5/27/2016
`
`WWW Fall 94 CSCW papers
`
`All of the following can be found in the Computer Supported Cooperative Work section of the online
`proceedings.
`
`Tak Woo presented the Yarn system for synchronous collaboration. Like many of the collaboration
`systems presented at the conference, a unmodified Web browser is used simply to coordinate the initation
`of some sort of collaboration, in this case, a collaborative meeting scheduler. Once there, you either
`
`xhost + the ``collaboration server'' to let the collaboration client into your domain, and take a
`snooze as X commands cross, say, the Pacific (these guys are from Australia); or
`download and compile a copy of their collaboration client on your local machine, which is much
`faster, but can be arbitrarily difficult.
`
`The other approach (which they didn't bother to implement) requires the user to periodically give a
```reload'' command to their browser, a terrible kludge at best.
`
`Ronald Scharf presented a teleoperation scheme for controlling an integrated circuit tester that is
`basically a scanning electron microscope adapted to see voltages and time. These are terribly expensive,
`yet terribly useful, and it makes sense to have just a few of them around and make it possible for many
`engineers to have infrequent access to them.
`
`So after arranging for your chip to be placed in the tester, you fire up your favorite browser, which
`presents you with the latest image of the chip along with a waveform for the signal being observed. If
`you want to look at different signal, you simply press a button to change the view.
`
`The problems they have with this is ensuring only one person is using it at a time and ensuring only the
`people they want to use it may use it. They also don't have any way of steering the probe using design
`data. Something else must tell you where a particular net is on the wafer.
`
`The Mercury project at USC was one of the neatest things presented. They placed a teleoperated robot on
`the Web, one which could move in three dimensions and blow a quick burst of compressed air. The idea
`was to simulate the exploration of a nuclear test site (the robot actually sits in a disused corner of their
`laboratory, and looks at a completely fabricated, but physical, environment).
`
`A problem they faced was limiting the use of the robot. They solved this by giving random tokens to
`people in a queue, and imposing an energy quota on the operator, limiting the amount of time he or she
`could spend controlling the robot.
`
`Another clever aspect, and one which places them into the realm of collaboration, is the ability of users
`to add to a running, world-visible log of what they find. In this way, other ``researchers'' can see what
`their colleagues have done.
`
`The Upper Atmospheric Research Collaboratory presented an example of teleoperation on a much larger
`scale. They developed a scheme for researchers from around the world to control a Greenland-based
`radar system for atmospheric observation. They have an n-way chat system, and allow graphs to be
`annotated, all in a collaborative (i.e., more than one user) environment.
`
`Ruth Lang of SRI presented their COMET synchronous collaboration system. She drew the distinction
`between the existing asynchronous collaboration environment of the Web (people can put things there for
`others to see, but the others cannot immediately respond, or even know that the information has changed)
`
`http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~%20sedwards/presentations/www1994/cscw.html
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`Facebook's Exhibit No. 1016
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`WWW Fall 94 CSCW papers
`and synchronous collaboration such as shared editors and so forth.
`
`The COMET system uses pseudo X servers to allow existing X applications to be used in a collaborative
`envrionment. A single copy of an application is started, with its display pointed toward a clever X server
`that talks to all the collaborators and mimics the single user that the application expects. On each
`collaborator's end, another clever X server displays broadcast X commands and intercepts events as
`necessary. Floor control is done through simple ``I'm typing now'' rules.
`
`This seemed like the most well-though-out and well-fleshed-out system in the bunch.
`
`Judith Donath presented her Sociable Web project, which, like Will Hill's work (see my HCI comments),
`is an attempt to bring the sense of other people to the net.
`
`It relies on a modified client that is capable of sending ``I'm here'' and ``I'm leaving'' message to the
`server. The server, then, can keep track of all the users viewing a particular page, and can serve as a
`coordinator should two people visiting the same page wish to interact through a ``talk'' session (she
`suggests a hypertext-aware version of talk that would allow URLs to be easily exchanged).
`
`The problems I see with this is that her sense of where you are is a little narrow-minded. I can't imagine
`many netsurfers would spend much time at a single page, although a single server or a group of pages
`seems possible. Additionally, she spoke of the possibility of ``virtual location,'' which would allow you to
`be looking at one page, yet be registered as being at another.
`
`http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~%20sedwards/presentations/www1994/cscw.html
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`2/2
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`Facebook's Exhibit No. 1016
`Page 2