A New Way To Interact With Your Desktop
After hearing about a desktop UI mentioned on nooface from some friends, I decided to try out 3DNA’s 3D Desktop.
I think its a great step in the right direction for an immersive interface with your PC. Basically your desktop becomes a 3D world in which you can walk around and interact with objects within it. You can customize the walls with pictures and set up shortcuts all through the world. Additional worlds are available with a liscenced version. The 3D engine has some left to be desired, I would like to see them use the Quake3 engine or something similar. Currently, when you link an object to an application (for example, a calculator sitting on a desk is linked to calculator.exe), it launches the application window and you can use it. What I would like to see (as would several people who have tried the demo) is some type of 3D interfacing with the application, or a seletion of apps that have a 3D model attached to them. So instead of the calculator window popping up, an actual calculator model will appear in the world for you to pick up use.
Overall, I think its worth trying the demo. If you *really* like it, the liscensed application (which also gives you access to additional features and worlds) is only around 30$US. Give it a whirl. With any luck, we’ll be seeing more interfaces like this in the future.