Walter van de Velde
Vrije Universiteit Brussel
walter@arti.vub.ac.be

Imagine a world parallel to this one and populated by numerous digital creatures. It is a society much like ours ­ a virtual one, yes -- but as large, dynamic and varied as this one. Some of these creatures are your friends, some others you may like or not, many of them you don't even know. You couldn't care less if only there was not this one annoying thing: they want you to listen to them as the clever ones spit out their information ­ useful or not --, offer you some service ­ need it or not ­want to ask you something, or tell you the story of their daytime.

You're imagining the future of computer networks: a huge collection of active software agents, each of them pushing to do their thing with you. How to deal with this? After all you don't need everything and your attention is limited.

Imagine a new species of parrot (psittacus comris, or. Europe). She is your personal pet-bird, much like the one that the mythical sailor carries on his shoulder. And she also seems to have this extra sense of knowing things you can't know. This parrot -- she's been your friend for a long time -- seems to be aware of where you are and what you're doing. You can rely on her: without asking she gently whispers in your ear the most useful leads on information that help you to function better in your everyday social activities.

You're imagining the future of wireless computing: devices that not only provide you with access to information and let you communicate, but autonomously serve your needs, whatever you're doing. How does it work? After all it's a long way from desktop computing, walkmans, PDAs or GSMs.

Back to reality. The project COMRIS is turning your imagination into reality. A Co-Habited Mixed Reality is a coupled pair of worlds, a real one and a virtual one. Both have their own inhabitants. Their activities are loosely coupled by devices, like little peepholes, in the fence between the two worlds. The COMRIS parrot is, on the one hand, the eye from the virtual world into the real, making the virtual creatures aware of her host's context: where she is, what she's doing, what happens around her. On the other hand, the parrot learns to manage her host's economy of attention. Based on the context information that the parrot is allowed to communicate to the virtual world, the different software agents decide whether they are sufficiently relevant to compete for the attention of the parrot, and through her, of the host. So, the COMRIS parrot is a personal lens into the virtual world, making one see (or hear ­ COMRIS uses speech output), those leads that are most useful to one at that moment.

The virtual world is much more than an extended memory (as are MIT's remembrance agents). It is a parallel society that couples back with the real one in as many points as there are parrots. The more parrots there are ­ and COMRIS aims at large applications -- the stronger this coupling and the more of service they can be to us ­ and we to them. COMRIS will demonstrate its results within the setting of a large conference, like the EITC, to help participants to get more out of such meetings. For example, it will help them to identify other participants that they want to talk to, to make appointments, to delegate certain topics and concerns to an agent, fully focussing on others instead. When they come home in the evening, there's time enough to ask their virtual friends about what they learned for them during the conference.

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