Controlling Time: What Have We Made?

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In 2003, two of the world’s top computer scientists introduced their latest project: Croquet. David Reed and Alan Kay proposed a radical model for making computers work together on the Internet. With co-authors David Smith and Andreas Raab (old profile!), they developed the ideas over the next three years in conjunction with teams at HP, Intel, the Japanese National Institute of Information and Communications Technology, Viewpoints Research Institute, and the Universities of Wisconsin and Minnesota. Teleplace was formed in late 2005 (originally named Qwaq) to transform this research into a practical commercial system.

And the results are in.

Today’s commercial Teleplace product has created a virtual world that provides true connectivity and workplace collaboration. It does so solidly, and resiliently. It reconnects and recovers automatically after network interruption. Users can come and go without interrupting others.

Indeed, Teleplace may be one of the only systems in the world in which multiple apps and live media can be shared among multiple users using high quality voice. It is certainly the only one to securely do so across mixed standard-grade networks and computers.

The iPhone and iPad versions are probably the only mobile systems with multi-person audio and user-chosen viewpoint. (Try to find anyone else doing even a single live video in one direction over cellular!)

You would think Teleplace would be hard to use, but it isn’t. Some folks just take right to it, while some need a little intro from another user. Most feel it is easier to use than a wiki, or a conference/presentation system, or a media player/recorder, or an IM system, and yet it does all of these in one system.

But maybe the most gratifying part is that it is fun.

All of the contributors combined from all institutions involved never exceeded 40 people. Meanwhile, Cisco has spent billions of dollars to do just some of this. (That’s billions with a “b”.) How did we do it?

Because in 2003, David Reed and Alan Kay had figured out how to control time.

It is a trick, and it is very powerful.

Next: Weapons of Math Destruction