March 25, 2002

  • How would you like to have an information technology job with the title Visionary Solutions Architect ??!!


    Killer on a business card, heh?!  Well, this position really does exist at In-Q-Tel !


    Qaulifications? In one sentence: "Commitment to continued understanding of new technologies and their strategic advantages."


    So here’s my pitch, a sample of what I’d envision if I were a Visionary Solutions Architect…


    A gaze-activated hypersonic web-browser!


    What?


    Simply, a web-browser that will precisely track what you’re reading at every moment and provide voice/sound actualization of the content you’re perusing hypersonically, that is, within a narrow cone of sound that will be focused at your ears.  Browser-generated words and music will be heard loudly and clearly by you without any headphone or muffling apparatus but be entirely inaudible to someone standing directly aside of you.


    Oh this is so possible that I’d be surprised if it isn’t already under development.


    Here’s how it will work:


    As you browse, an eyetracking mechanism consisting of a videocamera mounted unobtrusively alongside the computer screen measures the precise x,y coordinate of your gazepoint on the browser’s display.  As you read along, every word is matched by a hyperlinked sound that is simultaneously activated by the eyetracking software and fed into a HSS (hypersonic sound) signal processor which in turn  conveys it to an ultrasonic emitter or transducer that is powered by an ultrasonic amplifier.  The matching, hyper-linked voice or music source is thus converted from a typical sound which is multi-directional into a column or cone of ultrasound which authentically recreates the *original sounds* through energy interactions with the air.  The fully audible sounds within this column of hypersonic sound, however, stay focused and can be heard only within its non-dispersing column.  Basically, you get to focus the sound where you want to (just your ears, for instance) and no where else!  So you could quite conceivably sit at home or at work and blog audibly at ungodly decibels without ever disturbing another soul!


    And here would be a most-amazing feature of this discretionary multi-sensory browsing system: the ability to entrain sound such as music to play only when certain sentences or paragraphs are read—thus having the mood of music playing choreographed precisely with selected text or poetic stanzas. 


    Visionary—yes!
    Imaginary—no!


    Most of the key technology already exists.  For more information on eyetracking technology, see LC Technologies.  For more info on the paradigm-shifting prospects of hypersonic sound, check out American Technology Corporation.  Put them together in a new milieu of sound-embedded hypertext text and you have…voila!  A gaze-activated hypersonic web-browser!


    Now I’m just waiting for In-Q-Tel’s headhunter to make the call.

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