Amado / [AG-USERS] What do you want the AG to be?

Thu Aug 14 12:59:01 CDT 2003

Good afternoon everyone.

I believe this is a great idea by Jennifer.

Kind regards, Amado Gonzalez
graphic simulation laboratory
The Engineering Center
Florida International University
10555 west flagler st.
Miami, Florida 33174
305.348.6486
Amado.Gonzalez at fiu.edu
MSIHPC Consortium
HASTAC Consortium

Allan Spale <aspale at evl.uic.edu>
Sent by: owner-ag-users at mcs.anl.gov
08/06/2003 03:22 PM
Please respond to Allan Spale

        To:     Jennifer Teig von Hoffman <jtvh at bu.edu>
        cc:     ag-users at mcs.anl.gov, ag-tech at mcs.anl.gov
        Subject:        Re: [AG-USERS] What do you want the AG to be?

Jennifer,

Thanks for faciliating this discussion.  It has been interesting reading
the responses and thinking about what could be done.  This might be a good
time to pitch having meetings for a formal AG development group. 
Just as there is an AG end-user documentation project (AGDP), I think that
the AG would benefit from having an AG Development Project (AGDev).  This
could appear as a SourceForge like site.  People could post ideas for
projects along with contact information and interested developers could
latch onto these projects.  This site could also contain contribute
development documentation as projects are in progress or become completed
to AGDP also.  On a related note, just as there are AG Townhall meetings
to discuss plans for the AG in general, there could be developer meetings
based on whatever topics AG developers would need to talk about.

On Wed, 6 Aug 2003, Jennifer Teig von Hoffman wrote:

> Thanks everybody for sharing ideas. 
> 
> How important is it to people to be able to connect to the AG through 
low-bandwidth connections (say, the web)? 
> 

If the AG were to be used "in the field" where wireless is your only
connection to the world, low-bandwidth would be a really good option (for
someone using a Pocket PC type device or a TabletPC).  Also, I would like
to be able to use the Access Grid from home, but that just is not going to
happen if I just have DSL.  So, if there is an interest down the road of
allowing regular Joe and Jane User to use the Access Grid, maybe there
should be some DSL-level Access Grid connectivity (which I guess is
provided to some extent by VRVS).  Considering what a regular user would
have (one screen at 1024x768), the transmitting of video could be done at
half the size that there are now (I think that video is sent out in medium
VIC window form now) and use a lower quality codec. 

So, another tangent to the discussion...if you could take the AG anywhere
outside of your existing node, what would you do with it?  What
applications would you like to run? 

Imagine a law enforcement scenario.  Each police car has a GPS system and
a TabletPC.  Radio communication could go through a wireless connection to
AG or use the existing police band for AG data/video/audio transmission. 
Their "venue" could be all the officers assigned to monitor a particular
area or special event (like a convention somewhere).  Low-bandwidth VIC
and RAT could be used for communication and a shared application that
people could use could be a shared map that allows for annotations and
placement of the GPS-enabled police vehicles on the map.  Besides having
map annotations, there could be an option to get map overlays that show
where recent crimes have occurred or residents have called in with
complaints.  In this manner, data/programs and collaboration are in the
field where they need to be. 

> Do a lot of people out there use their Gentners to bridge conference 
calls into the AG these days? It used to be a pretty standard thing to 
have a backup conference call in case audio failed; these days we don't 
seem to need that so often but here at BU we do bridge in phone calls from 
time to time for people who don't have AG nodes.
> 

It might be nice to have some sort of generic user interface that
interacts with whatever conferencing solution one has (AP400, XAP400,
etc.) as long as communication can be done via some serial cable.  In this
way, there is one interface that can handle regular day-to-day tasks
related to using the echo cancelling device within the context of an AG
session.

> How strong is the need to be able to record and playback AG sessions? 
How about the need to record and playback data streams along with the 
audio and video (say, the presenter's PowerPoint presentation)?
> 

Record and playback data would be good.  In fact, better yet, why not
include a chapter-section playback that is found on DVD players.  You can
skip to the section you want.  It might also be nice to add a dubbing
feature (audio or video overlay), that allows additional tracks to be
recorded later which would allow for video annotation or maybe even a
later addition of closed captioning spoken audio.

> What sorts of things do you still fly across the country for, instead of 
doing over the AG? Is it because the other people don't have AG nodes, or 
because the social factors are different (going out to dinner and all), or 
for other reasons?
> 

Some other things that EVL would like to see include the following:

                 - Generic application sharing like what is found in 
NetMeeting.

                 - Integration of WBD or some other whiteboard software 
into the
core AG video and audio software.

                 - Workspace docking (I believe that is already in the 
works from
attending AG townhall, but that would be an important thing to push) and
document sharing/distribution that would be good for impromptu small
group/peer-to-peer presentations.

                 - Shared video game jamming sessions (people have to have 
some fun
over the AG too!  :) ) 

Allan
EVL at UIC
Research Assistant

> - Jennifer
> 
> Ivan R. Judson wrote:
> 
> > Nice idea, I like it a lot.
> > 
> > --Ivan
> > 
> > 
> >>-----Original Message-----
> >>From: owner-ag-users at mcs.anl.gov 
> >>[mailto:owner-ag-users at mcs.anl.gov] On Behalf Of Staffon, Jeffery
> >>Sent: Wednesday, August 06, 2003 10:03 AM
> >>To: 'Jennifer Teig von Hoffman'; ag-users at mcs.anl.gov
> >>Subject: RE: [AG-USERS] What do you want the AG to be?
> >>
> >>
> >>This might sound kind of far fetched but here goes. I would 
> >>like to see an operator-less AG node. This would include 
> >>voice activated applications such as PowerPoints, Web 
> >>sharing, etc and voice activated AG node control. 
> >>
> >>Best Regards, 
> >>
> >>Jeffery D. Staffon 
> >>Argonne National Laboratory - West 
> >>Manager, Information Services/NPS 
> >>Phone: 208.533.7037 
> >>Cell: 208.520.4510 
> >>Fax: 208.533.7768 
> >>Email: staffon at anl.gov 
> >> 
> >>
> >>
> >>-----Original Message-----
> >>From: Jennifer Teig von Hoffman [mailto:jtvh at bu.edu] 
> >>Sent: Tuesday, August 05, 2003 1:36 PM
> >>To: ag-users at mcs.anl.gov
> >>Subject: [AG-USERS] What do you want the AG to be?
> >>
> >>Greetings everybody,
> >>
> >>At today's AG Town Hall, Ivan Judson suggested that we start 
> >>a discussion on this mailing list to get some input on what 
> >>sorts of features people would like to see in future releases 
> >>of the AG Toolkit. We want to encourage people to think big! 
> >>This isn't just for AG 2.x, but 3.x and beyond. Based on your 
> >>responses, we'll be compiling a document to feed into the 
> >>requirements process for future versions.
> >>
> >>Here are a few things to ponder; do these possibilities appeal to you?
> >>
> >>   * Exposing grid services in a virtual venue, so you can 
> >>launch a globus
> >>     job from within a venue
> >>   * Allowing large files to be stored in venues
> >>   * Advanced services related to scheduling (AG scheduling, grid
> >>scheduling?)
> >>   * Recording sessions
> >>   * Allowing access from non-AG interfaces, such as the web
> >>   * Mitigating the impact of working across time zones 
> >>(anybody got ideas on how?)
> >>
> >>Try thinking about it from this angle too: What normal daily 
> >>things do you do in your work which you'd like to see 
> >>integrated into the AG? For example, perhaps you use a 
> >>microscope you'd like to share with your colleagues? 
> >>
> >>Your opinions and ideas are very important; please do chime in!
> >>
> >>Cheers,
> >>Jennifer
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> 
> 

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