Split-Screen Tech Doubles Computer Use

 

New technology from Microsoft Research India in Bangalore could end the waiting game in offices with limited computers. Researchers are developing software that splits a computer screen in two halves, each side with its own operating system, desktop, applications, cursor and keyboard.



The technology could help small businesses and schools in developing countries reduce their computer costs and could even work in homes where more than one family member needs access.

"At the most basic level, we are allowing two users to work completely independently on the same machine, sharing both the processor and monitor," said Udai Singh Pawar, assistant researcher and project leader.



The innovation could salvage time otherwise wasted as one person waits to use a computer.

The working prototype uses a standard 19-inch screen, but can also work on 15 and 17-inch screens, which are more common at small businesses in India, said Pawar. The solution is software-based and does not require that a company trade their current PC for a new one. They would simply need to install the software and plug in a second mouse and keyboard.



The software enables two sessions of Windows to share the computer's processor. It also divides the screen in half, running one operating system on the left and the other on the right. If necessary, a user can move her cursor to the other half of the screen, which opens the door on sharing and collaborating with documents.

The two workers can also open up a third area on the screen — Pawar calls it an "airlock" — where the users can place shared files and resources. Pawar said that the system is optimal for tasks such as data entry and simple word processing, where screen real estate is not a problem. It can also work well in scenarios where the two people need to share data across their screens or work on documents together.

"If we have a shared display we have a shared point of focus," said Jeremy Birnholtz, a postdoctoral fellow with the Knowledge Media Design Institute at the University of Toronto.

But sharing in such close proximity could also bring up permission problems, he said.

"There's a trickiness to the boundaries in terms of what's mine and what's yours. How much access do you have to it? Or am I still the owner?" he said.

The Microsoft team will be investigating these issues and more in field trials scheduled to start in mid-May, so it could be a couple of years before the split screen is bringing coworkers together.

 

 
 

What's The Greatest Web Software Ever Written?

Enter the Apache Web Server. "There wasn't an established Web server when it first came out," recalls Brian Behlendorf, co-founder with Roy Fielding of the Apache Group. Most early Web site managers used NCSA HTTPd, the early Web server developed by Robert McCool at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (the source of the Mosaic browser). But the HTTPd server didn't scale smoothly as traffic mounted, it couldn't easily manage more than one Web site at a time, and it needed more APIs--a lot more--to interface with back-end systems. "The first Web sites were having common problems with the amounts of traffic," recalls Behlendorf.

The original NCSA HTTPd was improved by a virtual community of Web managers that became known as the Apache Group. In its second version, the Apache Group tore apart the server and rebuilt it as a series of modules, which became the Apache Web Server 2.0. (The latest version is Apache 2.2.4.) The new design let different contributors work on different parts of the server without holding up one another. The server advanced quickly.

In 1998, IBM announced it was dropping its own Web server development and contributing to the Apache Group. IBM said it would include Apache with its WebSphere middleware. The move had the effect of winning acceptance for open source code in business and drawing attention to Apache as it was pitted against its chief rival, Microsoft's Internet Information Server.

The Apache Group was one of the first open source projects to develop a product that competed successfully with commercial code. Apache's market share has fallen off its peak of just under 70% of active sites on the Web, but Apache still powers 66.9 million Web sites to Microsoft IIS's 35.3 million, according to Netcraft's April report. Support for Apache comes from a variety of commercial sources, including IBM and Covalent Technologies.

Apache was a volunteer project in which skilled developers exchanged ideas, parceled up work, eliminated bugs, and committed finished code to a central code management system--Behlendorf hosted the original contributions on his own computer. Apache addressed the user scalability problem and moved on to develop a tight linkage with PHP, the scripting language that would become dominant on the Web, tying disparate elements of sites together and supplying the small applications that tied databases to Web pages.

The quick access to data meant pages could be refreshed with the latest information or tailored to the individual with specialized data. Apache was linked tightly to an early open source database, MySQL, a system originally designed for fast reading and serving of data rather than data storage, a property suited to the new Web.

In its example of timeliness, innovative technology, volunteer development, and ability to match commercial competitors, the Apache Web Server set a standard that many have sought to emulate but few have matched. Most of all, it enabled "the network effect," where the concerns and passions of one person connected with those of others and resulted in the construction of new Web sites, swift communications, and virtual communities by an endlessly diverse set of builders.