Thursday, July 15, 2004

Peering At You Peering At Me

Reported in Wired News, Facetop, a video feed in a background layer, enabling interactive co-contributions to whatever's on the (mostly transparent) desktop:

Now researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have designed a new system that cleverly blends a video-conference feed with a transparent image of a computer desktop into one full-screen window.

Called Facetop, the system simultaneously transmits a video feed of users along with a shared, transparent image of the desktop. It allows two colleagues to work on the same document, Web page or graphic, while communicating face to face.

The face fashions a visual backchannel (like way back when nods were it): Look at me when I'm pointing (my icon-finger-eyes) at you. Planar, but eerily holographic, too.

Posted by Derek Mueller at July 15, 2004 9:51 PM to Distances