Transcriber: Zvi Baratz Reviewer: Capa Girl
So what I want to talk about today is a system
that we developed at the Systems Networking Research Group at Duke,
and we call it the Virtual White Board. So imagine this scenario:
Let's say I want to collaborate with my collegues
on a project and we want to brainstorm ideas.
Now, we know that a white board or a black board rather,
is a preferred form, and a very popular way
of such kind of idea generation and conceptualization.
You can do lots of stuff: you can draw diagrams,
you can make flow charts, you can make time lines,
scribble stuff, etc. Now, here's the problem --
All of us, me and my colleagues we're in different locations.
So this kind of remote collaboration and interaction
I was just talking about, this is not possible in this circumstance,
because of a limitation by physical location.
And that's where we come in --
We change the way people have thought about
and have used white boards in the past.
And I present - The Virtual White Board,
which is a system that enables remote collaboration on white boards,
among multiple people in different locations.
And the main idea is this:
All of the boards, all of the white boards in the system,
become part of one single virtual interface.
The users draw and write on their white boards,
which is essentially a projected surface on the screen
and they're using a laser pointer,
which is what we use in the case of our prototype,
or they can use a regular board marker to write.
And this information is simultaneously projected
on all the white boards in the system,
and it's universally editable in real time.
Also, there is absolutely no limit to the number
of users who can join this system.
So let's look at a quick system overview to better understand this.
One of the coolest parts, actually, of this system is
or heavy infrastructure like current smart boards do,
which costs between 2,000 - 5,000 bucks.
All we need is a mobile phone,
right now we use an android phone, and a pocket projector.
And a lot of companies are coming out with mobile phones
that are in-built with these kind of pocket projectors
which will deduce the number of components in our device to just one -
The mobile phone.
Now, the fact that we use mobile phones,
makes our technology and makes our system
extremely portable, convenient, and east to use.
And the most important thing is
it reduces the cost to almost zero.
This almost costs us zero bucks to build.
Also there's a huge proliferation of mobile phones
and pocket projectors, which makes this technology viable, usable
and it can reach out and can be used by a lot of people.
So, in the next slide we are going to see
a quick video demonstration of this technology.
So let's hope it works.
in a building called "Hudson Hall,"
and it is being projected simultaneously, in real time
in another room, in a different building,
which is called the Siemens building.
I don't know about you guys, but I think this is magic.
Another cool thing that I forgot to mention
was that it's completely surface independent.
So you do not need to have a regular surface,
a regular surface like a wall, for the system to work.
It can work on any kind of surface, any kind of environment.
So it's like a collaborated, interactive white board "on-the-go,"
which can basically be used anywhere at any point of time.
But on a final note --
What we aim to do is we want to bridge the gap
between the way people interact with physical and virtual interfaces,
and Virtual White Board is just one of the attempts to do the same.
Thank you.
(Applause)