Saw a demo of a neat piece of software yesterday. Two people were about 35
miles apart. One pulled up a document on his computer. Gave access to it
to the other guy who had a mouse and cursor at his end which we could also
see on the screen. He could point to things, as the two people talked.
Control could have been passed to him at any time.
After a bit, the guy on our end decided he wanted to be able to see the
other guy, so he opened a box in the upper left corner of the screen, sized
it, and voila, there was a video image of the other guy. They were able to
talk and see each other, as they worked together on the same document.
Pretty darn cool, if you ask me.
Oh, I kinda lied. I actually only saw a videotape of the demo.
The actual demo had taken place 30 years ago in 1968, and the star of the
demo was Doug Englebart.
Think about your first reaction to what sounds like whiteboarding software
that is starting to become commonplace. Now consider that the demo was
filmed 30 years ago in *black and white*! That's how far ahead Englebart
and his team really were (or, how far we *haven't* come when we should have!)
Go check out
http://unrev.stanford.edu/ for yourself.
--------------------------------------------------------------------- O-
Uncle Roger "There is pleasure pure in being mad
roger_at_sinasohn.com that none but madmen know."
Roger Louis Sinasohn & Associates
San Francisco, California
http://www.sinasohn.com/
Received on Fri Dec 11 1998 - 02:37:15 GMT