prosthetic knowledge

The Digital Desk 

An experimental gestural interface developed in 1991 by Pierre Wellner combining projection and computing turning a physical desktop into a computer desktop-like environment - video embedded below:

The idea for using cameras and projectors together to form an interactive desk-top system was first proposed by Pierre Wellner. He began his PhD work by considering the potential benefits of using video in the office environment. This quickly led to the conclusion that the desk-top was the most important focus of office work and that there was great potential for any system that eased the transition between paper and electronic information (Wellner 1993). The idea was tested in a project that used video scanning to translate selected foreign words from paper documents lying face-up on the desk. 

You can find out more about the project at Xerox Research Centre’s website here, as well as this online presentation (very 90’s HTML) here