1. The Idea

WorldBoard can be thought of as special paper that you can write on and place anywhere -- floating in the air, on a wall, ceiling, floor, tree, rock, or surface of a lake. The paper stays put anywhere it's placed and only authorized people who want to see it can see it. This description of a WorldBoard sounds a bit like virtual post-it notes, and to some degree it is. However, a WorldBoard stretches over the entire planet so it's also like a planetary chalkboard for the 21st century. Furthermore, WorldBoard supports not only handwritten messages, but also dynamic media-rich Web pages, audio messages, and stereoscopic 3D images. A WorldBoard is in some sense bigger than the World Wide Web because it allows cyberspace (the digital world of bits) to overlay and appropriately register with real space (the physical world of atoms).