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REDMOND, WASHINGTON -- Looking to adapt the graphical user interface to the Internet and the forthcoming generation of Web services and distributed applications, Microsoft Research is at work on a more natural interface, said Kai-Fu Lee, of Microsoft's research team, here at Future Forum on Thursday.

Lee, playing on the well-known acronym GUI, says he is trying to coin this next generation of interfaces the NUI (Natural User Interface), which he pronounced "nooeey." The basic idea is to make a computing device more like a living, breathing personal assistant.

An Evolving Face

He says there are three reasons why the interface needs to evolve. First, users might be experts in a GUI, but they cannot possibly have expertise in every form of Web content or every Web service available. Second, the interfaces for Web services will need to span multiple devices. And third, interfaces need to be more natural to use.

The NUI project that Microsoft Research has embarked upon aims to make interacting with a computer more like relating to another human. To that end, the idea is to help machines hear what a user says, understand what it means, and know what a user wants to do.

A key component of NUI is speech recognition, Lee said. "The idea is to have a natural conversation with the computer," he said, adding that the spoken word was invented so people could communicate with each other. "There's nothing more natural than that."

Although speech recognition technology is not yet up to the level required for the NUI, Lee says that part of it can be used now. "Speech can do many things well, but is not ready for others," he says.

Talking .Net

Lee called John Dehlin, evangelism manager for speech technologies at Microsoft, on stage to explain Speech.Net, which allows for the speech enabling of Web sites and systems. Dehlin demonstrated a real estate transaction in which he verbally gave the specifications he wanted for a house to an automated system, then received an instant message displaying a current house listed. With his handheld PC, he could view the house, each of its rooms, the yard, and a map showing exactly where it is, then schedule a visit with the real estate agent to visit the home in person.

Another key piece of the new interface is improved search technology, some of which will emerge in Windows XP when the operating system ships in October. Search Companion, for instance, aims to make searching for information both locally and on the Web easier, says Karen Fries, of the Search Companion group at Microsoft. The feature enables Windows XP to broker the search without the user having to know which search engines to seek out.

Lee maintains that NUI and the associated technologies are a long-term project for Microsoft Research. "One step at a time, we're going to look at these key areas," Lee says.

These technologies will be mainstream within the next five years or so, he continues. Beyond that the next aspect of NUI will be vision-related technology. "That is probably about ten years out," he says.

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