A Profile on Project Looking Glass Creator, Hideya Kawahara

A Profile on Project Looking Glass Creator, Hideya Kawahara

Monday, May 24, 11:00 PM PT

When Hideya Kawahara moved to the United States over a decade ago, little did he expect to find himself on the pages of InfoWorld. But today, Kawahara's Project Looking Glass has captured the hearts and minds of the open source community, earning him a spot as one of InfoWorld's "Innovators to Watch in 2005." Learn more about what motivated Kawahara to create the game-changing 3D desktop and where he sees it going.

Q: What motivated you to create Project Looking Glass?

A: For years people working on Linux desktops have done a great job to develop a user interface that is comparable to Windows. That's really cool, but if we want to change the game, we need to be a bit more aggressive. There has been a growing gap between a computer's 3D capabilities and what today's desktops are utilizing. How can we leverage this kind of wasted capability? While thinking about this issue, I dropped my laptop and that gave me the perfect excuse to buy a more powerful computer and begin exploring 3D desktops on Linux. I was energized by the freedom I had on Linux to build what I wanted, and I chose to spend my energy by working on a 3D desktop. Over time I started hoping it could change the way everybody uses desktop software. That may be a delusion of grandeur, but hopefully I was right.

Q: Did you know much about 3D technologies before you started?

A: Very little, which actually turned out to be a good thing. Instead of bringing the desktop environment into the 3D space, I took the opposite approach. I broke down 3D ideas and tried to integrate them into the desktop piece by piece. This may not sound exciting, but I have heard that few people have ever attacked the 3D question from this angle before. In the end, it turned out to be a very effective approach for Project Looking Glass.

Q: Were you concerned that your invention would not be appreciated?

A: Of course. A couple of friends looked at the 3D effects and said, "So what?" Others gave me suggestions and encouragement, and that helped keep me going forward. I was especially nervous when I showed Looking Glass to my friends in Sun's Desktop Solutions organization, but they were incredibly encouraging and moved very quickly to get support from the company. The day after I showed Looking Glass to my friends, I got a call from Curtis Sasaki, Sun's vice president of Desktop Solutions, who asked me to demo it to then-Executive Vice President Jonathan Schwartz in his office. I was especially impressed by the executives' openness to see my work and the potential it brought -- a true reflection of Sun's spirit of innovation.

Q: Do you see the open source community playing a role in Project Looking Glass?

A: Project Looking Glass was born on Linux and written largely in Java, and we are currently looking at how we can give Project Looking Glass back to the community. Thankfully, many open source developers are already asking to contribute and I'm especially grateful to have them be a part of it. 3D desktop development is a new frontier, so we need as many sharp minds as possible to help explore ideas and possibilities. I envision the open source community playing a big role in pushing this new 3D desktop frontier forward.

Q: Do you think the Sun--Microsoft settlement and information sharing deal will affect Project Looking Glass?

A: Honestly, I don't know. But the underlying point of Project Looking Glass is to change the way we use our desktops. We want to make it more efficient, more aesthetically pleasing, more powerful. The desktops we use today have not changed significantly for fifteen years and it's time for a little update. I consider myself very close to the open source community so there is no secret where my loyalties lie. But in the end, this is not about being anti-Microsoft, it's about pushing everyone to embrace new ways of thinking about how we interact with the computer most relevant to our everyday lives - the PC.