Middleware supporting various input/output devices for networked audio and visual home appliances

In this paper, we propose universal interaction for networked home appliances, which provides a simple mechanism to fill the gap between traditional user interface systems and advanced user interaction devices. Our middleware enables us to control appliances in a uniform way at any places, and the system allows us to select suitable input and output interaction devices according to our preferences and situations. Our middleware has based on the stateless thin-client system, and translates input and output interaction events according to user interaction devices. Therefore, our system allows us to use a variety of interaction devices without modifying applications using existing GUI toolkits.