craig@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca (Craig Hubley) (09/22/89)
In the July 1989 ACM SIGCHI Bulletin, there is a short (two-page) piece of
exploratory engineering by a Sony scientist, Kiyonobu Kojima, called
"Information Detective: A Workstation for Exploring Three Dimensional
Information Space". Although I don't care much for the idea, it is
clearly an attempt to describe an interface to virtual realities that
doesn't require what the author describes as 'expensive', 'heavy'
headgear, and has the advantage of not obscuring the 'real world'.
His interface is basically like a magnifying glass, with similar focus
properties.
Although I believe that all of these problems with head-mounted displays
can and will be solved, the proposal of an alternative device to provide
equivalent access to information is welcome.
Does anyone know of any other reputable publications (preferably refereed)
that have published exploratory engineering in user interfaces ? By the
term 'exploratory engineering', I mean describing and discussing the
implications of a device that is feasible but has-not/cannot-yet be built?
Incremental ideas can often be easily built and tested with existing tools,
but paradigm shifts usually require so much support in terms of equipment
and research latitude that one must do a considerable amount of convincing
before anything is actually built (as witness: Drexler's assembler, Alan
Kay's reactive engine (now the Smalltalk/Star/Macintosh/Xwindows systems),
Arthur C. Clarke's telecommunications satellite, Jules Verne's submarine,
William Gibson's Cyberspace, etc.). Legitimate scientific forums where
individuals can propose and receive comments on such ideas from colleagues
would be welcome. Of course, USENET is one such forum, but it suffers from
a lack of formal commitment to the review process, which is where traditional
journals shine.
--
Craig Hubley -------------------------------------
Craig Hubley & Associates "Lead, follow, or get out of the way"
craig@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca -------------------------------------
craig@gpu.utcs.toronto.edu mnetor!utgpu!craig@uunet.UU.NET
{allegra,bnr-vpa,decvax,mnetor!utcsri}!utgpu!craig craig@utorgpu.bitnet
[I believe that Autodesk is using the term "cyberspace" to describe their
Dataglove-based "virtual reality" system.
Funny that you should have left the Memex out of that list.
--JoSH]