aQtive - research and academic links

aQtive onCue    for research    for personal productivity    for student projects    for fun!

aQtive's core technology and products are based on strong theoretical and practical foundations and are supported by ongoing research and development. We are a company that has its roots in academia and we are committed to a rich continuing relationship with the academic and research community.

onCue is ideal for student projects and producing demonstrators for research projects
onCue is built using Java and aQtiveSpace, a component framework designed for extensibility. You can create and add your own Qbits (the onCue components) using XML description files or the onCue API. Use it to link to your own web services, construct new desktop applications, and integrate existing systems.

  aQtive's academic roots

aQtive's founders include Alan Dix and Russell Beale, well known researchers in HCI and neural networks and authors of the leading text book "Human-Computer Interaction". The third founder, Andy Wood, aQtive's Java guru, is also an active researcher in agent technology for user interfaces.

  theoretical foundations of aQtive technology

aQtive's core technology - aQtiveSpace is a component architecture based on Andy and Russell's work together on agent-based systems and partly on Alan's theoretical work on status-event analysis for user interface design. Andy's doctoral work brought these together in the Cameo architecture which was a forerunner of aQtiveSpace. A bibliography is available as a resoure for interested researchers.

  aQtive at large - in the academic community

Our success depends on being at the forefront of technology and aQtive is committed to an ongoing academic and research presence. We are still a young company, so our exposure is limited so far, but expect to see more in the coming months ...

  aQtive sponsors studentships for Active Web conference, 20th January 1999

  onCue features in Alan's invited talk and paper "Design of user interfaces for the web" at UIDIS99 in Edinburgh, September 1999

  aQtive technology features in COOPIS'99 panel on annotations, August 1999

  aQtive gives editorial support for special issue of IwC on active web technology

  onCue featured in ACM TOCHI paper "Exploiting space and location as a design framework for interactive mobile systems"

  aQtive crackers and onCue featured in Alan's keynote address "Hazy, Crazy, Lazy Days are Over -time for designers to think" (PPT slides) at Designing Information for Mobile and Broadband Network Users, School of Oriental and African Studies, Russell Square, London, 15th December 1999

   aQtive featured in talk on "Understanding the e-market and designing products to fit" by Alan at "E-commerce - issues and directions" at Imperial College London, 13th January 2000