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Sun to GPL Project Looking Glass
elleomea writes "According to The Register, Sun is releasing Project Looking Glass, their new GNU/Linux based 3D window managing system, under the GPL during their JavaOne conference (beginning today)." The screenshots of Looking Glass make it out to be very pretty. I'm not sure if I have the spare CPU cycles to power such an environment, but it's sure nice to drool over.
Very true. I was going to post about whether eyecandy was really what the Linux Desktop needs right now. I mean, I embrace it as another choice that you can use, and sure, it's nice to have something that looks different, but will it actually change any ways in terms of usability? The reason why I minimize windows is so that I have more desktop real estate; if it becomes a nice 3d-ed perspective window, it's not really doing much. I applaud Sun for GPLing this. I wonder where this project will go.
Just from looking at the screenshots, I see zero reasons why this would be better then a traditional 2d desktop. In alot of ways, its inferior to a normal desktop, not to mention the wasted cycles spent rendering the damned thing.
... does it really help you know what your document is, be seeing some strangely distorted side view of it? Perhaps things like 3d navigation could be handy... the ability to not only scroll up and down, but in and out... or to link relevant data not only in a tree based structure ( like the start menu ), but also group information based on relationships to other information, with perspective aswell.
Really, to take advantage of 3d desktops, we either need full immersive 3d ( alah, the 3d headsets, or perhaps holographic displays ), or the need to take a different perspective on computing then todays window'd concept. Really, what is the value of rotating a windowed view
But as it stands, just texturing an existing window onto a 3d billboard... really, whats the point? It will be interesting to see how microsoft exploits the 3rd dimension, given that avalon requires a 3d gpu to run. Hopefully, they do it better then SUN does. If I recall, there was an alternate windows manager called the Cube, that worked similar to this... what ever happenned to it?
From a pure UI point of view, it is better than multiple desktops and multiple tabs, since they are both examples of modes (which are bad). This is conditional, however, on it being easy for the user to control. If you had a 3D haptic input device, then I would say it is a superior model for human interaction. With a mouse, I remain to be convinced.
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Looking Glass screenshots are fun to drool over and all I guess, but IMHO the way forward is not adding further complexity to the binary-graphics desktop.
Rather, it's SVG. XML-based vector graphics allow developers to parse and manipulate graphics the way you would a web page or a config file. They also make remoting applications even easier than with a binary protocol like X. What does this mean for end users? Not a whole terrible lot on the surface. But it does make it easier for developers to apply consistent look and feel with widely-known text munging tools and also make rich networked applications; so in the end there's a significant but non-apparent user benefit.
Of course the nature of SVG is such that although it looks extremely crisp and neat, it's basically 2D. I think the tradeoff is worth it.
If you're going to go for the extra overhead anyways, SVG is a much bigger win than 2D any day.
Google confirms: Ruby is the world's most beloved programm
BTW, on a slightly more serious note, there is a spiffy freeware 3D Mac OS X file browser called, appropriately, 3DOSX (screenshots page).
I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
Very few applications are purely CPU based. Most applications wait for the user to decide what he/she wants to do.
The speed of interactive applications is mainly limited by the user operating it. So, the application should aid the user in the process of making descisions.
Part of this aid is making the application less suprising. Should a sidebar pop up at the left side of a window as quickly as possible, or should it 'slide' in in a few tens of a second? The slide does grab the user's attention, which could lead to an overall speedup in the work actually done by the user.
This Sun desktop may also aid the user. The user is working more efficiently at the expense of CPU cycles. But hey, isn't that exacly what computing is about?
This is your sig. There are thousands more, but this one is yours.
I find Sun's choice of pretty background pictures very distracting when attempting to evaluate the merits of this desktop system, and I'm sure this was intended as a marketing trick. I would have preferred shots with a plain background to really see the features of the desktop.
In fact, this shot is nothing more than the background! (and the 3d version of a standard 2d taskbar) They say, "Just imagine what is possible if it were live video." -- It's more like, "Imagine a pratical use for this '3D' desktop".
I might be in a minority but how many people don't maximize the application that they're working in?
It has an interface much like Mac OS X (except a little more 3Dish). Under OS X, you get used to not maximizing windows. Maximizing does unpredictable things, or just gets in the way when it doesn't.
the application that they're working in? Also, I avoid my mouse as much as possible and LG looks pretty mouse intensive.
That's very difficult to determine without trying it. OS X is pretty mouse intensive, but has hotkeys for most stuff. Granted, many of the OS X ones are rather masochistic combinations of "Apple" and "Option" keys, but it doesn't have to be that way.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
"check out and read entire books via the internet"
Searches for Anne McCafferey, R.A. Salvatore and Ray Bradbury all resulted in No results. This is not what AT&T promised, nor would it be classified as "soon".
"make video phone calls"
Nice site with a clearly written disclaimer at the top that as of June 4th, 2004, these phones were still months away. Further reading into the text shows that the site highlited these phones because they could "record more than a few seconds of video". That is not a video phone. I just moved from Japan where phone technology is where it should be and they STILL do not have the video phones AT&T promised in their commercials.
"perform remote heart surgery"
Thanks for the article about the kidney surgury. Also if you actually read it you will see that the surgury WAS NOT done remotely, there was just a doctor on the other end of the line talking someone else through the proceedure. AT&T's commercials showed a doctor wearing computerized gloves guiding the motions of robotic hands holding the scalpal.
The real kicker of it all is that I got modded Troll for making a legitimate comment on failed promises and you got modded Insightful for linking to three articles that did not actually demonstrate anything other than I was right.
gotta love the slashdot mods
ray bradbury
I've dirtied my hands writing poetry, for the sake of seduction; that is, for the sake of a useful cause. --Dostoevsky