sense interaction metaphors in MSI systems are discussed. Human-computer interaction, geospatial calculation via the device's global positioning system, real-time feature tracking, target selection, three-dimensional displays of the environment, and remote interaction are mentioned.

The author reflects on the evolution of operating systems. Topics covered include a brief history of operating systems, the four stages of an operating system and highlights of various research made on operating systems. He discusses the eight principles which serve as the foundation for the generation of operating systems, wherein the principles include interactive computing, interrupt systems and modular programming.

The article discusses the field of human-computer interaction (HCI), exploring how the HCI field will manage to keep human values at the core of HCI. The author questions the nature of HCI's goals, how those in the HCI field should do their work, and whether HCI methods remain relevant. Topics include large changes in the sociotechnical landscape, computer systems that intrude into human lives, and the multidisciplinary nature of HCI. Also discussed are HCI techniques derived from cognitive psychology and human-factors engineering. INSET: Questions of Broader Impact.

The article contends about measuring success in the design and evolution of personalized interactive Web services for electronic-business. Collecting data services two functions. It provides option to nurture loyalty by analyzing patterns of information learnt. The emergent e-business intelligence then offers the option of evaluating how effective a user interface has been. E-business intelligence is essentially the analysis and use of information collected about visitors to an e-business Web site. To measure success, it is important to understand what success implies, in terms of the goal of the Web site. Metrics required for evaluating success follow directly from goals. Online advertisement banner industry provides an interesting example of metrics involved for evaluating success. Advertising banner companies set their prices based on click-through and look-to-buy metrics. A high click-through ratio implies that the advertisement is bringing more visitors. Look-to-buy metrics fair well for measuring the effectiveness of dynamic, personalized content.

The present article focuses on proactive computing. For the past 40 years, most of the IT research community has focused on interactive computing. It is time for a change. The computer science research community now enjoys a rare and exciting opportunity to redefine, its agenda and establish the new goals that will propel society beyond interactive computing and the human/machine breakpoint. A world in which networked computers outnumber human beings by a hundred or thousand to one, one should consider what these excess computers will be doing and craft a research agenda that can lead to increased human productivity and quality of life. The bulk of the IT industry is presently focused on office automation, e-commerce and their associated networking. Judging by the current research profile, an independent observer might believe that the distribution of new computers is dominated by the 150 million or so new laptop, desktop and server nodes that will power the growth of interactive computation. Active technologies are important in proactive environments for two reasons: the software running on networked embedded processors can be changed on the fly and by launching applets into the network, the lowliest of embedded processors can command resources of larger systems.

The article focuses on Internet revolution that has greatly affected construction of networked multimedia applications. New approaches to distributing application logic have claimed the attention of application developers. Web browsers, such as Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer now offer a universally available container in which to assemble and inherit rich interactive software components. Moreover, the range of today's multimedia toolkits and component technologies has expanded significantly as a result of a new industry driven by the World Wide Web's mass appeal. Major step in exploring the validity of the concept business applications approach yielded the Broadband Multimedia Demonstration Suite. The spectacular growth in popularity of the Web has spwaned something of a cottage industry centered on developing multimedia-related technologies. A distributed application called TourGuide was developed to support multimedia-enhanced collaboration over the Internet. TourGuide provides an interactive multimedia experience in which one or more users playing the role of tour guide take a group of tourists through a preselected set of Web site.

Today's personal computers are designed and sold by Apple, IBM Corp., and others, but researchers had developed ideas and techniques they use by the mid of 1970s. This article discusses nine of those early ideas, the people who had them, and labs where they worked. The personal computer industry had a foundation to build on. The first years were like a fast-forward replay of the computer and word processing industries, assemblers, high-level languages, operating systems, superscalar CPU, and modern applications, were implemented as soon as falling cost allowed. The similarity of today's systems to the Alto, is an indication that the computer industry has consumed much of the intellectual capital developed at MIT, SRI, and PARC. Vannevar Bush, a prominent researcher at MIT developed a device called memex, which keeps an account of all books, records, and communications. Interactive computer bloomed at MIT in the 1950s, beginning with Jay Forrester's Whirlwind computer.

This article discusses the impact of computers in schools. Student access to interactive computing has become progressively easier. In the early days, one went to a computer center for a late-night machine "shot." When time-sharing was developed in the year 1960, students began using computer laboratories. Today's laboratories have personal computers, which are beginning to move from the laboratory to students' homes. A day will come when pen-based portables will be seamlessly integrated with other media. Students will take lecture notes on these electronic notepads, and they will be used for reading, network connectivity, running models, and downloading lecture notes and animations from "liveboards." The hardware and system software to achieve this vision will first be developed for commercial applications, but there will be intermediate steps in education. For example, symbolic math calculators called Engst which describes a prototype of a Macintosh symbolic math program converted to use a pen-based interface.

This article first considers basic ways of structuring the user's access to computational functionality and then defines and surveys 12 dimensions along which next-generation user interfaces (UI) may differ from previous generations of UI. It then goes into more detail regarding the concept of noncommand-based UI, which seems to be a unifying idea behind several otherwise disparate developments in next-generation UI. Finally, the article considers how transitions to next-generation interfaces and noncommand dialogues may impact established usability engineering principles. This article has identified 12 dimensions across which next-generation UI may differ from current ones. Many next-generation interface ideas can be seen as contributing to the development of a generation of noncommand-based UI which will be significantly different from the UI in common use today. Examples in this article are mainly from somewhat unusual application areas such as interactive fiction, games, naval display maps, computer music, and the planning of radiation treatment.

The subject of this article is Intermedia, one of the hypermedia systems. The article's authors were part of a team that developed Intermedia at Providence, Rhode Island-based Brown University's Institute for Research in Information and Scholarship (IRIS), between 1985 and 1990. Intermedia is distinct as it is intended to model a multiuser hypermedia framework. It presents the user with a graphical file system browser, a set of direct manipulation editors manipulation editors for text, graphics, timelines, animations, and videodisc data, a browser for link information, a set of linguistic tools and the ability to create and traverse links between any two selections in any document in the system. Information about selections called anchors and links between these selections is maintained in a database management system. The IRIS Hypermedia serves is comprised of three parts. IRIS Hypermedia Services has been described under headings, features of Hypermedia policy and Intermedia mechanism.

Describes the interactive digital news system developed by Apple Computer Inc. for the EDUCOM conference in 1990 in Atlanta, Georgia. Use of the system by conference attenders for four days in succession; Convergence of interactive computing, newspapers, television and high-speed networks; Daily process for generating interactive digital news; Diagram of the layout and navigation paths of the system; Interactive viewing.

Presents an interview with Steve Jobs, presidents and CEO of NeXT Inc., about job leadership and management philosophies. Reasons for choosing the Mach operating system by NeXT;Role of its Academic Advisory Board; Integration of different types of software and hardware functions inside one box.

Provides information on computer-mediated communications systems (CMCS) that use a computer to create, store, process and distribute text files and databases. Study of CMCS users to identify the determinants of acceptance and rejection of CMCS as a communication mode and potential productivity-enhancing tool; Prediction that productivity enhancement will be a function of a complex interaction of social and technical systems.

Examines the measures of operator mental work load in an interactive computer system. Importance of upgrading operator systems; Development of measures for operator work load; Assessment on the validity of the measures.

Discusses the development of the Decision Support System-based interactive computer system, EPLAN, that models the impacts of various public policies on United States energy demand. Tools for synthesizing estimates, subjective judgments and relevant technical information; Design goals and guidelines.

Presents the prototype development methodology and development tool applied to the development of interactive information systems in the commercial data processing setting. Benefits of applying prototype-oriented development processes; Effectiveness and relationship to other applications.

Focuses on the Cornell Program Synthesizer, an interactive programming environment with integrated facilities. Development of a unified programming environment; Implementation of the program; Features of the program.

Examines the user-friendly algorithm for a wide range of interactive environments. Interface between a person and a computer; Ability of the computer in modifying behavior; Behavioral view concerning the interactive systems.

Among the most important criteria in the design and implementation of an interactive system for data analysis are: data structure, control language, user interface, system versatility, extensibility, and portability. The design of an interactive system, viewed as a set of constrained decisions based on these criteria, will be discussed. The concepts and considerations discussed in this article about the design of interactive systems are general in nature and are neither problem-specific nor discipline-specific. Specific examples from statistical packages and their designs are cited for illustration purposes only. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A measurement methodology applicable to interactive computer service is described. Its primary purpose is to enable external, user-oriented assessment of computer performance, instead of the more frequently used internal system measurement techniques. The NBS Network Measurement System is employed as the external measurement tool. Example data have been collected and analyzed. A demonstration of the methodology, leading to a pragmatic figure-of-merit evaluation of results, is included. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a computationally tractable methodology for including accurately the effects of finite memory size and workload memory requirements in queueing network models of computer systems. Empirical analyses and analytic studies based on applying this methodology to an actual multiaccess interactive system are reported. Relations between workload variables such as memory requirement distribution and job swap time, and performance measures such as response time and memory utilization are graphically displayed. A multiphase, analytically soluble model is proposed as being broadly applicable to the analysis of interactive computer systems which use nonpaged memories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

CAPS is a highly interactive diagnostic compiler/ interpreter that allows beginning programmers to prepare, debug, and execute fairly simple programs at a graphics display terminal Complete syntax checking and most semantic analysis is performed as the program is entered and as it is subsequently edited. Analysis is performed character by character. The most remarkable feature of CAPS is its ability to automatically diagnose errors both at compile time and at run time. Errors are not automatically corrected. Instead, CAPS interacts with the student to help him find the cause of his error. Most components of CAPS are table driven, both to reduce the space needed for implementation and to increase the flexibility of the multilingual system. Over 500 students have used CAPS to learn Fortran, PL/I, or Cobol in conjunction with a computer assisted course on introductory computer science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the millennium bug problem in interactive services which is due to occur at the year-end of 2000. The article illustrates that there are several practical examples showing that interactive services like banking or airline reservations cannot inherently be realized by non-interactive or Turing machine systems. In dealing with the Y2K problem computer users take each system report of a correct date as a confirming instance of the hypothesis that the system's reported date is always correct. What the Y2K problem shows is that correct time observations were not confirming instances of this hypothesis at all, but rather one where "date" terms were unknowingly temporally qualified. The result of the computing community's byte parsimony is a multitude of computing systems that will not, in the normal course of things, roll over to 2000 at the end of this century. The genesis of the Y2K problem is seen to be an instance of the "new riddle of induction." It results from the mistaken belief that a computer date stamp is projectable, that is the confirmation of a hypothesis. The root cause of the present malady is byte conservation. In retrospect, a viable solution to the Y2K problems was to have been found in geochronology all along, which has been presented in the article.

The article presents information as to how the knowledge discovery in database process is used for extracting the useful knowledge from volumes of data. The article defines and explicates the process-centric view of the field and outlines challenges as yet unmet. The nontrivial process of identifying valid, novel, potentially useful, and ultimately understandable patterns in data is called KDD process. KDD can also be viewed as encompassing a broader view of modeling than statistics, aiming to provide tools to automate the entire process of data analysis, including the statistician's art of hypothesis selection. The KDD process is interactive and iterative with many decisions made by the user, involving numerous steps, summarized in the article. The more common model functions in current data mining practice includes: Classification, regression, clustering, summarization, dependency modeling, link analysis and sequence analysis. Current primary research and application challenges for KDD include, massive datasets and high dimensionality, user interaction and prior knowledge.

One can perform a heuristic evaluation of a hypermedia applications effectively by coupling a systematic analysis of the application based on a hypermedia design model with general usability criteria, independent of the specific application area, user profiles, and user task. The authors believe a model for hypermedia that fully abstracts the structural and behavioral aspects of hypermedia from the underlying information ultimately provides the flexibility needed for personalization and annotation. Individuals can manage a personal set of anchors and links separate from other users. This link information can be stored in personal hyperbases. Additionally, the system can provide a range of access privileges over these hyperbases to control which anchors and links are active at a given time. These issues challenge us to rethink traditional approaches to designing hypermedia information and building hypermedia systems. Finally it is hoped that the StudySpace Project creates a framework for developing effective solutions

Hypermedia projects differ from traditional software development projects in several critical dimensions. In this article we propose the Relationship Management Methodology (RMM) for the design and construction of hypermedia applications. The name "relationship management" stems from our view of hypermedia as a vehicle for managing relationships among information objects. The class of applications for which RMM is most suited exhibits a regular structure for the domain of interest, i.e., there are classes of objects, definable relationships between these classes, and multiple instances of objects within each class. Many hypermedia applications satisfy this requirement. Examples include product catalogs and hypermedia front-ends of traditional database or legacy applications. Since many hypermedia applications in this class have volatile data that requires frequent updating, some means to routinize and automate both the initial development and subsequent update process is needed.

This article concerns a range of application domains little addressed in hypermedia circles: computation-oriented applications. While applications which calculate or otherwise generate information dynamically at run-time constitute a major portion of an organization's systems today, analysts and end-users of these systems rarely benefit from hypermedia functionality. There are a number of features of hypermedia design. The first is that media applications involve many different components, such as navigation, user-interface, content storage and existing preparation. Second, as a consequence, data models such as data flow diagrams, entity-relationship (E-R) diagrams, and object-oriented hierarchies cannot represent the design intricacies of hypermedia applications encompass. Third, as many of today's WWW pages will attest, many hypermedia developers have little experience incorporating hypermedia into their designs and implementations effectively. They also have little experience in evaluating hypermedia systems. Thus, there is a clear need to address a number of important issues in the area of hypermedia design. INSET: Try this Special Issue On-line!.

From the beginning, hypermedia application design has been driven primarily by technological innovations and constrained by technical feasibility. For the last few years, however, usability methods and results fivm human factors research been gaining more influence. Despite this trend toward user-oriented . development procedures, issues of cognition and human information processing still are widely neglected and barely influence hypennedia design. Two factors are particularly crucial for increasing the readability of hyperdocuments: coherence as positive influence and cognitive overhead as negative influence on comprehension. Since both factors are likely to affect the reader's construction of a mental model, readability can be improved by a dual approach: On the one hand, authors can increase the coherence of their document thus facilitating comprehension. On the other hand, they can reduce cognitive overhead thus freeing information processing capacities that otherwise had to be used for orientation, navigation and user-interface adjustment. To support authors in following this dual approach, eight principles have been proposed that provide solutions to a number of cognitive design issues that follow from the two factors.

The pedagogical advantages of a general purpose interactive system called NEWBASIC CATALYST are discussed. NEWBASIC CATLYST incorporates an advanced implementation of BASIC, system-level interactive features, and a general capability for extension through user oriented function attachment. Application of this last feature to provide a flexible CAI scan capability is illustrated. An example of interaction at the system level shows how students: can mix the advantages of independent or "solo" mode computing with those of guided or "dual'' mode interaction. Preliminary experience with the system in an urban secondary school setting is discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Describes an interactive program with a graphical display for the approximation of data by means of a linear combination of functions. Coefficients of the approximation determined by linear programming; Auxiliary conditions imposed; Examples of the use of the interactive system.

With the advent of on-line (time-sharing) computer systems and graphic terminals, we have available a new dimension in numerical problem solving capabilities. Rather than simply use the new power to achieve fast turnaround, we can develop interactive routines which are easy to use and also take advantage of the insight and visual capabilities of the human problem solver. Several on-line systems for general purpose mathematical problem solving have already been implemented as well as some special purpose systems for solving problems in a particular area such as ordinary differential equations. The advantage of restricting the problem area is that the interface with a user can be greatly simplified, in this paper we discuss some of the advantages accrued by such systems and design considerations for interactive routines. Furthermore, an implementation of an on-line least squares data-fitting program, PEG, is presented with results obtained from empirical data. In conclusion, areas for future work in this field are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A facility to permit conversationally controlled tasks to be executed in a noninteractive environment is proposed. A means by which programs can generate interactive time-sharing commands and receive the corresponding output response is presented. The commands will be invoked as if they had been typed cit a console keyboard. It is argued that this facility will help overcome some of the current limitations in man-computer communication. A set of functions to accomplish the above which could be embedded into any string processing language is suggested, and necessary information pertinent to implementation of the facility on existing time-sharing systems is given. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An interactive computer system operational on a graphical computer terminal is described. This system was designed to demonstrate a method of programming by computer interpretation of a flowchart. The user draws a description of a sampled-data system and specifies an original input signal on a display oscilloscope. This graphical description is transmitted to a large scale computer. The design is simulated, and a graphic representation of the processed signal is returned to the scope. A successful design may require numerous modifications of the original design. A graphical interactive system provides an environment to perform this iterative process efficiently and effectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A further development of a computer program (ELIZA) capable of conversing in natural language is discussed. The importance of context to both human and machine understanding is stressed. It is argued that the adequacy of the level of understanding achieved in a particular conversation depends on the purpose of that conversation, and that absolute understanding on the part of either humans or machines is impossible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the Touché sensor project of the Disney Research group in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania that has developed a Swept Frequency Capacitive Sensing technique that distinguishes kinds of touch on various surfaces. Topics include the touchscreen market, government regulations regarding radio frequencies, possible applications of the sensor technology, and the analysis of data collected from a machine learning system. The research paper "Touché: Enhancing Touch Interaction on Humans, Screens, Liquids, and Everyday Objects" is mentioned.

The article presents a collection of different perspectives, reflections, and future visions on the disappearing computer. The discussion covers basic technology and infrastructure issues, the role of sensors, and the pressing issues of privacy and security, as well as how to design the interaction of humans with computers that disappear. The rate at which computers disappear will be matched by the rate at which information technology will increasingly permeate human environment and their lives. This disappearance can take different forms: physical and mental disappearance. Within Europe, the proactive research initiative "The Disappearing Computer" was envisaged to explore how daily life can be supported and enhanced through the use of collections of interacting artifacts. One of the key requirements to the provision of any disappeared computing infrastructure is an approach or service capable of assimilating and filtering information from various sources and determining relevance. This is essential to allow the user and the application to discover the necessary information from the environment to achieve a defined goal or complete an activity.

The article focuses on user interfaces. Human-computer interaction has not changed fundamentally for nearly two decades. Most users interact with computers by typing, pointing and clicking. The majority of work in human-computer interfaces in recent decades has been aimed at creating graphical user interfaces that give users direct control and predictability. These properties provide the user a clear model of what commands and action are possible and what their affects will be, they allow users to have a sense of accomplishment and responsibility about their interactions with computer applications. Although these endeavors have been very successful and windows, icons, menus, pointer paradigm has served to provide a stable and global face to computing, it is clear this paradigm will not scale to match the myriad form factors and uses of computers in the future. Computing devices are becoming smaller and ubiquitous, and interaction with them is becoming more and more pervasive in daily lives.