[AG-TECH] AG Grid dream system

[Brian Corrie]

Hi Don,

> It's interesting to hear all the comments about AG enhancements.  At
> the same time, I would humbly suggest that "the other end" is very
> important, too.  Given that most of the Earth's population has minimal
> to no network bandwidth, what kinds of things can we do to make an
> AG-like environment available to those who have been "left out?"
> I think it's interesting that much of this could be attacked by
> asking the question, "what kinds of things can we do to make an 
> AG-like environment available at home?"  Clearly, bandwidth is
> the limiting factor - can we find ways to work with these constraints,
> and can we do so in a way that somehow integrates with the high-level
> features suggested in previous messages?  

I agree, and I think this is where the casual interaction within an AG will
happen. If you look at the CSCW research, casual interaction is fundamental
to how we communicate and work. You can't have casual interaction if you have
to go to a physical AG room to participate. If you want the AG to be a
communication medium that supports such an interaction style then you have to
be able to support the lower end technologies. In some ways this moves away
from the original AG concept of multi-camera, multi-display systems but I
think this is an increasingly important area to consider...

Oddly enough, we were testing out the QuickBridge the other day (works great
by the way) and I fired up a test from home. I was only receiving video (not
sending) and I certainly can't claim to have done extensive tests, but the
video streams that I was receiving (only a couple of course) worked fine.
This is a very interesting area to explore!!!

Cheers,

	Brian