IBM touts humanistic computer

LAS VEGAS - IBM researcher Mark Lucente waves his hands in the air before the computer. Two colorful spirals on the screen float in the same direction.

IBM's Mark Lucente shows a computer that responds to voice and movement. (AP)

"Let's see the world," he commands, and the view switches to a bright blue globe. "Make it this big," he says, drawing his hands together, and the globe grows smaller.

Welcome to the future as envisioned by International Business Machines Corp., which showed off a computer that combines, albeit crudely, the ability to see and hear.

It's a future where machines obey people and act more like humans than faceless drones. But don't worry - the new machines will be a far cry from science fiction's most famous talking computer, the murderous Hal of 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Within two years, the system could be in commercial use, IBM said. People walking by a storefront window could "ask" a mannequin to talk about products that are on sale. The mannequin would appear to follow the person's movements as it talks back.

"I want computers to be intelligent," Lucente said in a demonstration during this week's Comdex show here. "I think a good way to start is by giving them eyes and ears."

Putting a more human face on computers could help polish IBM's lingering stodgy image, dulled by years of selling clunky traditional computer equipment.

It worked before. Last May, IBM's stock soared after its Deep Blue computer crushed the world's greatest chess player, Garry Kasparov.

The technologies on display this week are not new. But IBM's novel idea was to mesh them in one machine costing between $20,000 and $30,000.

"We're right at that magical moment when these technologies seem a little crazy but they're actually pretty accessible," said Lucente, 33. He developed the computer at IBM's Imaging Science and Technology department in Yorktown, N.Y.

The company's existing ViaVoice speech recognition software interprets spoken commands, which are picked up by a hidden microphone. A video camera above the computer screen lets the system track movement and gestures. The user's actions are translated into digital information the computer can understand and respond to.

As a result, when a person in front of the camera turns to one side, the image on the screen does also; when the person moves further away, the image grows smaller to give more perspective.

Not all the technology is IBM's; the visual tracking software is used in factories to track defective objects on conveyer belts.

There are still some bugs, however. When a reporter waved his hands in front of the screen, the objects moved the wrong way because the camera mistakenly tracked another reporter in the background.

By The Associated Press

Copyright 1997 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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