\section{Showcases and Scenarios}

The general scenario we are targeting is a wireless help-desk, allowing a
user/customer to interact over a wireless mobile device with an agent/service
provider, where the two parties speak different languages.  The agent is
equipped with an ordinary PC, while the customer exploits a mobile device.  A
typical situation would be one in which the user is travelling in the country
of the service provider, and is in need of assistance with any number of
travel related situations.  We envision both remote and face-to-face
conversations.  Concrete examples include accommodation reservations,
doctor-patient conversations and car mechanical road assistance.  

In collaboration with the European project partners, we will design and
implement two showcase prototype systems in the course of the project. The
first showcase will be completed at the mid-point of the project (month 18).
It will focus on the domain of medical assistance (emergency help and
doctor-patient interactions) and will demonstrate the results obtained with
respect to the new HLT modules (both interlingua-based and direct approaches),
communication robustness and multimodality.  The second showcase will be
completed at the end of the project.  In this showcase, we will expand our
coverage of the medical assistance domain and add on the domain of mechanical
car assistance.  It will be devoted to demonstrating our results with respect
to portability to new domains, multi-engine translation, the translation of
emotions, and further advancements achieved in communication robustness.

Taken together, the two showcases aim at demonstrating the advantages and the
feasibility of the proposed solutions for multilingual and multi-modal
communication in a wireless scenario.  Both showcases will target the wireless
help-desk domain. The choice of the infrastructural and architectural
solutions to be adopted will be made taking into account technical feasibility
for experimental and demonstrative purposes, and portability of the developed
solutions to emerging wireless platforms.

