🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <3494@utastro.UUCP> rlr@utastro.UUCP (Randy Ricklefs) writes:

>What about replacing the entire top of a desk with some type of flat display?
>Then add a touch-screen mechanism to drag papers, forms, etc. across the desk
>top to work on them.  (Then your electronic desktop could become as cluttered
>as the physical one. :-) )

I think it was Johan Strandberg who said years ago that the "right" size
for the display is not "full-page" (uh, should it be legal size or metric?),
nor "two-page," but the size of an opened-up newspaper, since that is the
size that evolved as suitable for displaying multiple "windows" of inform-
ation.  Once you have that, he argued, you should build it into the top
of your desk -- not because it's supposed to represent a desktop, but
basically for ergonomic reasons and because once you have reached this
Nirvana, you won't need the desktop space for anything else!

David Casseres

In article <356@internal.Apple.COM>, casseres@Apple (David Casseres) writes:
>In article <3494@utastro.UUCP> rlr@utastro.UUCP (Randy Ricklefs) writes:
>
>>What about replacing the entire top of a desk with some type of flat display?
>>[...]
>
>I think it was Johan Strandberg who said years ago that the "right" size
>for the display is not "full-page" (uh, should it be legal size or metric?),
>nor "two-page," but the size of an opened-up newspaper, since that is the
>size that evolved as suitable for displaying multiple "windows" of inform-
>ation.

I agree about the size of the display, but only if it is to be used in
conjunction with other office equipment on an ordinary desk. Make it
larger and you have to move your head around to much.

>        Once you have that, he argued, you should build it into the top
>of your desk -- not because it's supposed to represent a desktop, but
>basically for ergonomic reasons and because once you have reached this
>Nirvana, you won't need the desktop space for anything else!

If you won't be using anything else but your computer you need a much
larger interface area than a newspaper size screen. A room with all of
the wall used as screens is then necessary, I think. Take a look at
the Media Room at MIT's Architecture Machine Group (if it still exists
it wold now be at the MIT Media Lab).

>David Casseres

PD
Per Danielsson		UUCP: pd@sics.se (or ...!enea!sics!pd)
Swedish Institute of Computer Science
PO Box 1263, S-164 28 KISTA, SWEDEN
"No wife, no horse, no moustache."

Heads-Up_Displays (HUD) are already in existance, used by the military
to merge many different data into one coherent image (infra-red camera
image, light-image, data about the aircraft, etc).  Although they are
in their infancy, and are still bulky, technical evolution will work
its metamorphasis here.

Voice recognition, again in its infancy, will flesh out to become a 
useful tool as well.

Combine these two ideas with local-area radio-link networking, and you
have the office of the future:  A wireless, heads-up-display with 
microphone and speakers, which integrates "computing" functionality
(as we use the term now) with voice/video communications between the
user, the computer(s) and other people, library functionality (graphical
as well as data), in stereo, 3-D, color.  It will be light enough not
to muss the hair, will become the upper-crust style, and free the 
office worker from his/her/its desk.

	Sally was just finishing her math homework, keeping an eye
	on kid brother Joey in a corner window, when the call came through.
	The sounds of crashing surf and clinking glasses tickled
	her right ear, demanding romantic attention.  The large
	blue moon and sexy silhouette identified the caller as 
	Bret, feeling his hormones again.  She whispered off the
	old French movie she dug up from the Paris film banks from 
	the upper left window (how *had* they persuaded that 
	woman to do those things?), killed the math, and zoomed 
	in on this nostalgic man's imagery.  Creative, but
	a little too blunt for her tastes. She dimmed her video
	(after all she was in the tub) and answered with her best
	business-woman's tone. 
	 "No, I can't trade images right now, I'm interviewing with
	  Johannesburg Shuttle in ten minutes," she said tartly. "Here,
	  grab this and call me tonight."  She tossed him the French 
	window, clicked off, towled off, and finished dressing before
	the interview popped up.  She was glad that these new head-sets
	were almost transparent from the outside; the interviewers
	would see her sharp eyes as well as her resume.  She adjusted
	the curls under the head-band, wandered into the living room,
	and sat down in front of the book-case. Yes, idiosyncratic as
	it was, she still liked the smell of the old books.  Of course,
	she did all her reading, editing and creative work with the
	eye-panels down, but nostalgia has its place...
	
	During the interview, they tossed her some hard problems, including
	a debris collision scenario which was vaguely familiar to
	something from the old NASA banks.  She subvocalized up 
	the old images, saw the quirk, and integrated the proof 
	into her quick calculations.  Looking back into the Johannesburg
	window, she picked up the composite work and placed it on the
	interviewer's desk.  Nice touch, she thought, demonstrating
	a polite artistry in data manipulation.  He smiled, sending her
	a jobsite tour while he analyzed her responses.  The day was
	going well, and that ankle-biter in the corner window stayed
	quiet too! With luck she would have a summer job, a date that
	night, and some free time to scrounge the Paris archives some
	more.  Maybe even work on that trick of watching different movies
	in a left-eye window and a right-eye window simultaneously.  Of
	course you lost depth perception, but hey, it had potential anyway...

	She put down the hand exerciser (helped break the tension during
	the interview) and wandered into the kitchen as the Johannesburg
	tour rolled on, stopping the scene occasionally, and directing 
	the tour to zoom in on specific faces, or peer around interesting
	corners in the launch site.  Better hold off on the PB&J sandwich
	until after the interview she though, since it made sub-vocalizing 
	difficult.


<erik@cadnetix.COM>  Erik Hyypia   "One need not lose the child-like 
                                    sparkle of life, just because he 
                                    grows up!"