Association for Computing Machinery

    THE HAGUE, Netherlands and PALO ALTO, Calif. (ots-PRNewswire) - "Mundane interfaces are fine for mundane applications. The desktop metaphor is great if you want to do desk-work. However, a lot of the things we do with computers now are, in a strong sense, magic," according to Kim Binsted, Sony, Japan. We all have expectations of how we will interact with the world using technology. Binsted will speak at CHI 2000 with a talk entitled "Sufficiently Advanced Technology: Using Magic to Control The World." She will argue that the point of technology is to have "power over the world around us, and that typical forms of imagined magic reflect the powers we would wish to have."

    According to Binsted, examples of magical powers "include farsensing, shapeshifting, teleportation, prediction, and mind-reading." Translating these ideas into innovative products is a significant task, one that is suited to the Human-Computer Interaction community in all its diversity. From the mythologies we have and the stories we tell, we can learn what it is we really want to do, helping us to understand what it is we want from technological innovation.

    Binsted received her Ph.D. in Artificial Intelligence at the University of Edinburgh, where her work included the computer generation of punning riddles. She has presented her computer-generated riddles as part of a panel on humor with Douglas Hofstadter (author of "Godel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid"), Marvin Minsky (MIT Media Lab, author of "The Society of Mind") and Steve Martin (well-known comedian and actor), at Stanford University. Her current work involves computer aided entertainment with potential far beyond today's games.

    CHI is the premier worldwide forum for the exchange of information on all aspects of how people interact with computers. The annual conference on human factors in computing systems features a full program of presentations, tutorials and vendor exhibits. Researchers, practitioners, educators, and students from around the world join in exploring and creating the future of computer-human interaction. Approximately 2200 professionals from over 35 countries will examine the future of human-computer interaction from 1-6 April at the Nederlands Congress Centre in The Hague, The Netherlands.

    CHI conferences are sponsored by the Association for Computing Machinery's (ACM)'s Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction (ACM SIGCHI). In addition to ACM, various organizations in the technology industry support the CHI conference.

    The CHI 2000 champion sponsors include: Diamond Bullet, Microsoft, Motorola, Nokia, Sun Microsystems, Unisys and Yahoo! Inc.

    For more information, contact the CHI 2000 Conference Office at 410-263-5382, send e-mail to CHI2000-help@acm.org or consult the CHI 2000 Web site at: http://www.acm.org/chi2000 .

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Web site: http://www.acm.org/chi2000