Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cadnetix.COM!cadnetix!erik From: erik@cadnetix.COM (Erik Hyypia) Newsgroups: comp.windows.misc Subject: Re: replacing the desktop metaphor Keywords: desktop metaphor, graphical interfaces, computing environments Message-ID: <5906@cadnetix.COM> Date: 28 Dec 88 17:08:43 GMT References: <3494@utastro.UUCP> <356@internal.Apple.COM> <2396@osiris.sics.se> Sender: news@cadnetix.COM Reply-To: erik@cadnetix.COM (Erik Hyypia) Organization: Cadnetix Corp., Boulder, CO Lines: 82 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 Hyypia "One need not lose the child-like sparkle of life, just because he grows up!"