Microsoft Research: How to Help Illiterate People Use Computers
From: Associated Press - 03/01/2006
By: Allison Linn

A Microsoft research and development lab in India is exploring ways to bring
technology to that country's illiterate domestic workers. Microsoft is
gearing the technology, presented at the company's Research Techfest, to
illiterate women in search of work by connecting them with families in need
of domestic help. Creating the system, which relies heavily on pictures,
voice commands, and video, challenged Microsoft's development team to shed
their preconceived notions of what technology should do and how it should
operate. Test subjects helped the researchers refine the system, introducing
a level of abstraction into images that the domestic workers had interpreted
too literally, and adjusting interactive maps to rely more on landmarks than
actual addresses. To convince the women that technology was a more efficient
way to find work than word-of-mouth, the researchers created a video
depicting a scene where a woman complains to her husband that she needs a new
job, and then finds one by using a computer. Carnegie Mellon professor Raj
Reddy, who is advising Microsoft in its work in India, notes that companies
are often out of touch with the computing needs of people in rural areas with
poor literacy skills, and that the most effective uses of technology will be
in applications that have a familiar feel, such as videoconferencing with
family members or watching videos on the PC. Microsoft is also considering a
public kiosk in a community center as it struggles with the logistics of
deploying technology in areas where most people do not own computers. Raj
Reddy is co-recipient of ACM's 1994 A.M. Turing Award 

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Links:
AM Turing Award - Raj Reddy
http://www.acm.org/awards/citations/reddy.html

Software helps the illiterate find work
http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/ptech/03/02/microsoft.illiterate.tech.ap/index.html
http://edition.cnn.com/2006/TECH/ptech/03/02/microsoft.illiterate.tech.ap/index.html

Microsoft researching ways to help illiterate use computers
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06065/663676.stm

Microsoft seeking ways to help illiterate
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techinnovations/2006-03-01-illiteracy-microsoft_x.htm
http://www.businessweek.com/ap/tech/D8G34N0O2.htm
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/M/MICROSOFT_ILLITERACY?SITE=ORPOR&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
http://www.happynews.com/news/312006/microsoft-seeking-ways-to-help-illiterate.htm
http://www.newsvine.com/_news/2006/03/01/114456-microsoft-seeking-ways-to-help-illiterate?pp=1
