Looking Glass

[ElderSnake90]

It's GPL software, couldn't some voluntary team pick it up and help revive it?

[HAWXLEADER]

NO SOUND??? USE 240P( only cos your computer can barely handle 320p how'd u expect it to be with SOUND?!)

[TheAlienDragons]

[*] SUN, we miss you.

[vaibzzz123]

@javier29m90 hahaha nice one

[EFKA526]

RIP Sun... A nice company with great software, now the corpse of Sun is raped by the bastard necrophile zombies from Oracle. RIP OpenSolaris, I hope Illumos will gain some success.

[cjellwood]

omg, Jon Schwartz looks like every IT manager in the world rolled into one!

[buffboynick]

The Military Project known as " Project Looking Glass" blows this one out of the water lol

You should research that "looking glass" over there ----->

[soekhoe]

Heh, even if apple would sue SUN for this, SUN would destroy the whole OSX because they pretty much own UNIX.

Jobs: Your project looks like the OSX GUI, stop production or we'll sue you.

Schwartz: OSX is based on UNIX, stop production or we'll sue you.

[rjgoverna]

@soekhoe I don't even know why I waste my time with this but... Sun owns Unix? Are you on drugs? And do you know what is Apple's market cap compared with Sun's? Give me a break...

[markoresko]

This code is under GPL and available. Maybe someone could continue it.

[locojianna]

seriously i know the guy who made the looking glass. stupid apple

[rjgoverna]

@locojianna yeah right... you know "the guy who made the looking glass"... freakin hilarious! Sun is a one man show!

[eivissano]

Very nice.

Makes me think of of Compiz (Compiz Fusion).

[vegassteven]

Good video. According to a quote from wikipedias article tho this project is all but dead. Windows and mac are far more productive than this os. In the end, productivity wins iut

[qczackf]

As a developer...i envy this project. You guys are really doing something amazing here. Time for change...

[rjgoverna]

@qczackf You are a developer and find this amazing? Time for what change? Post-It's behind windows? Transparency? Don't you even know this project was cancelled? The last stable release is from 2007! Sun in the meanwhile is no more.

[qczackf]

@rjgoverna Now after trying to insult me with questions let me answer them. Not a developer of this project. I find it amazing and yes it would be nice if Linux/Mac/Windows would stop being such babies and do something that "IS ACTUALLY INNOVATIVE". I could care less if this was canceled, it's still amazing. I know you have a freedom of speech, but don't be a freaking douche bag.

[kwvideo]

Writing a note of the back of a page. remind of the iPad hidden bookshelf. Apple must of copied this!!!

[ComradeSlice]

@kwvideo iBooks was a copy of something called Delicious Library. Apple hired everyone that worked on Delicious Library before they made it. How quaint.

[Kand1nSky]

jonathanischwartz,wordpress,co­m/2010/03/09/

read it

[grondinm]

wow great interface...2bad it was dropped...maybe they(or someone) will bring it back...

[Mark19960]

Apple will patent this in a few years and say they invented it.... sort of like multi-touch and friends.

[rslrdx]

and that was 2003!

[625Mel]

go to MYST.. and its real !!!

[jmans25]

why was this discontinued?

it is better than vista, 7 (aero), compiz( a little), etc.

was it because of oracle?

[fishslab]

@jmans25 No, it was discontinued in late 2006.

[nhand42]

> why was this discontinued?

I would guess because Sun's budget was drying up, their core market was servers, and the desktop market wasn't a priority. If Sun's budget hadn't dried up I but you would have seen this as the default desktop in every major company.

Lots of the underlying ideas from Looking Glass ended up in Linux anyway (Sun Java Desktop shares a lot of code with GNOME). Some of the effects aren't there but you can see the Xorg extensions, the composite manager, etc.

[pokor1nk0]

Although it is practically dead project, please remember that we developers were very serious about this kind of UI -- the usage of 3D-ness in 2D-based desktop environment.

And please remember that this demo was given back in 2003 (well before OS X Leopard and Vista).

We were really really serious...

I'm totally ashamed that I couldn't drive the project successfully. But back then, Sun started became very very tight in terms of financial, and it was tough for us too... (lame excuses)

[Uejji]

Mr. Kawahara, I remember watching this video (and others) 6 years ago and being extremely excited about Project Looking Glass. Please don't listen to people who disrespect your work. Even though Looking Glass may never become a commercial product, you have without a doubt influenced the 3d desktop products we have today.

Thank you for showing the world this was possible and exciting us all.

[pokor1nk0]

Thanks you for warm message! (p.s. please just call me Hideya :-)

[crisanilucian]

this sucks, i've just read about steve trying to sue Sun over this. good that you guys have some patents registered. the reality is you cannot do "art" just for the beauty of it. ppl with money and influence will always figure out a way to "borrow" and commercialize things like this.

some help to build a community so that we can evolve, while others earn money "inspired" by the community

[senas8]

Thats too bad... would have been a revolution ahead of its time.

[rjgoverna]

@senas8 What revolution? Being able to put a Post-It behind a window?

[qczackf]

@rjgoverna About the post-it note on the back of a window. No I wouldn't use this and probably nobody else would. But the idea of having multiple-surface applications is AMAZING. You sir, are blind. Get your head out of the sand so you can see the BIG PICTURE.

[pokor1nk0]

I'm actually the guy who started Project Looking Glass (hideya kawahara). I just posted notes about the practically death of the project. Please search "Announcement: INACTIVE (PRACTICALLY DEAD) since late 2006" (w/o double-quotes) and check out the announcement (in YT, I cannot put any URL...)

BTW, I agree with you, sold13r45. Sadly, Sun used it as a marketing-ware, and didn't become serious about it...

sigh...

Hideya

[pokor1nk0]

NOTE: Google can find the announcement. Currently Yahoo cannot. So, please use Google to find the page.

[walter0bz]

This would be interesting in conjunction with the head-tracking tech...

[Skurgefaust]

dam i wish i knew more about my computer....

[fairyheli2]

i can't get it to work in ubuntu intrepid, it can't install the lg3d core so i can't use it as a window manager :-(

[54spiritedwill54]

Solaris 10 is.

[adi211095]

i'm using the beta right now.I gotta say, it looks great!

[sold13r45]

XGL/AIGLX are much better approaches technically. The ideas behind Looking Glass could be implemented as plugins in Compiz, and if any of them are really useful then I don't doubt they will be. Right now, however, the Looking Glass project is essentially dead. Sun used it to drum up some quick publicity, but never really made it available to the community or put enough resources behind it to drive it forward. They could have done either one and it would have taken off, but they did neither.

[ProjektFuBAr]

XGL and Compiz are overrated. :)

[markoresko]

@sold13r45 Its source is available under GPL. What more?

[vsimoul]

not good enough

[sneakybooboo]

sorry. rather search for pfoject looking glass live cd because the sun website only has videos.

[sneakybooboo]

google project looking glass and download the live cd if u wanna test it. i did that and i think its awesome. when i get my new laptop i'll experiment with ubuntu on my old one and see if i can get this to work on it as my main OS.

btw linux all the way. i've never seen Vista do this.

[spikespeigel]

sun is behind a lot of linux distros lol

and yea it is able to run in linux.

its available now :)

[theinsane102]

how do you get looking glass

[iokone]

Looking Glass looking pretty good. Unix system really kick ass. They are the best. I have been using 3D desktop for a while, from beryl to C fusion. They are very useful. I can really work on many thing at once. go back and for just by scrolling the mouse. Plus all the amazing effect. You know... windows is really something out of day. You just can't know how computer development has been by using windows.

[xixaq]

This looks cool, but as far as I can tell, it doesn't solve any problems. Being able to flip a window and write comments on the back of it might be useful, but do you need a 3D environment to do that? No, this is fancy, but nothing more. As screens grow larger, we'll probably have more use for tiling window managers, like Ion. You won't want to maximize your web browser on a 30" screen, for instance, because the lines of text will be way too long.

[incrediblebob]

i'm got linux and windows:)

[kziin]

Ho hum. All of these things that are presented as serious innovation are not. Rather, they are natural and obvious extensions of the current and OLD UI paradigm. Very few of these "innovations" are little more than clever "parlor tricks". None of them actually does much to change or significantly enhance the man to machine interface. A true revolution will come from changing the UI metaphor, not putting a different shade of lipstick on the pig we have.

[fidziek]

Bullshit. Where's the Revolution?

I saw these "effects" in games from 1990's.

Maybe I just don't understand...

[LinuxGalore]

Looking glass and the 3D effects have been around since around 2003, Apple wont have a working 3D desktop with effects until OSX 10.5 comes out. Linux thanks to compiz-fusion has had 3D effects for two years now.

[leorockway]

does anybody know when compiz came out? it looks like the people from sun were the inspiration for it (kudos to sun and their free software)

and... you can't do that on a mac. and mac is good but their fanboys suck.

[KylBlz]

Wow sun rules! thats the CUTTING edge of dev right there. good job guys :'D

[vinko]

kigawman, to answer you question. Apple's CoverFlow did not copy any of SUN's Looking Glass. That technology was acquired by Apple in 2005 to incorporate in iTunes, and iTunes Store. It is only in 2007 that Apple publicly showed off the CoverFlow technology in the upcoming version of Mac OS X (10.5).

[vinko]

Unfortunately, I do not really want to get into this OS battle, but only to clarify. Microsoft's Windows Vista's "Windows Flip 3D" is an obvious copy of Looking Glass, but then that is not new for Microsoft as they often plagiarize other competitors.

[W1z3k]

@vinko Only to clarify who steals what in what fashion:

goo.gl {slash} 6Gdd

[entouchable]

@vinko plagiarize is entirely the wrong word. In case you're jaded, building in the best parts of other pieces of work is a GOOD thing. And if it infringes on another company's IP then they'll pay for it (be it through court order, or licensing fees). But if the end result is the consumer gets an amazing product why hate?

[zakoz]

Today I DLed the LG+Slax LiveCD and peeked. I thought it was worth exploring farther; like the future. Now I see that this was uploaded a year ago. Is it still being developed? I'm running PCLOS 2007 +Beryl w/ NVidia. Does TexStar know about this? How about the PCLOS Beautification Project?

[CerebralGump]

Looking Glass is still being developed yes.

[jammaconnection]

Mac made it before

[vinko]

We do not need any more OS specific comments to stir up the viewers of this video.

Please refrain from posting any OS specific comments.

[entouchable]

@vinko please refrain from posting OS specific comments .... As you have already done?

[pedrooswaldodj]

@jammaconnection This was made in 2003

[vinko]

All, please stop the bad mouthing of the various different OS's. This video was intended to show what SUN was thinking about with their OS R&D.

They did not copy these concepts from any existing OS's. Whether other OS's including Mac OS X and Windows Vista copied their ideas is not the question here.

Although, this video was produced long before Mac OS X was in public beta and definitely before Longhorn (aka. Windows Vista) was a project.

[vinko]

BTW: I have been using the Mac for the past 22 years and it is my tool of choice for computing.

[kigawman]

I was looking at the CD changing 3D visuals and I wanted to ask You, Did Mac OS'X Afterglow copied that style from looking glass long before it's release?

[kigawman]

Sorry. I made a mistake. It's Coverflow. Not Afterglow. I don't use a Mac. However, I'm just curious because Coverflow and the 3D CD changing visual kinda look the same in concept?

[s3ts]

Obviously, some people are complete idiots who don't know jack shit about computers. Just because you have a mac (I do, btw, so you have no excuse) doesn't mean you somehow know more about computers than people who study these things. Before you say something really stupid and untrue, study.

[Sinjinator]

Laame. Mac OS X has had similar functionality for a few years already. Flipping widgets to change prefs on the back, videos and windows that are not static/square and continue to update in any shape or placement (even in the dock), video backdrops, the 3 panels 'surrounding' you done in iChat AV(multi-user video chat) ... BTDT. What I'm NOT seeing is how this will help users be more productive.

[musback]

omg, are you serious? in contrary to many mac-users (girls, grandma's and lame mac fanboys), some pc/linux-users actually have 20 windows open and actually WORK on a computer...They do more than just listen music and play with photobooth... man if you even DARE to say that this is stolen from apple. I swear to God i will come and hit you

i'd love to use this... billions of opportunities!

[Sinjinator]

Ahh yes, the typical psychotic pc/linux weenie. IT IS STOLEN FROM APPLE. See if you can handle this concept: Apple innovates, others imitate. Photobooth...ha ha ha.

[CerebralGump]

Dude, this is not "stolen from Apple", this is from Sun Network San Francisco 2003. If you want to assert that Sun "stole" this from Apple, you'll have to provide support for that.

[KylBlz]

no they didnt, nothign there is stolen from mac, i have OSX and it cant do that O.o

[vinko]

The other commenters are suggesting Apple copied the design for their upcoming version of Mac OS 10.5

[theinsane102]

the 3d dock is in leopard which was in looking glass first but the dock was copied from apple

[Sinjinator]

You CAN use it... get a Mac.

[roycecil]

Perhaps an ERP application can use 3D Data Visualization to present their data. Make sense ?? Think and you can know why 3D is better than 2D . Any kid can come up with 1000 business scenario like that.

[mohawke]

First OS X is BSD Unix, not made by Apple. Second, the widgets in OS X appeared later, the idea was stolen from Konfabulator imo - now Yahoo widgets - project looking glass was already under development when widgets were introduced into OS X. Fourth, OS X has no 3-D desktop. Fact is, Windows and now Apple are taking their ideas from Unix, Linux, and Open source developers.

[KylBlz]

yeah, mac is 1 step behind, windows is MANY steps behind.

[kamikkels]

all the features in Mac OS x that resemble this are copies of functionality from this, sun have been developing project looking glass since early 2002, the first public view of looking glass was late 2003.

[inkswamp]

That's inaccurate. OS X has been public since 2001, OS X Server even earlier (as far back as 1999.) Project Looking Glass wasn't made public until 2003. I don't have much interest in defending one platform over another here, but let's get the timeline correct. It would have been pretty hard for Apple to copy these ideas when it wasn't even shown in public a full 2 years after OS X was out.

[vinko]

If something is not made public to you and I, it does not mean that the ones in the industry do not know about it. Therefore, "making something public" does not prove anything.

This comes from a long time Mac users (22 years) plus Mac OS is my tool of choice.

[rubbiejj]

Works fine on my Ubuntu pc. Go Linux and Solaris!

[florixc]

it's made in java :( in c++ the reactivity should be better.

[ShaiSoft]

Great job Sun!

[vinko]

Windows is famous in copying just the look of other OSs (Motif and Mac OS), but fail to understand or copy the "look and feel" and usabilities of the other OSs.

Vista is a bad choice right now, because its security features are totally rewritten. Microsoft finally admitted that the past Windows OS are poorly designed so Vista had been redesigned, but security requires maturity and seasoned like all the other OS options out there.

[vietmade]

Is it better than Windows Vista?

[vinko]

Windows Vista isn't the one to compare to. When considering an OS the looks is one of the last thing to consider.

[motavis]

windows and linux is free as well looks like Vista wonder how much microsoft stole from them. This project has been out for a while.

[f3d]

l33t! xd

[bigtisas]

Pretty cool stuff. Is it a free download?

[Liquidmark]

Solaris 10 is.

[CerebralGump]

Looking Glass is open source, and therefore, free.

[murcielagotr]

cool, i will try it asap:D