The multi-Media workstation
Authors: Phillips D. , Vais P. , Perlman S. , Lantz K. , Picco M. 
Published: November 2005

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you very much for
taking time out from the parties to join us for one of the
peripheral activities of SIGGRAPH. As you know, the panel that
we're going to be holding this afternoon is entitled the
Multi-Media Workstation. Before I make some introductory remarks, I
am required to make some administrative remarks.
The first thing is to remind you that the proceedings of all of
the panels are being audio taped this year for subsequent
transcription and publication. What that means, is that when we
have the audience interaction, please come to the microphones that
are scattered around the floor to make your remarks. Otherwise, I
won't be able to recognize you.
The second thing I want to mention to you is that when we're
done at 5:15 we are going to vacate the stage. We're going to
vacate the room so the AV people can lock up. If you want to
continue discussion with us, there's a breakout room that's been
set aside, Salon J, which is down around the corner. So join us
there please, because we'll be scooting out of here right away.
Finally, I need to tell you that the --- for those of you who
are involved --- the Pioneers Reception will be held between 6:00
and 9:00 at the Computer Museum this evening, and buses will leave
from the Boylston Street exit of the Convention Center at 5:00,
5:30 and 6:00. Absolutely no video or audio taping allowed at the
Pioneers. You don't want to hear any of those old reminiscences
repeated.
Let's get on with the business of the afternoon. Multi-Media
Workstations. A couple of preliminary remarks that I think all of
my colleagues up here will agree with. The things that we're going
to be discussing this afternoon do not represent fundamentally new
technologies. You've been able to buy add-in video cards and audio
devices for personal computers and workstations for some years now.
What we are going to be addressing is a confluence of many
technologies --- hardware and software --- that has finally made it
possible to envision a fully integrated system that will
incorporate all of these multi-media capabilities. So we're giving
you a vision of maybe not what you're seeing at this year's
SIGGRAPH, but certainly a SIGGRAPH or two from now, I can
confidently predict that you're going to be seeing workstations
that incorporate the kinds of capabilities that you'll hear
discussed this afternoon.
I should also emphasize that we are not here to give the kind of
a presentation that you might expect from a group of folks --- from
the Media Lab or from Xerox PARC who are going to tell you about
some of the far-out kinds of things that they're working on. I
emphasize again the technologies that are being described this
afternoon are almost here and now, and will soon be available to
you.
Now let me make some comments about how in my particular
environment I came to be interested in the concept of a multi-media
workstation. I think each of us will probably have different
stories to tell about why multi-media is important to the kinds of
applications that we're involved with or envision.