desktop

This paper details the design and evaluation of the Delphian Desktop, a mechanism for online spatial prediction of cursor movements in a Windows-Icons-Menus-Pointers (WIMP) environment. Interaction with WIMP-based interfaces often becomes a spatially challenging task when the physical interaction mediators are the common mouse and a high resolution, physically large display screen. These spatial challenges are especially evident in overly crowded Windows desktops. The Delphian Desktop integrates simple yet effective predictive spatial tracking and selection paradigms into ordinary WIMP environments in order to simplify and ease pointing tasks. Predictions are calculated by tracking cursor movements and estimating spatial intentions using a computationally inexpensive online algorithm based on estimating the movement direction and peak velocity. In testing the Delphian Desktop effectively shortened pointing time to faraway icons, and reduced the overall physical distance the mouse (and user hand) had to mechanically traverse.

This paper describes the concept of Time-Machine Computing (TMC), a time-centric approach to organizing information on computers. A system based on Time-Machine Computing allows a user to visit the past and the future states of computers. When a user needs to refer to a document that he/she was working on at some other time, he/she can travel in the time dimension and the system restores the computer state at that time. Since the user's activities on the system are automatically archived, the user's daily workspace is seamlessly integrated into the information archive. The combination of spatial information management of the desktop metaphor and time traveling allows a user to organize and archive information without being bothered by folder hierarchies or the file classification problems that are common in today's desktop environments. TMC also provides a mechanism for linking multiple applications and external information sources by exchanging time information. This paper describes the key features of TMC, a time-machine desktop environment called “TimeScape,” and several time-oriented application integration examples.

This paper presents an approach for tracking paper documents on the desk over time and automatically linking them to the corresponding electronic documents using an overhead video camera. We demonstrate our system in the context of two scenarios, paper tracking and photo sorting. In the paper tracking scenario, the system tracks changes in the stacks of printed documents and books on the desk and builds a complete representation of the spatial structure of the desktop. When users want to find a printed document buried in the stacks, they can query the system based on appearance, keywords, or access time. The system also provides a remote desktop interface for directly browsing the physical desktop from a remote location. In the photo sorting scenario, users sort printed photographs into physical stacks on the desk. The systemautomatically recognizes the photographs and organizes the corresponding digital photographs into separate folders according to the physical arrangement. Our framework provides a way to unify the physical and electronic desktops without the need for a specialized physical infrastructure except for a video camera.