Q Develop generic user interfaces, including templates and frameworks, to facilitate the use of the 

 services provided by the Information Infrastructure Services element in the development of 

 advanced and customized user interfaces by the Intelligent Interfaces element described below. 



Q Develop generic applications, including architectures and frameworks, for use in the Intelligent 

 Interfaces element and for use by applications developers in implementing applications such as 

 the National Challenges and other applications in the NIL 



This element also includes the systems simulators and modeling methods to be used in designing the 

 technology underlying the NIL 



III. Intelligent Interfaces 



In the future, high level user interfaces will bridge the gap between users and the NIL A large collec- 

 tion of advanced human/machine inteifaces must be developed in order to satisfy the vast range of 

 preferences, abilities, and disabilities that affect how users interact with the NIL 



Intelligent interfaces will include elements of computer vision and image understanding: understand- 

 ing of language, speech, handwriting, and printed text; knowledge-based processing; and multimedia 

 computing and visualization. In order to enhance their functionality and ease of use, interfaces will 

 access models of both the underlying infrastructure and the users. Just as people now do their own 

 "desktop publishing," they will have their own "desktop work environments," environments that will 

 extend to mobile and wireless networking modes. Users will be able to customize these environments, 

 thereby reducing reliance on intermediate interface developers. 



IV. National Challenges 



National Challenges are fundamental applications that have broad and direct impact on the Nation's 

 competitiveness and well-being. They will enable people to handle the increasing amounts of infor- 

 mation and the increasing dynamics of the 21st century. 



Using selected HPCC enabling technologies and the technologies developed by the other IITA ele- 

 ments, this element will use pilot projects to develop 'customized applications" in areas such as the 

 civil infrastructure, digital libraries, education and lifelong learning, energy management, the environ- 

 ment, health care, manufacturing processes and products, national security, and public access to gov- 

 ernment information. Detailed goals of four of these applications areas are as follows: 



Digital Libraries 



Develop systems and technology to: 



Q Enable electronic publishing and multimedia authoring. 



^ Provide technology for storing petabytes of data for nearly instantaneous access by users num- 

 bering in the millions or more. 



Q Quickly search, filter, and summarize large volumes of information. 



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