Participate

Remote computer control application

"A project inspired by Google docs - an online platform where people collaborate in text documents. This application differs, however, by making your computer the collaborate platform."

Participate is a custom built application intended to simplify collaboration. It works as a remote computer control application - allowing a user to take control of another persons screen, keyboard and mouse in real-time from a public webpage.

The project is joined by two systems: A Desktop application and a webpage. The webpage is the central command from which you can take control of other computers. The computers you want to remote control must have the application installed and running.

image The webpage has two states. One is displaying computers running the application (left). When selecting a user you access the screen of that computer (right). Maximizing the screen will give you control of mouse and keyboard.
This video shows how the application works. The computer in the middle is visiting a public webpage, while the computer to the right and the left are running the application.

The application is built using webRTC, peer.js, Electron.js, Robot.js and includes a webserver and peerserver. The following image shows how the entire system is structured.

image System architecture. Arrows indicate how the desktop application, peerserver and webserver connects.

The application is part of an exploration, investigating the question: "Would more creative applications in software be unleashed if we didn't start by saddling designers and developers with privacy and security concerns?" I wanted to explore what we could do with software if instead of always thinking safety first, we put interaction first and safety last. The intention was to break from the restrictions and limitations that comes with safe and private applications.

The Participate application was featured in my ITP Thesis project called "Safety Last". Watch the live stream from my final presentation to hear more about my thoughts and intentions behind the project.

This Experiment was featured in my ITP thesis project called Safety Last. See project presentation in ITP thesis archive.

The source code and more information about the project can be found on Github.