Internet search results are typically displayed as a list conforming to a static style sheet. The difficulty of perusing this list can be exacerbated when screen real estate is limited. When space is limited, either, few results are seen, or result descriptions are abbreviated, making it difficult to know whether to follow a particular web link. In this paper, we describe "WaveLens," a dynamic layout technique for displaying search results, which addresses these issues by combining a fisheye lens with progressive exposure of page content. Results from a usability study showed that participants performed faster and more accurately on a search task with one of two distinct parameter settings of WaveLens as compared to the typical static list. In a post-hoc questionnaire, participants favored that setting over both the static list and another setting which involved animated zoom. We discuss design implications for the retrieval and display of search results.

Researchers have noted conflicting trends in collaboration technologies between delivering more information on larger displays and exploiting mobility on smaller devices. Large, shared displays provide greater choice in the presentation of information, but mobile devices offer greater flexibility in the access of information. We describe a platform that leverages the best of both worlds by allowing multiple users to access and interact with a large, shared display using their own personal mobile devices, such as a cell phone, laptop, or wireless PDA. We highlight three applications built on top of the platform that demonstrate its generality and utility in a variety of group settings: namely, web browsing, polling, and entertainment.

We describe an end-to-end system that capitalizes on geographic location tags for digital photographs. The World Wide Media eXchange (WWMX) database indexes large collections of image media by several pieces of metadata including timestamp, owner, and critically, location stamp. The location where a photo was shot is important because it says much about its semantic content, while being relatively easy to acquire, index, and search.The process of building, browsing, and writing applications for such a database raises issues that have heretofore been un- addressed in either the multimedia or the GIS community. This paper brings all of these issues together, explores different options, and offers novel solutions where necessary. Topics include acquisition of location tags for image media, data structures for location tags on photos, database optimization for location-tagged image media, and an intuitive UI for browsing a massive location-tagged image database. We end by describing an application built on top of the WWMX, a lightweight travelogue-authoring tool that automatically creates appropriate context maps for a slideshow of location-tagged photographs.