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.

Comments

Task Gallery from Microsoft

[vijaya_chandra]

You can find a similar one named Task Gallery that MS Research has been working on

They atleast have done a good job saying
NOTE: This web site is only meant to support the video. Watching the video is the best way to get a feel for this novel user-interface.
You can't do justice to something in 3d with screenshots.
Sun seems to have lost the point and placed just screenshots in their site ( you can find the links for the videos a few posts above this though )

Inspite of all the efforts going into such things, how effective do you think would such technologies be with our current input devices like the keyboard and mice and output devices like the monitors?
However these I guess would be the standard interfaces once we jump into the *real* 3d world in the future. (Proof: The Virtual Control room of Zion in the Matrix Reloaded ;) )

I'll stay with my windowmaker till that time

Obligatory Jurrasic Park Quote

[AliasTheRoot]

I know this, it looks like Unix

(sic)

Re:useability question

[nacturation]

How does the os know that I want to move an object up along the y axis instead of "back" along the z axis?

How about the use of a modifier key? No SHIFT key = move along Y axis. Hold down SHIFT key, and it moves along Z axis.

Or whatever. Really, this is a tech demo of a framework meant to inspire people to come up with their own concepts for how to manipulate windows. Don't consider what Sun has shown to be the one and only way of doing things. Just like the original Mac GUI isn't the only way to present an interface.