October 1997, Vol. 14, No. 10

Very little in computing these days is promoted with as much vigor as multimedia. Multimedia, we are told, will increase the usability and productivity of systems; it will improve the ability of people to learn from educational applications; it will combine naturally with other interface technologies to create a more natural interaction than ever before.

Most of what we see, however, falls well short of these expectations. The majority of multimedia systems are little more than a means of stringing together prepackaged information which, almost incidentally, may take the form of images, sound or video clips, as well as simple text. The structure behind the presentation is usually limited to a hypertext network, where video clips, etc., can be the items at the nodes (which we are now used to calling "hypermedia.")

Such systems are inevitably limited in their ability to respond to the needs of the user; they are often complicated and expensive to create; they are also complicated and expensive to change once created. To make good on the promises of the hype — if it is possible at all — we will have to develop systems that are much more responsive and adaptable (automatically or otherwise).

The 19 chapters in this electronic book, in one way or another, address issues that arise in this context. Some of the chapters tackle technical problems in improving the responsiveness and adaptiveness of systems, while others are directed more towards design and evaluation of the presentations and interactions that users will need.

The chapters in this electronic book are divided into sections on multimedia and multimodality; multimodality and natural language; theoretical and formal approaches to multimodality; system designs based on users' intentions and expectations; methodologies for multimodal system design; and cognitive approaches and evaluation.

The electronic book includes 12 multimedia clips and one electronic index. PDF, QuickTime and MOOV format. Approx. 4MB (text) and 30MB (multimedia). Consult www.aaai.org/Press for more information.

Agent Technology Handbook, by Dimitris N. Chorafas, McGraw-Hill, 382 pages, $44.50, ISBN 0-07-011923-6

This book addresses implementation issues pertaining to applications of intelligent agents, particularly in telecommunications and computer communications, including network management with agents. The book discusses architecture characteristics relevant to agents, how to build and use agents, and important aspects of KQML and C++ Telescript.

The book explores how to use agents to: concurrently design software and hardware in a network; improve software functionality and time-to-market; help with mission-critical functions; improve service quality through rapid deployment of knowledge robots; enhance reliability and network diagnostics; and solve the year 2000 problem.

Coverage extends to handling the risks of man-made systems, fault tolerance and the cost of network failures, as well as applications of agents to the Internet and private intranets. Overviews of future developments in agent applications based on MIT's latest projects are also included.


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