These devices offer an extremely low bandwidth for communication, and subsequently the interface does not afford rich delivery of information content. Telephones are ubiquitous and cellular services offer mobility. However, telephones primarily operate on a synchronous model of communication, requiring availability of both parties. A key aspect of the system was easy interruptability by the user during speech only interaction. A nomadic computing environment was developed at the Speech Interface Group to provide remote access to a set of desktop applications via telephony.
Users hear messages and feedback via synthetic speech and audio playback.
The Telephone as a Computer Terminal . Proceedings of ACM Multimedia '93, pp. 373-382, New York, Aug 1993. Our eventual goal is to allow users to telephone their Sun workstation and interact with a wide range of Solaris applications using their voice. In that system, users can call their workstation and interact with electronic mail, voice mail, their calendar, a rolodex, a personal locator, and several information sources.