| Home | Previous | Contents | Next |
See Me, Feel Me You may be comfortable with Web pages that speak and listen, but will you feel them? Silicon Valley TechWeek July 12, 1999 - page 1 by Amara D. Angelica (amaraa@techweek.com) Tired of reading and typing your way across the Web? In the near future you'll be able to hear it, talk to it and even feel it. Numerous innovations were on display at the fourth annual Web Design and Development Conference (Web99) in San Francisco. But those that aim to bring speech and tactile technology to the Web showed the greatest promise of making the Web accessible to non-techies. Chant's SpeechKit, for example, lets developers build sites that recognize speech and speak. Pages built with the technology allow visitors to navigate Web sites by asking questions. They can also fill out forms and query databases by simply talking. The usefulness, however, depends on the quality of the speech technology on visitors' computers. SpeechKit supports IBM SMAPI engines (ViaVoice and VoiceType) and Microsoft SAPI engines on Windows platforms. Chant also offers free downloadable software for adding speech engines. Web site developers can add speech and voice recognition functions to Web pages by adding JavaScript, VBScript or Java applets, using the company's $399 SpeechKit for the Web, downloadable from http://www.chant.net. Chant President John Earle says a number of developers are creating SpeechKit-enhanced Web sites. Key uses include e-commerce order taking, education, games, Web call-center operations (such as database-driven customer support) and use by the visually impaired, he says. By adding speech functions, "Developers don't have to put all the details on a page. They can use speech to communicate additional information," such as product descriptions and operating instructions. The technology is passive, he adds, so if a Web site visitor doesn't have speech technology installed, they can still use a keyboard and mouse to access the information. Touchy-feely Web sites Now that you can see and hear Web pages, what about feel? FEELit software from San Jose-based Immersion drives magnetic actuators in a mouse, applying physical forces to your hand. As you move the mouse across Web pages, you can feel yourself bump into the edges of an object and feel the texture as you move across it. Click on a car engine and you can feel the engine shake as it turns over and then purrs. The technology was developed by Louis Rosenberg, Immersion's president, during work for his Ph.D. thesis on haptics (the science of feeling) at Stanford University, he says. The uses for the visually impaired, games and education are obvious. But Immersion's Ramon Alarcon, director of the Licensed Consumer Hardware Technology Group, says the technology will also find many other uses, such as in online chat rooms and e-commerce. Windows user-interface controls and browsers can also have added sensations. Resizing a desktop window feels like stretching a rubber band. As you move over menu items, you can feel the cursor move in discrete clicks. Alarcon says research shows that targeting speed (selecting a hyperlink, for example) is increased over 70 percent. Logitech is the first company to license FEELit technology, which will be included in Logitech's $99 Wingman Force Feedback Mouse, due to ship this fall. He says about 20 gaming companies have already developed joysticks, steering wheels and arcade stations using Immersion’s force-feedback technology. Immersion offers an authoring tool free on its Web site (http://www.feeltheweb.com). It can be used with an ActiveX control (for Internet Explorer), plug-in (for Netscape Navigator/Communicator) or Javascript. Hundreds of sample sensations are available. A developer kit, which includes the Logitech mouse and software, is available for $99.
| Home | Previous | Contents | Next |