Sun to GPL Project Looking Glass 433
elleomea writes "According to The Register, Sun is releasing Project Looking Glass, their new GNU/Linux based 3D window managing system, under the GPL during their JavaOne conference (beginning today)." The screenshots of Looking Glass make it out to be very pretty. I'm not sure if I have the spare CPU cycles to power such an environment, but it's sure nice to drool over.
Hmmm... (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's hoping it's as functional as it is good looking, or it is all for naught.
Re:Hmmm... (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know why everyone thinks this will be a problem. All of the 3D work will be pushed down to the 3D card. (This is what Mac OS X does to obtain its "Genie" and other effects.) As long as you have a GeForce2 or better, you should be fine.
On the subject of GPL, I'm not sure I understand why Sun would Open Source this. On the consumer market, it really is a deal-making product for them. The only thing I can see is that they don't have the resources to develop this fast enough and want to leverage the Open Source community. Given that this approach has worked for OpenOffice and Netbeans, it may not be such a bad move by Sun.
Re:Hmmm... (Score:5, Insightful)
Personally, I use all my screen real estate for my current app. I might be in a minority but how many people don't maximize the application that they're working in? Also, I avoid my mouse as much as possible and LG looks pretty mouse intensive. So it's not a CPU cycle thing that would keep me from using it as my primary WM, it's more of an ergonomics problem. However, I probably would run it when doing a presentation to wow customers and coworkers!
Re:Hmmm... (Score:5, Interesting)
It has an interface much like Mac OS X (except a little more 3Dish). Under OS X, you get used to not maximizing windows. Maximizing does unpredictable things, or just gets in the way when it doesn't.
the application that they're working in? Also, I avoid my mouse as much as possible and LG looks pretty mouse intensive.
That's very difficult to determine without trying it. OS X is pretty mouse intensive, but has hotkeys for most stuff. Granted, many of the OS X ones are rather masochistic combinations of "Apple" and "Option" keys, but it doesn't have to be that way.
I like the NEW desktop metaphor. (Score:5, Insightful)
Much easier to use than the unrealistic "desktops" of yopre, wher I can only make a huge mess of things on two axes!
Re:Hmmm... (Score:4, Informative)
My operating mode is quite the opposite. I multitask my workload and find myself switching windows 2-3 times/minute when I'm compiling multiple packages, working on new bash scripts, holding IM conferences, and writing a report. You could say that I need to lay off the caffeine but, oddly, I don't drink much coffee. A 3D desktop like this would be a blessing for me. No longer do I need to worry about my screen becoming cluttered with windows constantly reshuffling their order. I can send them back slightly to make them smaller or just turn them sideways.
Unfortunately my two systems probably don't have the horsepower for something like Looking Glass. I have a K6-3/400 w/ a Radeon 7500 and a PII/400 w/ a Viper 550.
I've recently learned about Expocity [pycage.de]. Expocity is a python patch for metacity.
Screenshot here [c-monkey.net] and here [homeip.net] and here [pycage.de].
Hopefully it will be a little less resource hungry for what I want to do.
Re:Hmmm... (Score:3, Interesting)
My guess is that it all ties together with the open-sourcing of the Java 3D libraries in the last couple of weeks.
From what I've heard the Looking Glass 3D code is based upon the Java 3D libraries.
Thus, it's sort of a cool project to release along-side the J3D code.
> The only thing I can see is that they don't have the resources to develop this fast enough and want to leverage the Open Source community
Probably true t
Re:Hmmm... (Score:5, Insightful)
From the demo it also appears that it can be turned of (He clicks a leaf to start it, so I assume it can go the other way), so it might be just shutting off PLG when you're doing some heavy compiling, playing games or in any other way need some more CPU cycles.
Re:Hmmm... (Score:5, Interesting)
Very few applications are purely CPU based. Most applications wait for the user to decide what he/she wants to do.
The speed of interactive applications is mainly limited by the user operating it. So, the application should aid the user in the process of making descisions.
Part of this aid is making the application less suprising. Should a sidebar pop up at the left side of a window as quickly as possible, or should it 'slide' in in a few tens of a second? The slide does grab the user's attention, which could lead to an overall speedup in the work actually done by the user.
This Sun desktop may also aid the user. The user is working more efficiently at the expense of CPU cycles. But hey, isn't that exacly what computing is about?
No! (Score:5, Funny)
Game over. Insert Coin to Play.
Re:No! (Score:3, Funny)
That is correct, and the fact that they are releasing a 3D desktop that lets you open your documents at unreadable angles and allows unethical vendors to print EULAs on the back of things only proves it even more.
KFG
Pretty... (Score:4, Insightful)
Like What? (Score:5, Insightful)
First, people say this every damned time an improvement is made to a GUI. If anybody listened, we'd all still be using CLI exclusively. Second, most people using their 3 GHz machine for office work most certainly DO have the spare cycles.
Additionally, it looks like the improvements will really make a usability difference in how we interact with the UI. Keeping notes on an application window, tilting the windows to keep most of the perceptual information (btw, using foreshortening to effectively compress windows is a great idea), making multiple desktops more perceptual, etc are all good ideas that will help people interact more intelligently with their programs.
I think this is a great start, and with some tightening and more well-implemented ideas, I can't wait to see this in a mainstream OS.
Re:Like What? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Like What? (Score:3, Informative)
Unfortunately, none of these good ideas justifies 3D. Consider this layered [useit.com]
Re:Pretty... (Score:2, Interesting)
I personally would rather see a much better, more integrated environment with time spent on really tackling the M$ near-monopoly's "features" in the current Java Des
Re:Pretty... (Score:4, Insightful)
It's revolutionized how I use my Mac. I don't think this will help very much because you have to look closely at the tilted windows instead of just seeing smaller versions of the windows you've seen before.
Re:Pretty... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Pretty... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Pretty... (Score:5, Insightful)
Until they invent and standardize a 3D 'gesturing' interface (think Tom Cruise in Minority Report, for example), the 3D desktop will remain without much practical value.
Re:Pretty... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Agreed... (Score:3, Interesting)
Exactly. None of the examples show what happens to all of these "sideways" applications when I want the application I am currently using to fill the whole screen. I don't see how Looking Glass is any better than minimizing, and I definitely don't see how it is better than minimizing plus virtual desktops.
Besides which, what happens to sticky notes on the back of an application when the application gets closed (or crashes)? And what happens to their nifty CD Spinner GUI when you are browsing through hu
Re:Pretty... (Score:3, Funny)
Can someone please tell me (Score:2, Funny)
Preview tabs (Score:2)
I think the slight preview is kinda neat. It only takes a small amount of screen real estate, but looks like the window.
This should make it easier for someone to remember what these half minimized windows are.
Myself I'll stick to shading windows, but I think this could be useful.
Re:Can someone please tell me (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Can someone please tell me (Score:2)
Re:Typical Cynic (Score:2, Insightful)
The OP has a great point, and it was the one I was going to post (multiple tabs, or multiple desktops) as well.
Re:Typical Cynic (Score:3, Interesting)
Looking Glass (Score:5, Funny)
Where's SHODAN? Where are my cybernetic zombies?
Looks like they dumbed down the interface so they could an X-Box port as well.
Shame shame.
If I get to use it... (Score:2, Funny)
Yay! (Score:3, Insightful)
Pretty cool stuff.
Jurassic technology (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Jurassic technology (Score:2)
Re:Jurassic technology (Score:5, Interesting)
Reasons for non-gamers to upgrade their GPU's (Score:5, Insightful)
Personally I've stuck with a Matrox G450 for what seems like the longest time simply because it was the one of the first (and the best) at dual monitor display, and I *like* that - 3200x1600 displays are really nice when you've lots of editor windows open
Ah well, if it does take off, guess I'll be getting an nVidea or ATI card, which means a PCI-X motherboard, might as well throw in an Athlon-64 (maybe FX), and I'll want PC3200 RAM. Damn that's an expensive desktop
Simon
Re:Reasons for non-gamers to upgrade their GPU's (Score:2)
Don't need to.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Looking Glass runs on Java 3D (also open sourced today) which basically goes straight to the wire on Linux, Windows and Solaris. This may come as a suprise to folks out here in Slashdot land, but actually Java is pretty damned fast when implemented well.
Looking Glass will run on a decent (1.8 Ghz+) laptop with a decent laptop graphics card.
Looks fantastic, its also great to use and the funniest bit is all of the Windows and Mac people looking at a GUI which looks cooler than the best efforts of MS and Apple.
So you don't need to upgrade to a top of the line machine with a top of the line GPU. You need a decent machine with a decent card.
Java... its faster than you think.
Re:Reasons for non-gamers to upgrade their GPU's (Score:2)
Simon
Spare cpu cycles (Score:5, Insightful)
And think in the nice animations and graphic effect of MacOSX, if they are happy with it, maybe will not be so bad under Linux.
Re:Spare cpu cycles (Score:5, Insightful)
Be careful with this line of thought. Every piece of eye candy on OS X has a real purpose (well, some are gratuitous, but most aren't). The genie effect when minimising allows the user to see exactly where a window is minimised to. The shadows let you see at a glance at any edge of a window whether it is active (the shadow of the active window is deeper). The dock magnification allows the dock to take up small amounts of screen space when not in use. Expose makes such a huge difference to productivity that I feel crippled when I have to use a system that doesn't have it.
It is very easy to copy the eye candy without improving the usability of the desktop.
Re:Spare cpu cycles (Score:2)
The point was simply that the looking heavy cpu use animations in MacOSX didn't raised a lot of complains about "spare cpu cycles", so could not be a big problem in this one.
Stop the Madness!!! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Stop the Madness!!! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Stop the Madness!!! (Score:2)
Every version of GNOME that Sun has released has followed the standards. Talk to RedHat about releasing crap like RedHat 8.0 which "invent" things to replace incomplete implementations of the standards. There's nothing more frustrating than building an installer than works fine on Solaris/GNOME, but deletes all the system level icons from the "Hat" menu on RedHat/GNOME. That's right folks, in RedHat 8, you could have user s
Neat Gimmic, but... (Score:4, Interesting)
Really, to take advantage of 3d desktops, we either need full immersive 3d ( alah, the 3d headsets, or perhaps holographic displays ), or the need to take a different perspective on computing then todays window'd concept. Really, what is the value of rotating a windowed view
But as it stands, just texturing an existing window onto a 3d billboard... really, whats the point? It will be interesting to see how microsoft exploits the 3rd dimension, given that avalon requires a 3d gpu to run. Hopefully, they do it better then SUN does. If I recall, there was an alternate windows manager called the Cube, that worked similar to this... what ever happenned to it?
Re:Neat Gimmic, but... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Neat Gimmic, but... (Score:3, Interesting)
Why can't companies like Sun focus on things that are important to computing that are real problems. What problem is this 3d stuff solving?
Here is a small list of things people:
- Uniform cut and paste and drag and drop in a
more then a GUI (Score:4, Insightful)
So yes, it's a waste of cycles as a just another desktop, but plenty apps can benefit from a common 3D interface.
That is what is interesting about looking glass.
Transparent windows... (Score:5, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Very pretty and flashy and all... (Score:3, Insightful)
The video just confirmed my suspicions.
I mean really, rotating your windows upside down does anything for usability?
How does sticking notes to the back of windows help usability at all, when you can't see them without flipping each window around? How is this better than normal sticky/postitnotes applications?
There's still as much clutter as normal desktops -- actually more, the minimized windows take up more screen real estate than traditional m
Re:Very pretty and flashy and all... (Score:3, Interesting)
How does sticking notes to the back of windows help usability at all, when you can't see them without flipping each window around? How is this better than normal sticky/postitnotes applications?
I'm sure people said the same thing for color displays way back when. Color really doesn't do anything for usability. If you have to differentiate things with color then your interface is broken.
Or, perhaps as with color, people will e
Whats all the whining about CPU cycles? (Score:2)
Running a render farm? Calculating protein in DNA strands? If you are, you are already most likely running a streamlined optomized setup, so you wouldn't even consider this....but for the average schmuck....?
3D is Dead, Long Live SVG (Score:5, Interesting)
Rather, it's SVG. XML-based vector graphics allow developers to parse and manipulate graphics the way you would a web page or a config file. They also make remoting applications even easier than with a binary protocol like X. What does this mean for end users? Not a whole terrible lot on the surface. But it does make it easier for developers to apply consistent look and feel with widely-known text munging tools and also make rich networked applications; so in the end there's a significant but non-apparent user benefit.
Of course the nature of SVG is such that although it looks extremely crisp and neat, it's basically 2D. I think the tradeoff is worth it.
If you're going to go for the extra overhead anyways, SVG is a much bigger win than 2D any day.
Typo in parent (Score:2)
SVG is a much bigger win than 2D any day.
should read "...than 3D..."
Re:3D is Dead, Long Live SVG (Score:3, Interesting)
In a general sense. But in the specific sense of the XML-based WW3C SVG spec, no. There's a processor overhead in parsing XML and rendering it graphically. There's another overhead in rendering 3d graphics. Put those together in something as complex as a desktop environment (or for that matter a game) and you've got big processor/memory churn. We'll probably see it in our lifetime, but at the moment it's not feasible
useability question (Score:4, Insightful)
Not having had the opportunity to actually try this interface, I was wondering if it take a lot of practice to get good at rotating windows and moving the object around the environment.
How does the os know that I want to move an object up along the y axis instead of "back" along the z axis?
Are they taking over for the Navy? (Score:2)
Why use Looking Glass? (Score:2)
Both are very useful for displaying more information. WIth Looking Glass, you see more than a tab: you get to see what's happening in the windows.
Try it with dashboard reporting screens, shared whiteboards, even video streams. You'll be impressed.
Task Gallery from Microsoft (Score:2, Redundant)
They atleast have done a good job saying
NOTE: This web site is only meant to support the video. Watching the video is the best way to get a feel for this novel user-interface.
You can't do justice to something in 3d with screenshots.
Sun seems to have lost the point and placed just screenshots in their site ( you can find the links for the videos a few posts above this though )
Inspite of all the efforts going into such th
missing the point (Score:5, Insightful)
You are failing to realize that by open sourcing this project, sun can harness the creativity of the open source community to improve this project and make it into something you would actually want to use on a daily basis instead of just a gimmick to show off to your friends.
This is a step in the right direction and I am excited that they are releasing this.
From the website (Score:2)
Heck yeah! Depending on how many people have this "dynamic desktop" one could break the world record for most people mooned at once! Also what if you saw someone getting mugged on your desktop and calling 911? "Well, I am not sure exactly where the mugging is happening, but I can see it on my computer desktop...."
The Display Is Flat (Score:2)
Rotating (flat) windows mainly just shrinks them, which I think is a good idea, but we don't need 3D for that. Just put all the shrunk windows at the edge of the screen, and let the user bring them forward by clicking (incidentally, this closesly resembles how the OS X window manager works).
As for their example of the CDs, yeah, nice, but can it beat a straight, sorted list? Wi
anyone remember the first Sony VIAO desktop? (Score:2, Interesting)
Similarities? Did Sun take someone elses idea and improve it?
What's good about it? (Score:2)
Useless for now, because... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Useless for now, because... (Score:4, Insightful)
Ok, 2 points to consider.
When KDE was released it was fully GPL but the underlying widget set QT was not "free as in RMS". Did this hinder KDE becoming mainstream? Hell no! Even before the QT was GPLd, KDE was very popular and mainstream (at least in Linux circles). After some time, Trolltech decided to release QT under the GPL and even RMS was happy. I foresee similar futures for Looking Glass and Sun's J2SE.
Second point, Java *from Sun* is not "free as in RMS". It is "free as in beer". It is also "free as in specification". The specification explicitly allows *anybody* to reimplement Java and even get the Java nametag (as long as you pass the testing) and even grants you ROYALTY-FREE USAGE of any Sun patents used in Java. There are several "free as in RMS" implementations of Java. I have no doubt they are not as good as Sun's, but how long will it take somebody to hack something like GCJ just enough to run Looking Glass? I'll wager less than a week. Especially considering that Java3D is now open source... anybody spotting the pattern yet?
Sun's obviously committed to Open Source. They have made the same realisation that IBM did; there is no future in proprietary software for desktops. Release it all for "free as in RMS", collaborate with your competitors *and* your customers, and make your profits from professional services and hardware. That's my opinion, anyway.
Come on, nobody's using their imagination (Score:4, Insightful)
I almost joined the ranks of people criticizing this project as a waste of time. Putting 2-D windows into a 3-D environment doesn't give you any advantages, especially if you just project it back onto a 2-D viewing screen.
But let's have some imagination. The idea is obviously to eventually make this environment immersive. This would allow you to place windows all around yourself. And instead of separate virtual (2-D) desktops, you would have separate virtual "rooms." Our current input device (mouse) is also 2-D, and we would need to move to something more practical in a 3-D environment.
Of course, it goes further. Windows are currently 2-D because the viewing screen is 2-D. If you have a 3-D viewing system, then your windows can be 3-D, too. Applications don't have to fit into rectangles; they could be cones, spheres, or dodecahedrons. They could even be irregularly shaped and have qualities like malleability and ductability.
Also, our widget sets are limited by the fact they're displayed on 2-D screens now. What kind of control widgets could we create when things can be moved in three dimensions? It opens up lots of possibilities.
It's just unfortunate that the screenshots they are showing don't actually take advantage of the fact that there are three dimensions. But this is only because application writers haven't caught up to the new "windowing system." It's not because the idea doesn't have merit.
You don't need CPU cycles... (Score:4, Informative)
The whole point of looking glass is that the 3d environment rendering is offloaded onto the GPU, leaving your CPU to handle tasks that it was originally designed for, rather than drawing all the windows and other stuff it was not designed for.
My Gosh, that looks trashy! (Score:3, Interesting)
And now this. This looky extremely crappy by even the most modest standards in design and aestetics.
It also work the other way, of course: How come everything from Macromedia [macromedia.com] looks cool, but has the operatability of some cheapo shareware app?
Weird.
Finally, a virtual desktop like my physical one (Score:3, Interesting)
Based on some of the screenshots, it looks like I can finally emulate my own physical desktop with my virtual desktop... and with it all the benefits of "security through obscurity". For example, I leave my paycheck stubs all over my desk but I'll be damned if someone would bother to put the effort to try to find it!!
Re:Hypocrites (Score:2, Funny)
It will suck even more if MS does it
Re:Hypocrites (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Hypocrites (Score:2, Insightful)
Now something comes out for linux that is seriously just eye candy and it's suddenly the next big thing. For god sakes people at least TRY to be objective.
Re:Hypocrites (Score:3, Informative)
Actually, you're lying through your teeth about that - or are just plain ignorant.
You can turn off ALL of the flashy effects on Windows. See this web page [com.com] for details.
Re:Not to be confused... (Score:2)
The sailors say Brandy, you're a fine girl, what a good wife you would be...
Re:Looks "pretty"... (Score:4, Insightful)
Here's your chance to improve upon it! Go forth and code!
I have a feeling that this project will do neither.
How pessimistic..
-adnans
Re:Looks "pretty"... (Score:2)
Apple is far and away better off having found good uses for 3d in Quartz. Looking glass should look at those examples.
I'd say something more useful would be something akin to an X server for 3D objects, instead of an X->texture transformation. Not discounting textures here, but merely saying we could do much better with using arbitrary managed 3
+5 insightfull??? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Looks "pretty"... (Score:5, Interesting)
I find Sun's choice of pretty background pictures very distracting when attempting to evaluate the merits of this desktop system, and I'm sure this was intended as a marketing trick. I would have preferred shots with a plain background to really see the features of the desktop.
In fact, this [sun.com] shot is nothing more than the background! (and the 3d version of a standard 2d taskbar) They say, "Just imagine what is possible if it were live video." -- It's more like, "Imagine a pratical use for this '3D' desktop".
Re:Looks "pretty"... (Score:3, Funny)
Oh, sweet! Where can I download Looking Glass?!!! I NEED IT NOW!!!
Re:Looks "pretty"... (Score:2)
Geez, dream a little... While I agree it's probably of marginal usefulness a current desktop computer, I think it's a nice mix of 3D and 2D interfaces, that may be really useful in the future.
We'll have to move on sometime, for some tasks. WIMP interfaces won't reign king forever.
Re:When I see it (Score:5, Insightful)
As shown this has glaring issues:
- reading vertical text on side of windows is uncomfortable.
- how is spinning a window around to look at properties better than opening up a separate properties dialog???
- java?
- i would be suprised if human factors has been involved in project to this point.
If/when this comes to market, it will look and behave much different than shown.
Re:When I see it (Score:3, Interesting)
how is spinning a window around to look at properties better than opening up a separate properties dialog???
This seems like they are trying to model the desktop after real world o
Re:When I see it (Score:4, Insightful)
It seems to work for books just fine. Most people are quite adapted to handling vertical text when they're quickly looking for something.
- how is spinning a window around to look at properties better than opening up a separate properties dialog???
For one, it provides a "link" between the action and the result. A common problem in windowing systems is that users perform an action, then have difficulty understanding the response. Anything you can do to eliminate the "magic" of desktop items and make them more like real world objects will be of help to the user.
In addition, the window flip provides a much more natural "mode" than a properties box. Many properties boxes attempt to make up for a lack of modal nature by locking out the underlying application and forcing the properties box on top. This leads to confusion on the part of the user as their application appears to have locked up. Things get particularly bad when popup boxes somehow get hidden in the OS. (e.g. obscured by another window or somehow behind the parent window)
- java?
Why not? Back in the day, OSes were written in ALGOL, Fortran, LISP, and just about everything else. Generally, this would link the OS to its language for a complete development environment. It wasn't until Unix became popular, that C became "standard". It was actually a very poor choice for a language, but the computers of the day really cried out for the performance benefits.
- i would be suprised if human factors has been involved in project to this point.
It strikes me that they already have been involved.
If/when this comes to market, it will look and behave much different than shown.
Who has shown it? In fact, name one company that has succeeded in creating a usable 3D desktop? You probably can't, because all the other implementations are too far out to left field. Sun took the approach of incremental change and appears to have succeeded.
Re:When I see it (Score:5, Insightful)
when Java is Open Source, how will standards compliance be enforced ?
When Sun gets a good answer to that question, I believe they very well may make Java more open than it is, if not make it completely FOSS. Even with it being as 'closed' as it is, it's *still* more difficult to write-once than it should be ( though easily do-able ), just because their compatablility tests don't catch the sometimes subtle bugs that application developers can run into. It's a fine line to walk; Sun doesn't want to force bug-free JVMs before a vendor can release, or they'd never get to market, but the goal of cross-platform compatability requires nearly bug-free or bug-compatable VMs. It's a tough enough task without some independant developer with GPL'd source deciding to release a 'tweaked' version that doesn't support 90% of javax.swing.*, just because they're 'only targeting platform XYZ" or whatever.
It's very well to argue that Java should be open source, but to do so without addressing the issues involved is almost like trolling...
And yes, I agree completely that open source is good, but what exactly does Sun have to gain by your proposal ?
That, and how off-topic is Java from the story at hand? Way, way off-topic.
I mean, c'mon, how frickin' cool would it be to have this kind of 3D desktop running on an Opteron-based Linux machine with a really nice graphics card in it? Damn! You should be singing the praises of Sun right now, what's wrong with you, man, what's it take to get you excited ?!? You get FP and *that* is the best you can do, a tired old "what about Java" bitch ?!? This is about a cool 3D desktop demo going GPL !
Re:When I see it (Score:4, Funny)
Big fucking sticks.
Re:When I see it (Score:3, Insightful)
Open-source software tends to be more standards-compliant than closed-source software, so I imagine a better question would be "unless java is Open Source, how will standards-compliance be enabled?"
Re:When I see it (Score:3, Insightful)
I really suspect Sun's problem is more that they want to retain control over the standard than that they're afraid it will get forked.
Re:When I see it (Score:4, Funny)
I couldn't agree more. The last thing I want to see is a repeat of the gigantic mess caused by the many incompatible Perl and Python forks floating around.
Re:When I see it (Score:5, Insightful)
All that stuff is possible now, unless you're referring to how long it took to do it.
Re:When I see it (Score:5, Informative)
check out and read entire books via the internet [archive.org]
make video phone calls [engadget.com]
perform remote heart surgery [iafrica.com]
Uh, done
Re:When I see it (Score:3, Interesting)
Searches for Anne McCafferey, R.A. Salvatore and Ray Bradbury all resulted in No results. This is not what AT&T promised, nor would it be classified as "soon".
"make video phone calls"
Nice site with a clearly written disclaimer at the top that as of June 4th, 2004, these phones were still months away. Further reading into the text shows that the site highlited these phones because they could "record more than a few seconds of video". That is not
Re:When I see it (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:It's Java (Score:5, Insightful)
Secondly, the Looking Glass project uses OpenGL. I don't care what language you're using, OpenGL performance is limited by the video card and bus, not by the CPU. If your 3D apps are slow, it's because you don't know what the f*** you're doing. That goes for C, C++, Python, Ruby, and yes: JAVA.
Re:It's Java (Score:5, Insightful)
I have, but apparently you haven't. Let me introduce you:
Wurm Online [wurmonline.com]
Cosmic Trip [mycgiserver.com]
Alien Flux [puppygames.net]
In my experience, C or C++ is faster across the board, regardless how piss-poor the coder is.
You mean, in your bias C or C++ is faster across the board. From your first paragraph, it seems obvious that you've never used any serious Java apps. OTOH, it may very well be the result of a new syndrome that's been forming. People don't know they're using Java! A perfect example of this is the #1 BitTorrent app, Azureus [sourceforge.net]. It looks and works so good that no one questions what is under the hood!
Re:Hardware acceleration (Score:2)
Simply, over the last 4 years 2d and font oriented accel has disappeared from the video cards (check features for CLGD and ATI 128 versus radeon and nvidia - fonts are out, 3d is in). This means that some nifty 3D tricks may have become less CPU intensive then simple 2D animation.
Re:touchscreens (Score:2)
Re:Panoramic Backdrops (Score:3, Informative)
You can take off that shiny hat now.