Project Looking Glass

Eric: Welcome to the Xtreme Tech show. I'm Eric Nielsen.

Julie: And I'm Julie Nelson.

Eric: On today's show, we're going to take a look at a Sun development project, Looking Glass. Looking Glass is a 3D desktop environment that's built on top of Sun's Java 3D API set.

Julie: We'll talk the creator of this new desktop, Hideya Kawahara, and hear about his experiences working in the Java 3D APIs. We'll also talk to John Fowler, the Chief Technology Officer for Sun's software organization.

Eric: We asked both Hideya and John why they think Sun can innovate in the desktop space.

John: Sun has a 20 year history of innovation starting with the workstation where we took Berkeley UNIX, graphics, and a Motorola 68k processor and put them together. Sun has continually been inventing new technologies.

Hideya: I joined Sun because of Java, because of James Gosling. I thought that this company had something cool in its DNA, so I wanted to steal a piece of that.

Leaders at Sun just doesn't follow blindly. We think hard.

Julie: The Looking Glass desktop isn't available now, but we were able to get a pre-alpha copy. We loaded Sun's new linux desktop offering, the Java Desktop System, on a laptop. And, then we installed Looking Glass.

Eric: We started with an ordinary Java Desktop screen, where we launched the 3D desktop environment. The windowing environment that launched, came up with a 3D toolbar at the bottom of the screen. The background image responded to the mouse environment, and gave a very realistic 3D feel. Windows are translucent so that you can see other applications. Notice the video player in the background.

When the mouse changes focus to the terminal, then it becomes solid and the video player is no longer visible.

I asked Hideya what he thought about when designing a 3D desktop environment.

Hideya: One key point is that applications run as they are, without modifications.

Eric: And indeed, as I discovered, all my regular linux applications behaved normally in this 3D environment. Yet, standard applications like RealNetowrks video player and Mozilla took on 3D characteristics such as hanging from the edge of the screen.

Small innovations such as postits on the back of each webpage you visit are some of the cool aspects of this 3D environment.

It seems like this environment was designed to take a normal desktop and weave in 3D capabilities.

Hideya: We tried to conserve today's desktop metaphor, so user won't get confused because user can operate the same way as today's desktop environment.

Eric: Yet, while using using this environment, running your standard 2D applications, you can take advantage of the 3D capabilities. Benefits include a larger screen area, better organization, and improved visualization.

We asked John if Sun will continue to innovate and offer technology to the community at large.

John: Sun is very excited about contributing to the desktop. We've been supporting GNOME, OpenOffice, and Java to create great desktop applications for a very long time.

Eric: There are multiple themes, which have multi-layer graphical pictures which enhance the 3D feel of the desktop space. Other cook effects are the menu bar that floats in 3D space and active icons that switch places depending on the activity of the desktop.

One of the more interesting aspects of the 3D desktop is the 180 degree virtual screen environment which allows you to have multiple desktops which align in a 180 degree panaramic view of the 3D background scenry.

Each of these views is a completely functional 3D desktop that allows you to place your favorite applications together in differnt places in your 3D world.

Hotspots in the lower right and left hand corners allow us change to the different virtual desktop views. You're actually looking at a panaramic view of the Stanford campus.

I was aqmazed at how easy and comfortable this 3D virtual world was to use as a real desktop, and asked Hideya how he accmplished this.

Hideya: We didn't put 3D and virtual reality at the center of our design. Let me quote from a paper I read, "Don't discuss 2D versus 3D, fight for 2 clicks versus 3 clicks."

Eric: Using Java's 3D API, you can write 3D applications that interact with the desktop, and float in 3D space such as this 3D music selector application.

It's really hard to believe this is running on a Toshiba laptop. Sun's technology simply runs on top of Linux. It has become clear to me, after seeing this, that Sun's investment Java Desktop Systems technology is going to change the desktop landscape. And Sun also has plans for a Solaris version of Looking Glass.

I asked John where Sun plans to go with this technology.

John: Operating system technology, Sun as Linux, GNOME, OpenOffice, and Mozilla, have reached the point where everyone can use them as their everyday desktop. On this strong base, we are going to provide new technologies, such as Looking Glass, to change people's notion of what a desktop environment could be.

Eric: Even though Looking Glass isn't available today, the desktop uses OpenGL and Java 3D API's which are available now. The N1 organization at Sun has built a 3D application that helps you manage your racks of servers. This management application was built using the Java 3D APIs. Notice how the objects on the screen behave in 3D space. This will easily integrate into the Looking Glass desktop when it becomes available.

Julie: If you'd like to learn more about the looking glass desktop, you can visit the sun web site at http://www.sun.com/software/looking_glass.

Eric: That's it for today's show. Thanks for joining us. We'll see you next time.