Clearly, improved speech understanding and generation systems, vision systems and other sophisticated I/O technologies will change our interaction with computers. What will change the content of our interaction with computers? What type of systems research will enable revolutionary changes in the use of computers?
In an attempt to provoke discussion about these topics, a talk was presented several times during the spring semester 1994. A slightly different approach to systems research was presented as well as a few new directions that are being undertaken at Cornell. Hopefully, the ideas and questions raised by this presentation will be of use to others.
This technical report is rather rough and disorganized, consisting as it does of slides from those talks and textual commentary. I felt it more valuable to make the material available in a timely manner than to wait until the details had been worked out, and the prose polished. It is an experiment and I am interested in the reaction any readers have to this form of presentation. I am interested in any comments you might have, both on the content of this report and how it is presented. Please send them to rz@cs.cornell.edu.