The multi-Media workstation

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you very much fortaking time out from the parties to join us for one of theperipheral activities of SIGGRAPH. As you know, the panel thatwe're going to be holding this afternoon is entitled theMulti-Media Workstation. Before I make some introductory remarks, Iam required to make some administrative remarks. The first thing is to remind you that the proceedings of all ofthe panels are being audio taped this year for subsequenttranscription and publication. What that means, is that when wehave the audience interaction, please come to the microphones thatare scattered around the floor to make your remarks. Otherwise, Iwon't be able to recognize you. The second thing I want to mention to you is that when we'redone at 5:15 we are going to vacate the stage. We're going tovacate the room so the AV people can lock up. If you want tocontinue discussion with us, there's a breakout room that's beenset aside, Salon J, which is down around the corner. So join usthere please, because we'll be scooting out of here right away. Finally, I need to tell you that the --- for those of you whoare involved --- the Pioneers Reception will be held between 6:00and 9:00 at the Computer Museum this evening, and buses will leavefrom the Boylston Street exit of the Convention Center at 5:00,5:30 and 6:00. Absolutely no video or audio taping allowed at thePioneers. You don't want to hear any of those old reminiscencesrepeated. Let's get on with the business of the afternoon. Multi-MediaWorkstations. A couple of preliminary remarks that I think all ofmy colleagues up here will agree with. The things that we're goingto be discussing this afternoon do not represent fundamentally newtechnologies. You've been able to buy add-in video cards and audiodevices for personal computers and workstations for some years now.What we are going to be addressing is a confluence of manytechnologies --- hardware and software --- that has finally made itpossible to envision a fully integrated system that willincorporate all of these multi-media capabilities. So we're givingyou a vision of maybe not what you're seeing at this year'sSIGGRAPH, but certainly a SIGGRAPH or two from now, I canconfidently predict that you're going to be seeing workstationsthat incorporate the kinds of capabilities that you'll heardiscussed this afternoon. I should also emphasize that we are not here to give the kind ofa presentation that you might expect from a group of folks --- fromthe Media Lab or from Xerox PARC who are going to tell you aboutsome of the far-out kinds of things that they're working on. Iemphasize again the technologies that are being described thisafternoon are almost here and now, and will soon be available toyou. Now let me make some comments about how in my particularenvironment I came to be interested in the concept of a multi-mediaworkstation. I think each of us will probably have differentstories to tell about why multi-media is important to the kinds ofapplications that we're involved with or envision.