A survey of emerging and exotic auditory interfaces

Abstract

Anticipating some emerging audio devices and features, this paper surveys trends in mobile telephony (especially regarding mobile internet in Japan), wearable/intimate multimedia computing, handheld/ nomadic/portable interfaces, and embedded systems like multimedia furniture and spatially immersive displays, gleaned from recent press releases and advertisements, popular media, and publications by industrial and academic laboratories, especially the author's own research group. Representative instances are cited, and conferencing narrowcasting selection functions are reviewed. Keywords: audio interaction, CVEs (collaborative virtual environments), embedded systems, handheld/mobile/portable interfaces, integration of mobile devices and telecommunication, mobile information device, mobile internet, multimodal interaction, novel user interfaces, pervasive Java, telematics, telerobotics, ubicomp (ubiquitous computing) (a.k.a. ambient, calm, pervasive) technology, wearable/intimate multimedia computing.