Glossary

Searchable terminology from accessibility, web standards, and related fields.

18 results found in Emerging Technology.

3D Gaussian Splatting (3DGS, Gaussian Splatting)
An explicit 3D scene representation, introduced by Kerbl et al. in 2023, in which a scene is modelled as a cloud of anisotropic 3D Gaussians whose positions, shapes, colours, and opacities are optimis…
AI-Generated Content (AIGC)
An umbrella term for text, images, audio, video, and other media produced by generative AI systems — especially large language models and diffusion-based text-to-image or text-to-video models — in res…
Affective Haptics (Emotional Haptics)
A subfield of haptic interaction design concerned with using tactile and kinaesthetic feedback — vibration, pressure, temperature, squeezing, stroking, heartbeat-like pulsation — to communicate, evoke…
Always-On Computing (Always-available computing, Continuous computing)
A model of interaction in which computing devices — particularly wearables such as smartwatches, AR glasses, and fitness trackers — remain continuously active and accessible throughout the day rather …
Brain-Computer Interface (BCI, Brain-Machine Interface, BMI, Neural Interface)
A technology that enables direct communication between the brain and an external device by detecting and interpreting neural signals. BCIs can use invasive methods (implanted electrodes) or non-invasi…
Facial Avatar (Singing head, Talking head avatar)
A digital, animated representation of a face — typically rendered as a 3D or stylized 2D character from the neck up — driven by audio, video, or data signals to produce expressive facial behavior such…
Identity Wallet (Digital Identity Wallet, EUDI Wallet)
A smartphone app that stores digitally signed credentials representing attributes of a person's identity — such as name, date of birth, government-issued ID number, student enrolment, or professional …
Mid-Air Ultrasound Haptics (Ultrasound Haptics, Airborne Ultrasound Tactile Display, AUTD)
A non-contact haptic technology that uses phased arrays of ultrasonic transducers to focus acoustic radiation pressure onto a user's skin, producing tactile sensations in mid-air without any worn or h…
Mobile AR (Smartphone AR, Handheld AR)
Augmented reality experiences delivered on commodity smartphones and tablets using the built-in camera, display, inertial sensors, and (increasingly) depth sensors, without specialized AR headsets. Mo…
Muscle-Computer Interface (MCI (Muscle-Computer Interface), EMG Interface)
An input modality in which signals generated by muscle contractions — typically recorded via surface electromyography (sEMG) sensors worn on the forearm or other muscle group — are interpreted by a co…
Neural Radiance Field (NeRF)
An implicit neural representation of a 3D scene, introduced by Mildenhall et al. in 2020, in which a small neural network is trained to map any 3D coordinate and viewing direction to a colour and dens…
Non-Contact Haptics (Contactless Haptics, Device-Free Haptics)
A class of haptic feedback techniques that render tactile sensations on the user's body without requiring physical contact with a device, surface, or wearable. Common approaches include mid-air ultras…
Semantic Hearing (Programmable Hearing, Intent-Aware Hearing)
A research paradigm and class of systems that treat the user's auditory environment as something programmable: rather than uniformly amplifying or suppressing all sound, the wearable headphone or earb…
Smart Environment (Intelligent Environment, Smart Space)
A physical space equipped with sensors, computing devices, and networked systems that can monitor conditions, infer context, and respond to the activities and needs of occupants. Smart environments ai…
Spatial Computing (Spatial interaction)
A paradigm of computing in which digital content is rendered and interacted with in three-dimensional physical space, typically via head-worn augmented or mixed reality devices (e.g., HoloLens, Magic …
Spatio-Temporal Modulation (STM)
A rendering technique used in mid-air ultrasound haptics in which a single focal point is moved rapidly along a closed trajectory (commonly circular) while its intensity is modulated over time. When t…
Speech Language Model (SLM, Audio Language Model, Speech Foundation Model)
A class of large neural models that processes both speech and text in a single end-to-end framework, integrating tasks — automatic speech recognition, spoken language understanding, dialogue, speech g…
Verifiable Credential (VC)
A cryptographically signed statement about a person, organisation, or object that a relying party can verify without contacting the issuer, following the W3C Verifiable Credentials Data Model. Verifia…