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Human Computer Interface (HCI) Tutorial
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Cyberarium's primary technical work is with interface methods. According to Principia Cybernetica web interface is defined as
Ease in communicating information with computers and an internet from human to human rests more on the simplicity and intuitiveness of how individual humans use computers than on how the computers are processing, manipulating and sending data. Computation performance grows at a fevered pace. Yet, the persistence of keyboards, mice and joysticks is the real hindrance to an eventually seamless communications network; for these do not at all allow for the optimal expressive throughput either the human or the computer is cabable of. Its a bit like funneling a river to the sea using a straw! Our breakthrough came when we began to think of the human
body itself as an interface. The diversity of both bio-electrical signals
and anatomical mobility inherent to the human body, we realized, was an
untapped wellspring for possibilities of interacting with computers. Below
we show the particular thought processes which lead to this new way of
thinking about the abilities of the body itself.
Here is a human There is a set of conventional devices by which a human being interacts with a computer. These are called interfaces.
Then, with Apple computers came the famous mouse.
As with the keyboard, the mouse
is an all familiar interface device, which with the increasing power of
software becomes more and more sufficient without the keyboard However, the impetus for much of what we do at Cyberarium is the issue of what other methods can humans use to input into the computer and get output that is useful? The answer came in the form of the challenge facing severaly disabled humans; those who absolutely cannot use thier limbs,
much less keyboards and mice. Beginning in the rehabilitation department of Loma Linda University medical center we undertook to turn those sad faces into happy ones.
How did we do this? Pushing our original question we asked, "what parts of a disabled human's body can they move?" And it quickly dawned on us:
So all we needed to do was to figure out how to take those many movements and USE them as if they were hands and fingers. We did this by using special equipment: sensors which sense the electrical pulses that come from all human muscles (as well as the eyes) when they are flexed and relaxed.
In this case we attached these sensors to the cheeks of the disabled person
Once we were able to do all the mechanical tinkering with the computer so it knew to interprete these facial movements as input (as if a human was using a mouse or a keyboard) we were off to the races!
In a nutshell, this was the big breakthrough that put us where we are now. The concept gleaned from all this was that THE HUMAN BODY ITSELF MUST BE SEEN AS AN INTERFACE. Once you adopt this view then the options for a human to interact with, or interface with, a computer are abundant. We demonstrated a principle, not a just a particular method. As you surf our site you will see the many and powerful ways that this principle enhances interface far beyond the disabled user. And finally, to echo the Principia Cybernetica defiintion of "interface," the purpose of cyberarium is to address all the areas it touches on as a matter of interface: TELECOMMUNICATION equipment, INFORMATION carriers, INPUT-OUTPUT devices and COMPUTER networks mediating between people, computers and PRODUCTION processes." What we hope to share with you is the principle that the mediation (i.e., interface) between people, computers and PRODUCTION processes is a deeply social one. By addressing the lack of powerful access technologies for the disabled we stumbled into the greater problem of how communications between humans using informatic systems was both technologically and culturally deficient. Please take some time to see why our work is as heavily sociocultural as it is technological. The Cyberarium was necessary to begin creating more intelligent and realistic models of humans using communications technologes all the while taking into account the reality of how fast all this stuff is changing and how an environment for rapid prototyping of interfaces systems in real time is one of the few best ways for dealing with all this stuff. Enjoy our site.
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Here is a computer 
Keyboards
were practically the first computer input devics, while monitors
were
the first output devices. Together, these were the first interfaces. 
they
can move parts of their face!
these
are called EMG, or electromyograph sensors. 
