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Thursday, February 14

Yesterday we presented our three favorite ideas to Jay. They were:

1. Marscope: a tangible interface for viewing panoramic image data. Jay liked this, but thought it was more appropriate to postpone work on it until 2003, when the HCC team will be working more closely with the VIS team.

2. Focus of attention study. We proposed to study different patterns of interaction in groups with displays. For example, two people interacting at a MERboard-like wall mounted display, one person presenting to a group using a MERboard-like display, and a group of people focused on a display shown on the top of a table.

3. Multi-modal data input to the MERboard. We proposed to build an intelligent toolset for inputting data from the digital and physical worlds into the MERboard. Our initial proposals for tools were (1) a digital camera and smart data delivery method, which would enable users to take pictures of physical documents and have them appear in MERspace as readable, usable works, and (2) a digital voice recorder and smart data delivery method, which would enable users to take audio clips from the physical world, and have them appear in MERspace complete with author attribution.

Jay decided that we would pursue idea 3 for the short-term, because he was excited about the possibility of us creating something that could actually run on the 2003 mission. I'm really excited about creating something that will run on the 2003 mission!!

-Jack

We got Jay's office phone number! 650-604-6060
We got the meetme number for the conference room at Ames! 650-640-3394

We just met with Terry Winograd. Some URLs:

Post Brainstorm paper
Guidable Cameras
Persistence

Team NASA has been restructured as a CDR research project. Wendy and I are pumped, and we're ready to build some cool prototypes. Our strategy for moving forward will be to present a mocked up prototype to the HCC team at Ames every three weeks.

Jack found this cool URL:

http://graphics.stanford.edu/papers/virtual_auditorium/

The eBEAM demo CD has arrived. Link of this week...Video Conferencing!

1. Cleaned up the loft space. Removed all the unnecessary wood and stuff.

2. Began to install Mimio - a system that converts the ordinary white board into an electronic whiteboard.

3. Looked at the available variants of the electronic whiteboards and started benchmarking them.

Visit this url to see what we are looking at:

Brother.com

4. Benchmarked the ebeam technology.

5. Trying to get "VCR" installed

URL of the week: ebeam

1. Had a Post Quarter Meeting and discussed "stuff" that we did over the last quarter, things that we liked and things that we need to improve upon.

2. Came up with some ideas for prototypes to build.

3. Made enquiries regarding "Anoto".

4. Made plans to schedule a meeting with Terry.

1. Just completed meeting with Roxana and Ted from NASA. Also present were: Vic, Uri, John, Andy, Jack, Srihari and Alvin.
   Critical issues covered include:
   
   
   
   • Structure of a workday during the MER mission, from Science assessment meeting to SOWG.
     
   • MER board development and utility
     
   • Needs of and difficulties faced by NASA scientists
     
   
   
2. Currently undiscussed issues that were on the agenda:
   
   • Possible solutions the team has come up with so far

3. Next steps: Complete prototype, watch the video that NASA passed to the team

4. Options we intend to examine for the prototype:
   
   • Automatic video cameraman
     
   • Image processing tool - platform independent browser
     
   • 2 angled approach to documentation - combining audio and visual recordings with documenteer's work. Seacheability.
     
   
   There are some new photos in the team's shared folders. Check them out. Jack, could you load them to the album when you're free?
   
   

Focus on our attention presently: Benchmarking

Emails:

1. Roxana and Ted from NASA (Jack)
   
2. John about IDEO (all)
   
3. Xerox (Jack)
   
4. KnowWare (Alvin)
   

Benchmarking documentation (1+ page each):

1. iRoom (Jack)
   
2. IBM blueboard (Jack)
   
3. Annoto (Srihari)
   
4. CIFE (Srihari)
   
5. Other Collaborative softwares (Srihari)
   
6. Wendy Ju's recommendation of papers - CiteSeer, ACM (Alvin)
   
7. MIT - media lab (Alvin)
   

Some brainstorming has been done. Using a listed number of assumptions on what the project proper is going to be, we have come up with a number of ideas (rather general so as not to limit ourselves initially) of plausible things we can do for this project. Team NASA is still in the defining stage of the project. Much more has to be confirmed. We'll do so on Tuesday, 6th November 2001, when we either meet our liasons or contact them via phone/video conferencing.