A mobile computer interface for heterogeneous databases

Computer-based personal information services are evolving beyond simple applications such as retrieval of phone numbers to include interaction with collections of large, heterogeneous, geographically distributed information bases. Concurrently, small, pen-based, mobile computers are becoming the machine of choice for personal computing. This latter trend suggests simple interfaces that are easy-to-use, avoid keyboard use, and are suited for the small screens and small memory sizes of mobile machines. The former trend, however, suggests an increased sophistication in database interfaces, so as to provide access to the more complex heterogeneous collection of databases that are now part of a personal information service. At the Matsushita Information Technology Laboratory (MITL) they are working on a pen-based graphical database language that begins to combine these conflicting demands for simplicity and sophistication. The authors sketch the highlights of the research approach, and present a brief description of the current prototype