The ability to communicate over the web by voice, pen, keyboard
or all three at the same time came a step closer on Monday when the
World Wide Web Consortium, known as W3C, published its first
working draft of EMMA, or the Extensible MultiModal Annotation
language.
EMMA forms part of a set of standards being developed by a W3C
working group, with the ultimate goal of, according to the W3C web
site, creating a "new class of mobile devices that support multiple
modes of interaction" with the internet.
At present there are many different 'modes of interaction', on
many different devices, but there are few, if any, that will allow
the user to communicate over the internet or interact with web
sites using all available types of interface.
The W3C is therefore seeking to create a language and a
framework that will allow data inputted into the internet by means
of voice, pen, keyboard, joystick or mouse to be interpreted into
one globally recognisable format. The hope is that shortly users
will be able to speak into their mobile phone, see the results come
up on a PDA, alter it with an electronic pen, and send it off with
a touch of the keypad.
According to the W3C, EMMA comprises the "data exchange format
for the interface between input processors and interaction
management systems", and is based on the better known internet
interface language known as Extensible Markup Language (XML). Other
standards currently being developed will deal with the general
framework of the system and how to recognise input from an
electronic pen or stylus.
The W3C is interested in hearing comments on the working draft.
They should be sent to the discussion board at www-multimodal@w3.org.
