Surface computers linked via internet allow for new ‘mixed-presence’ collaboration — from ZDNet.com By Chris Jablonski
Researchers at Purdue and the University of Manitoba (in Canada) have developed software that enables users to use tabletop-sized touch displays to analyze complex datasets interactively over the Internet for business and homeland security applications.
The team created a software framework called Hugin that allows for more than one display to connect and share the same space over the Internet. They describe it as a “novel layer-based graphical framework for mixed-presence synchronous collaborative visualization over digital tabletop displays.”
The large displays of surface computers like the one Microsoft introduced in 2007 already allow for multi-user collaboration, but until now, they haven’t been connected for over the internet for mixed-presence interaction.