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LiveCD Lets You Try Out Project Looking Glass
remember_beos writes "Sun created Project Looking Glass (LG3D) as a 'proof of concept' not long ago. It is an environment for Linux, like KDE or Gnome, but with some really great 3D functionality. More than just eye-candy, LG3D provides functional use of an extra spatial dimension on your desktop. Now there is a LiveCD for us all to try it out."
From what I understand of this project it is very cool. With that extra spatial dimmension you will take what is already a cluttered desktop and make it mess in 3D. Now my computer can look more like my apartnemt.
In all seriousness though this is really a neat concept. I use a lot of space for my video editing programs. They require a title program, an animator, a sound mixer, a couple of editors, etc. Now this will take my ordinary 15 inch screen and give it dimenssion which will make my life a lot more producitve and a lot oless facinating.
Be better in bed. Wikiafterdark!
Isn't it rough on the video card to have it 3D rendering at any point the the OS is loaded?
Isn't this what video cards or for? You might as well ask if it's rough on the CPU.
Does anyone get the impression that there is some subtle but real competition going on between Sun and Apple? Apple seems to be moving in on the server/blade market, and Sun is attempting to do cool GUI tricks. I wouldn't mention this but Sun has made so much of Project Looking Glass that it's kind of hard to not wonder if one of their primary targets here is not Apple and the users who are using it as their preferred UNIX OS.
I installed this about a month ago on gentoo. Its little more then a crappy demo. The one I really want to see, is a linux port of sphereXP http://www.hamar.sk/sphere/, OR i would like to see the metisse project http://insitu.lri.fr/~chapuis/metisse/ see the light of day.
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I just thought of a way this might be made useful. It depends on sensing the location of the user's head. It would work so that a user could tilt his head like he's trying to see 'around' to the other side of the spherical interface and the window manager would rotate in the windows/information from that side. So if you are looking at a text editor and need to check out a document momentarily you could crane your neck (I'm talking a slight gesture, not really craning, but the same motion) and the web browser that is pushed off to the side would slide back in. You could read what you need to, then go back the other way to see the editor.
Perhaps a head position sensor would provide intelligent focusing for the extra dimensions? I can see something like this being useful in any window manager. You could do it with a camera and some custom recognition software perhaps, so no extra sensor would be required.
I personally would really like it if I could scroll a document or switch desktops (or the view of a very large desktop) with slight head gestures.
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