Is there a Box in your future?
George G. Robertson
Principal Researcher
Visualization and Interaction Research
Microsoft Corporation
Star Cops and Box
1987 BBC science fiction
detective series
Nathan Spring is
Commander of a new
International Space Police
Force in 2027
Box is a small digital
personal assistance that
Nathan carries with him
Box Characteristics
“Look for connections … that’s any
connection, however tenuous.”
Nathan Spring
Voice communication
Monitor all activity in vicinity
Access to information world wide
Ability to display & interact with
information on any display surface
Problem solving assistant
Can we build Box now?
Use PPC Phone or Smartphone
Voice communication
Monitor all activity in vicinity
Access to information world wide
Ability to display & interact with
information on any display surface
Problem solving assistant
Related Work
Pebbles – Myers (CACM 2001)
Collaboration
Remote mouse (or remote control)
PDAs  PCs
SharedNotes – Greenberg (Personal
Technologies 1999)
Shared notes
PDAs  shared displays
Related Work (cont.)
Pick and Drop – Rekimoto (CHI 1998)
Moving objects
PDA  display
WinCuts – Tan (CHI 2004)
Shared window regions
Laptop  shared display
Dynamo – Izadi (UIST 2003)
Exchanging media
Laptop  shared display
Related Work (cont.)
Personal Server – Want (UbiComp 2002)
Use of surrounding computing infrastructure
A portable personal identity
Display-free device  networked resources
Personalized Shared Ubiquitous Devices
– Hilbert & Trevor (Interactions 2004)
Documents accessed via browser
PC or PDA  display
Box 0.9 – What Might It Do?
Portable personal identity (secure)
Portable personal workspace
Access to things I’ve been working on
Access through the cloud (or cached)
Display my work on any nearby display
Share my work with others
Port my work from one location to another
Building Box 0.9 – Initial Steps
Collaboration with Dan Olsen @ BYU
XICE – Extended Interaction Everywhere
Wall
Display
Pocket PC
Phone
Smartphone
Building Box 0.9 – Initial Steps
Application runs on mobile device
Shared display used for display & input
XICE manages
scene graph
App
running
here puts
window
up on
shared
display
Building Box 0.9 – Initial Steps
Either mobile device can initiate window
management operations
App
running
here puts
2nd
window
up on
shared
display
Building Box 0.9 – Initial Steps
Input can be local to mobile device
Or on the shared display
Building Box 0.9 – Initial Steps
Input can be redirected to enable shared
applications
Input
from
here
Building Box 0.9 – Initial Steps
Input can be redirected to enable shared
applications
Is
processed
here
Building Box 0.9 – Next Steps
Shared multi-scale applications
Notepad
Outliner
Sticky notes
Drawing
PowerPoint lite
IE
Excel lite
Your Own Box
Would you like one of these?
Questions?
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