Where are mobile user interfaces heading, other than the relentless march toward ever smaller and faster PDAs and phones? This talk will provide an overview of some of the research directions being explored by Columbia's Computer Graphics and User Interfaces Lab, ranging beyond the desktop writ small.

One direction addresses wrist-worn interaction devices and displays, with an emphasis on cursorless user interfaces. Here, the goal is to eliminate the need for the mobile user to control and visually monitor a cursor while they interact with the rich world around them. In other work, we are collaborating with colleagues at the University of Maryland, the Smithsonian Institution, and Columbia to develop hand-held and head-worn electronic field guides for botanists. Our prototype user interface allows a botanist to photograph leaves in the field, invokes automated vision-based recognition algorithms on the images, and supports the botanist in examining ranked sets of possible matches to assist in species identification.