I am quite interested in HCI and subscribe to a number of newsletters on the subject (Human Computer Interaction, for the uninitiated). I received a notice for a conference in Genova, Italy:
GESTURE WORKSHOP 2003
The 5th International Workshop on Gesture and Sign Language based Human-Computer Interaction
15th - 17th April 2003
Part of me sees great value in allowing users to use sign-language to communicate with their computers, as sign language doesn't have the same grammatical structure as written language. People whose predominate communication is through sign-language could more easily express their thoughts without first have to translate into a written grammatical structure.
However, another part of me sees great humor in all of this. My father was mostly Italian (stereotypically Italian, in a lot of ways) and some of his gestures would probably not be interpreted favorably by a computer. Sure it would be great to give the box "the finger" when it deletes a needed file, or crashes (that way it would know our displeasure), but if this happens enough, what mischief will it plot when so abused? I can just see it: Typing along when Word suddenly changes the document formatting. I get angry, give the machine a "gesture", and it gets pissed off and deletes my file altogether.
Certainly from an AI point of view, gestures would go a long way in making computers more human. Probably not a good thing in some respects.
On a different Note, but still humorous: Send in the Borg:
Slashdot reported this earlier. This sounds more like an April Fool's joke rather than serious news, but I suppose in the end resistence is futile:MS to Buy Rational and Borland? [Slashdot]. I like MS for the most part, and don't use Borland products so this part of the story doesn't really bother me. The legal issues with IBM over Rational could be fun to watch. The thing I find most comical is Slashdot's use of the Bill as Borg icon on MS related stories. COME ON, guys! Do you really think the Borg would be successful at assimilation if they ran MS products? The Blue-Screen-Of-Death might take on a seriously different meaning, though
