KEYNOTE SPEAKER

Title: The Future of Media Interfaces

Abstract:
We are living in a post-WIMP world. Indeed, more and more users access information, communicate and operate mobile information appliances foregoing the still common mouse and keyboard of yonder. However, no matter how powerful or elegant the new mobile devices are, it is the user interface that ultimately governs how successful new devices or systems will be. In this lecture I will look at current multimedia systems and their applications to virtual environments and ubiquitous computing. Multimedia user interfaces currently engage people using images, video and sound but virtual environments not only involve interactive 3D graphics, but further need to take more advantage of our senses through spatial audio, haptics and many other novel and exciting communication modalities. This talk will explore key current research issues and future directions up to and before the prophesized singularity.


Biography

Joaquim Jorge is a Professor of Computer Science, Researcher, Author, and Distinguished Speaker. A full professor with Instituto Superior Técnico, the Engineering school of the University of Lisboa, he coordinates the Graphics and Interaction research group at INESC-ID, a computer research institute affiliated with the University. In addition, he is editor-in-chief of the Computers and Graphics Journal, a Fellow of the Eurographics Association, a Distinguished Member of ACM, and a Senior Member of the IEEE.

He has collaborated with many significant authors and has published more than 300 books, journal articles, and conference papers on many research topics. These including Virtual Reality, Multimodal User Interfaces, Avatars, Computational Geometry, Data Visualisation, Mobile Computing, Ray Tracing, Solid Modelling, User Interfaces, Computer Graphics, Fuzzy Logic, Intelligent Tutoring Systems, Mesh Generation, Touch Sensitive Displays, Visual Languages. Some of his recent co-authored publications are Promoting Reality Awareness in Virtual Reality through Proxemics, Improving Camera Travel for Immersive Colonography, and Magic Carpet: Interaction Fidelity for Flying in VR.