The Infobahn offers a sheer
inexhaustible source of information services to a growing audience of users.
To exploit these resources, users need an easy, economical and efficient access
without the need of extra training. Conventionally, the user had to "surf''
the net in order to find the information he or she needs. In contrast, our
approach with the envisioned personalized net assistant allows the user to
specify what he wants to be done in a natural way. The net assistant then
will determine the necessary actions, perform them and present the results
in the modality which best suits the particular user request.
The realization of this ambitious vision requires substantial application
oriented basic research in two areas of intelligent user interfaces: adaptive
multimedia interface assistants and advanced planning systems. The net assistant
plays two distinct roles as an adaptive communication assistant and a cooperative
planning assistant for the net. Our projects represent a concerted attack
on several fundamental AI problems that need to be solved to achieve a high
payback of advanced Infobahn applications.
SmartWeb
The SmartWeb project realizes an important step to enhance and to ease the worldwide retrieval of information from the Web. SmartWeb aims at a multimodal and intuitive interface to open domains by means of a ubiquitous mobile access to the Semantic Web. The longterm project (2004-2008) is funded by the BMBF and carried out by 14 partners of IT-industry, universities and research centers. SmartWeb brings together researchers of different areas, from intelligent user interfaces, semantic web, information extraction, knowledge management and communication technology.
SmartKom
The SmartKom-Project examined concepts for the development of new forms of human-computer-interaction. The aim was to reduce the timidity that people not familiar with computers show when using information technology. The idea of SmartKom was to combine the advantages of dialogue based verbal communication with the advatages of graphical user interfaces and forms of expression by gestures and mimic. The longterm project (1999 - 2003) was funded by the BMBF and carried out by partners of IT-industry, universities and research centers.
Verbmobil
Multilingual Processing of Spontaneous Speech
Verbmobil was a long-term interdisciplinary Language Technology project. The Verbmobil System recognizes spoken input, analyzes and translates it, and utters the translation.This speaker-independent system processes spontaneous speech. Verbmobil offers assistance in multilingual dialog situations in certain domains (e.g. scheduling appointments, travel planning and making hotel reservations). The project was a joint initiative involving information-technology companies, universities, and research centers. It has been divided into two phases, which were both funded by the German Federal Ministry for Education, Science, Research and Technology (BMBF) and additionally financed by the industrial partners. Duration of phase 1: 1993 - 1996; Phase 2: 1997 - 2000.