Constructing a low-cost, open-source, VoiceXML

Voice-enabled applications, applications that interact with a user via an audio channel, are used extensively today. Their use is growing as speech related technologies improve, as speech is one of the most natural methods of interaction. They can provide customer support as IVRs, can be used as an assistive technology, or can become an aural interface to the Internet. Given that the telephone is used extensively throughout the globe, the number of potential users of voice-enabled applications is very high. VoiceXML is a popular, open, high-level, standard means of creating voice-enabled applications which was designed to bring the benefits of web based development to services. While VoiceXML is an ideal language for creating these applications, VoiceXML gateways, the hardware and software responsible for interpreting VoiceXML applications and interfacing with the PSTN, are still expensive and so there is a need for a low-cost gateway. Asterisk, and open-source, TDM/VoIP telephony platform, can be used as a low-cost PSTN interface. This thesis investigates adding a VoiceXML service to Asterisk, creating a low-cost VoiceXML prototype gateway which is able to render voice-enabled applications. Following the Component-Based Software Engineering (CBSE) paradigm, the VoiceXML gateway is divided into a set of components which are sourced from the open-source community, and integrated to create the gateway. The browser requires a VoiceXML interpreter (OpenVXI), a Text-To-Speech engine (Festival) and a speech recognition engine (Sphinx 4). The integration of the components results in a low-cost, open-source VoiceXML gateway. System tests show that the integration of the components was successful, and that the system can handle concurrent calls. A fully compliant version of the gateway can be used in the real world to render voice-enabled applications at a low cost.KMBT_363Adobe Acrobat 9.55 Paper Capture Plug-i

Web application user interface technologies

The World Wide Web has expanded from a huge information storage repository into a worldwide application platform. Web applications have several benefits compared to desktop applications. An application can be used anywhere from any system and device, which means that only one version is needed, they do not need to be installed and developers can modify running applications. Despite all the benefits of the Web, web applications are suffering because they are developed using the same technologies as the static documents on the Web. Some of these web technologies are outdated and were not originally designed for the complex use cases of the modern applications to which they are now applied. For instance, HTML forms comprise the main interaction of an application, despite not having been designed to describe complex and interactive UIs. Another example is HTTP communication on the Web, which always requires client initiative and is too restrictive for dynamic web applications. Additionally, new usage contexts have brought with them new requirements for web applications, which are no longer used only via Graphical User Interfaces. Recently, several parties have developed specialized technologies for web application development. These solutions are not only minor additions to the existing technologies, but also new technologies. The goal of this thesis is to analyze the advanced web technologies and propose improvements to the technologies and architecture where applicable. The technologies are evaluated against a large set of requirements. The aim of the evaluation is two-fold. The first part is to select a technology on which to base the further improvements, and the second is to identify the deficiencies of the current solutions. The improvements focus on the developers' point-of-view. Based on the evaluation, this thesis proposes certain improvements related to multimodal interaction, server push, and remote UI updates. It also discusses software that supports the improvements and XML-based web technologies. Finally, the improvements are evaluated against the requirements and compared to other solutions

User interfaces for multimodal systems

Thesis (M.Eng.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, 2001.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 68-69).As computer systems become more powerful and complex, efforts to make computer interfaces more simple and natural become increasingly important. Natural interfaces should be designed to facilitate communication in ways people are already accustomed to using. Such interfaces allow users to concentrate on the tasks they are trying to accomplish, not worry about what they must do to control the interface. Multimodal systems process combined natural input modes- such as speech, pen, touch, manual gestures, gaze, and head and body movements- in a coordinated manner with multimedia system output. The initiative at W3C is to make the development of interfaces simple and easy to distribute applications across the Internet in an XML development environment. The languages so far such as HTML designed at W3C are for a particular platform and are not portable to other platforms. User Interface Markup Language (UIML) has been designed to develop cross-platform interfaces. It will be shown in this thesis that UIML can be used not only to develop multi-platform interfaces but also for creating multimodal interfaces. A survey of existing multimodal applications is performed and an efficient and easy-to-develop methodology is proposed. Later it will be also shown that the methodology proposed satisfies a major set of requirements laid down by W3C for multimodal dialogs.by Sumanth Lingam.M.Eng

The Evolution, current status, and future direction of XML

The Extensible Markup Language (XML) is now established as a multifaceted open-ended markup language and continues to increase in popularity. The major players that have shaped its development include the United States government, several key corporate entities, and the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). This paper will examine these influences on XML and will address the emergence, the current status, and the future direction of this language. In addition, it will review best practices and research that have contributed to the continued development and advancement of XML

Automatic translation of formal data specifications to voice data-input applications.

This thesis introduces a complete solution for automatic translation of formal data specifications to voice data-input applications. The objective of the research is to automatically generate applications for inputting data through speech from specifications of the structure of the data. The formal data specifications are XML DTDs. A new formalization called Grammar-DTD (G-DTD) is introduced as an extended DTD that contains grammars to describe valid values of the DTD elements and attributes. G-DTDs facilitate the automatic generation of Voice XML applications that correspond to the original DTD structure. The development of the automatic application-generator included identifying constraints on the G-DTD to ensure a feasible translation, using predicate calculus to build a knowledge base of inference rules that describes the mapping procedure, and writing an algorithm for the automatic translation based on the inference rules.Dept. of Computer Science. Paper copy at Leddy Library: Theses & Major Papers - Basement, West Bldg. / Call Number: Thesis2006 .H355. Source: Masters Abstracts International, Volume: 45-01, page: 0354. Thesis (M.Sc.)--University of Windsor (Canada), 2006

Dynamically generated multi-modal application interfaces

This work introduces a new UIMS (User Interface Management System), which aims to solve numerous problems in the field of user-interface development arising from hard-coded use of user interface toolkits. The presented solution is a concrete system architecture based on the abstract ARCH model consisting of an interface abstraction-layer, a dialog definition language called GIML (Generalized Interface Markup Language) and pluggable interface rendering modules. These components form an interface toolkit called GITK (Generalized Interface ToolKit). With the aid of GITK (Generalized Interface ToolKit) one can build an application, without explicitly creating a concrete end-user interface. At runtime GITK can create these interfaces as needed from the abstract specification and run them. Thereby GITK is equipping one application with many interfaces, even kinds of interfaces that did not exist when the application was written. It should be noted that this work will concentrate on providing the base infrastructure for adaptive/adaptable system, and does not aim to deliver a complete solution. This work shows that the proposed solution is a fundamental concept needed to create interfaces for everyone, which can be used everywhere and at any time. This text further discusses the impact of such technology for users and on the various aspects of software systems and their development. The targeted main audience of this work are software developers or people with strong interest in software development

I-centric User Interaction

Die Vision I-centric Communications bedeutet, einen uneingeschränkten Blick auf das menschliche Kommunikationsverhalten zu werfen, um Kommunikationssysteme entsprechend daran angepasst zu entwickeln. Diese Vision definiert einen benutzerorientierten Ansatz zur Erstellung von Diensten und Anwendungen. Dies setzt zunächst eine Analyse der Benutzeranforderungen voraus, um geeignete Systeme und Dienste zu entwerfen. Anstatt Technologie-fokussierte Lösungen ohne jegliche Anpassung an die jeweiligen Personen anzubieten, sollte ein I-centric System seine Dienste ohne sichtbare technische Details und unter Berücksichtigung von Benutzerpräferenzen sowie der Benutzerumgebung darbieten. Der Vision von I-centric Communications folgend, stellt die vorliegende Arbeit einen Ansatz zur Realisierung der Idee von I-centric User Interaction vor. Dieser Ansatz erweitert und vervollständigt die Vision durch verbesserte Benutzerinteraktionsfähigkeiten. Diese Dissertation zeigt, dass es möglich ist, Kommunikationssysteme zu realisieren, die die Interaktion zwischen Benutzern und Diensten ohne Einschränkung auf bestimmte Technologien für Benutzerschnittstellen sowie in personalisierter und umgebungsberücksichtigende Art und Weise unterstützen. Derartig verbesserte Benutzerinteraktion wird die Akzeptanz und die Benutzung von Diensten erhöhen. Einerseits soll die Benutzerinteraktion verschiedene Arten von Technologien für Benutzerschnittstellen unterstützen, durch die die Geräte-Unabhängigkeit und der ständige Zugang zu den Diensten ermöglicht werden. Entsprechend dem aktuellem Kontext und der Absicht können die Benutzer die bevorzugte und geeignete Art der Interaktion wählen. Andererseits soll die Interaktion selbst den Benutzerpräferenzen sowie der jeweiligen Umgebung angepasst werden. Dementsprechend diskutiert die vorliegende Arbeit diese unterschiedlichen Problembereiche, identifiziert die notwendigen Funktionen und bietet entsprechende Lösungsansätze jeweils. Die Arbeit präsentiert und analysiert zunächst die Vision I-centric Communications mit Hinblick auf den Aspekt der Benutzerinteraktion. Basierend auf den identifizierten Anforderungen wurde ein Ansatz zur Realisierung von I-centric User Interaction entwickelt. Dieser Ansatz, der in dieser Arbeit vorgestellt wird, spezifiziert ein Service Adaptation Framework und einzelne Modelle für Generische Benutzerinteraktion , für Personalisierung sowie für Ambient Awareness , die sich jeweils auf die identifizierten Problembereiche konzentrieren. Abschließend präsentiert die vorliegende Arbeit Ergebnisse einer prototypischen Realisierung des dargelegten Ansatzes. Die Ergebnisse demonstrieren die Einsetzbarkeit der entwickelten Konzepte und die Erfüllung der Vision von I-centric User Interaction . Die Forschungsarbeit im Bereich I-centric Communications wurde in Kooperation zwischen dem Lehrstuhl für Offene Kommunikationssysteme (OKS) der Technischen Universität Berlin (TUB) und dem Fraunhofer Institut FOKUS durchgeführt. Die Vision sowie das Referenzmodell für I-centric Communications , die in der vorliegenden Arbeit vorgestellt werden, sind Ergebnisse dieser Kooperation. Die Forschungsschwerpunkte der Kooperation zwischen TUB und FOKUS waren das Generelle Modell für I-centric Dienste , die Dienstplattform für I-centric Dienste sowie ein Ansatz zur Interaktion zwischen Nutzern und I-centric Dienste . Die vorliegende Arbeit konzentriert sich auf den Ansatz I-centric User Interaction , der die Interaktion zwischen Nutzern und den Diensten betrachtet. Die Aspekte der I-centric Dienste werden in der vorliegenden Arbeit nicht betrachtet. Diese Aspekte wurden in einer zweiten Dissertation von Stefan Arbanowski, Fraunhofer FOKUS, analysiert und ausgearbeitet. Die Ergebnisse dieser Arbeit wurden in verschiedenen nationalen und internationalen Forschungsprojekten (BMBF LiveFutura, BMBF PI-AVIda, BMBF VHE-UD, IST WSI, IST WWRI), Standardisierungsgremien (OMG, WWRF), Konferenzpapieren sowie Zeitschriften eingebracht, um die Vision von I-centric Communications einem größeren Auditorium vorzustellen.The vision of I-centric Communications means to take an unlimited look at human communication behavior and to adapt the activities of communication systems to it. This vision defines a user-centered approach for the realization of services and applications. It requires to start analyzing user demands to design suitable systems and services. Instead of just providing technology-focused solutions without any adaptation to individuals, an I-centric system should provide services hiding technical details and considering the individual s preferences as well as the individual s environment. Following the vision of I-centric Communications, this thesis introduces an approach to realize I-centric User Interaction. This approach enhances and completes the vision by providing advanced user interaction capabilities. It answers the question whether it is possible to realize a communication system, which allows the interaction between user and services without any restriction to specific user interface technologies and in a personalized as well as ambient aware manner. Such enhanced user interaction will lead to a higher acceptance and increased usage of services. On the one hand, the user interaction shall support different kinds of user interface technologies enabling Device Independence and ubiquitous access to the services. According to their current context and intended action, users can select the preferred and suitable way of interaction. On the other hand, the user interaction shall be adapted to the user s preferences and to the user s environment. Accordingly, this work discusses these different areas of concern, identifies necessary functions, and provides suitable solutions for each. First, the thesis introduces and analyses the vision of I-centric Communications with special regard to the aspect of user interaction. Based on the identified requirements and areas of concern, an approach to realize I-centric User Interaction was developed. The approach, presented in this thesis, specifies a Service Adaptation Framework and individual models for Personalization, for Ambient Awareness, and for Generic User Interaction focusing on the respective areas of concern. Finally, the thesis illustrates the results from the prototypical implementation of the presented approach, which has been pursued in several projects in parallel. These results demonstrate the applicability of the developed concepts and the fulfillment of the vision of I-centric User Interaction. The work in the area of I-centric Communications was carried out in cooperation of the Department for Open Communication Systems (OKS) at the Technical University Berlin (TUB) and the Fraunhofer Institute FOKUS. The vision and the reference model for I-centric Communications, introduced in this thesis, are results of this cooperation. The main research directions for the cooperation between TUB and FOKUS have been a general model for I-centric services, the service platform for I-centric services, and an approach for the interaction of users with I-centric services. This thesis focuses on an approach for I-centric User Interaction. The general aspects of I-centric services as defined by the vision are out of scope of this thesis. Nevertheless, these aspects have been analyzed by Stefan Arbanowski, researcher at Fraunhofer FOKUS, in a second PhD thesis in parallel. The results of this work have been contributed to different national and international projects (BMBF LiveFutura, BMBF PI-AVIda, BMBF VHE-UD, IST WSI, IST WWRI), standardization bodies (OMG, WWRF), conferences papers, and journals by introducing the vision of I-centric Communications to a larger auditorium, and by exploiting parts of the developed I-centric systems

WebVoice: Speech Access to Traditional Web Content for Blind Users

Traditional web content and navigation features are made available to blind users by converting a webpage into a speech enabled X+V application, which allows blind users to follow the links present in a web page via speech commands. Also the application can read the different paragraphs and search for a word. This X+V application runs on the Opera browser

A model for adaptive multimodal mobile notification

Information is useless unless it is used whilst still applicable. Having a system that notifies the user of important messages using the most appropriate medium and device will benefit users that rely on time critical information. There are several existing systems and models for mobile notification as well as for adaptive mobile notification using context awareness. Current models and systems are typically designed for a specific set of mobile devices, modes and services. Communication however, can take place in many different modes, across many different devices and may originate from many different sources. The aim of this research was to develop a model for adaptive mobile notification using context awareness. An extensive literature study was performed into existing models for adaptive mobile notification systems using context awareness. The literature study identified several potential models but no way to evaluate and compare the models. A set of requirements to evaluate these models was developed and the models were evaluated against these criteria. The model satisfying the most requirements was adapted so as to satisfy the remaining criteria. The proposed model is extensible in terms of the modes, devices and notification sources supported. The proposed model determines the importance of a message, the appropriate device and mode (or modes) of communication based on the user‘s context, and alerts the user of the message using these modes. A prototype was developed as a proof-of-concept of the proposed model and evaluated by conducting an extensive field study. The field study highlighted the fact that most users did not choose the most suitable mode for the context during their initial subscription to the service. The field study also showed that more research needs to be done on an appropriate filtering mechanism for notifications. Users found that the notifications became intrusive and less useful the longer they used them