The multi-Media workstation

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.