New twist on File Transfer?

[Desney S Tan]

  I know this has been discussed and thrown out the window several
times, but let me explain. I have been working with new modes of
displays, interaction, and collaboration. I am convinced that the future
of displays is in projection, interaction is gonna move to a more
spacial metaphor, and close collaboration is just gonna be essential. My
idea is this: Some kind of projection (on a common wall somewhere in an
environment, or multiple projections in different locations) with a
shared space that people share. Control of this space is, as the name
implies, shared (i.e. I can move my mouse off the edge of my personal
screen and into the shared space, grab/manipulate/place files while
other people are doing the same). Esentially combining virtual desktop
with distributed control.

Here're the engineering problems:
1) Need to be able to move my mouse pointer thru virtual space to the
remopte system 
2) Need to be able to drag and drop from my desktop to the remote system
3) Need to share control (multiple people/pointers) on the shared system
4) Is Vern the package to build this on? (I'm looking for something
whose infrastructure is stable enough so that I can prototype such a
system)

Here're the Interaction questions:
1) Is this useful?
2) This is just one use of such a system, what wild and whacky
collaboration could we do with this (I am not interested in simulating
real life, I want to give poeple something they can't do in real life)
3) What technology can this be coupled with (cameras seem the obvious
choice)

Any comments, flames, suggestions greatly appreciated.
________________________________
 Desney Swee-Leong Tan
 School of Computer Science
 Carnegie Mellon University
 http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~desney/

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