Slashdot Mirror

Many Slashdot readers are "liberal" or "left-leaning" and are opposed to the War on Drugs and drug laws in general. If you don't like the government telling you what you can and cannot put in your body, why are you so eager to have the government tell you what it thinks the best and worst products are? Let the private sector handle this.

An excellent point, my "conservative" or "right-leaning" friend!

I, for one, trust the private sector to make important standards decisions in a just and unbiased manner. I know that can count on private enterprise to interact with the public an an open and honest fashion, and think that your average board of directors has a much better handle on what's going on with their company than some hare-brained committee of bureaucrats has over some bloated, complex government scheme.

Besides, I don't want such important things left up to some government agency that could disappear from the face of the planet in an instant--no, thank you, I'll take private enterprise any day. They're really looking out for what's best for me.

...perhaps we should look to Europe for examples of how to do things properly...

He's done work with mozilla, objective C/GNUStep, ruby, and even created a french Linux users group.

Hooray for Laurent!

get a 1200 dpi, laser quality solid ink printer, that is free black for the lifetime of the printer and cheap color...what about ethernet port standard? duplex printing somes standard? Did I mention 10 pages per minute at full 1200dpi and 10pages per minute at 600dpi.

We have one of these at work. I am strongly considering one of these for my personal use at home. You would be able to pay for one of these in under a year with the kind of use you are describing.

The first journal article on molecular nanotechnology, reproduced
here by permission of the author.

Special thanks from IMM to Jim Lewis for preparing this Web document and
writing the following introduction to the paper:

Presented here is the complete text of the landmark paper that K. Eric Drexler
published in the
in 1981. In this paper he advanced the proposal that the molecular machinery
found in living systems demonstrates the feasibility of doing advanced molecular
engineering to produce complex, artificial molecular machines. A key insight
is his proposal that the engineering problem of designing
proteins to fold in a predetermined way is much easier than the scientific
problem of predicting how natural proteins fold. Appended to this paper
is a short perspective written by Drexler in 1988 in which he notes substantial
progress made in the area of protein structure design compared
to protein structure .

--Jim Lewis

Affiliations listed below for the author are out of date. Current affiliation:
Research Fellow, Institute for Molecular Manufacturing, Palo Alto, California.

[Editor's Note: This page has been optimized for Netscape
2 and later. If you are using a browser, such as Netscape 1.1, that does
not support the html tag for superscripts, please be aware that an
number like "2x109" is meant to be scientific notation for "2
times ten raised to the 9th power," etc.] 1771">Implications for the present

of errors can be minimized through fault-tolerant
design, as in macroscopic engineering.

The emphasis on devices that have general capabilities should be taken in
the spirit of early work on the theoretical capabilities of computers, which
did not attempt to predict such practical embodiments as specialized or
distributed computation systems. The present argument, however, will proceed
from step to step by close analogies between the proposed steps and past
developments in nature and technology, rather than by mathematical proof.
We commonly accept the feasibility of new devices without formal proof,
where analogies to existing systems are close enough: consider the feasibility
of making a clock from zirconium. The detailed design of many specific devices
to render them describable by dynamical equations would be a task of another
order (consider designing a clock from scratch) and appears unnecessary
to the establishment of the feasibility of certain general capabilities.
Protein design
Biochemical systems exhibit a "microtechnology" quite different
from ours: they are not built down from the macroscopic level but up from
the atomic. Biochemical microtechnology provides a beachhead at the molecular
level from which to develop new molecular systems by providing a variety
of "tools" and "devices" to use and to copy. Building
with these tools, themselves made to atomic specifications, we can begin
on the far side of the barrier facing conventional microtechnology.

What can be built with these tools? Gene synthesis i4).

At present, the design of protein systems as complex as a ribosome seems
an awesome task. Indeed, chemists cannot yet predict the three-dimensional
conformation of a natural protein from its amino acid sequence, an ability
that might seem requisite to the design of new proteins. Two considerations
suggest that this obstacle is surmountable: first, the continuing improvement
in protein science and, second, the difference between natural science and
design engineering.

Regarding the first, computer simulation of protein molecules in solution shows promise. As computer technology and
chemical knowledge improve, simulations will increase in accuracy, speed,
and size. Improvement promises new insight into protein behavior and may
permit the designer to modify (simulated) molecules quickly and to observe
their behavior directly.

Regarding the second consideration, natural scientists seek a more general
understanding than design engineers require. Science seeks the ability to
predict the conformations of all natural polypeptides. In attempting this,
protein chemists can search for a minimum-energy chain conformation (in
hope that the protein assumes not a local but a global minimum-energy conformation)
or can attempt to follow the chain-folding
mechanism to find the final conformation (7).
Prediction will be easier if the natural conformation has outstanding stability
or if its folding mechanism proceeds in a sequence of strongly preferred
steps. Unfortunately, natural selection accepts polypeptides that have natural
conformations of low stability (in energetic terms) so long as they exhibit
long lifetimes on the cellular time scale (or renature readily). Similarly,
natural selection accepts any folding process so long as the chain reaches
its natural conformation with essentially 100% yield. Moreover, random mutations
are unlikely to enhance the stability of a particular conformation (or the
predictability of its folding mechanism). Thus, natural proteins tend to
accumulate disruptive changes until they reach the threshold of poor stability
or reduced yield of the natural conformation; only then does natural selection
come into play. Thus, it is little wonder that chemists cannot yet predict
the conformations of natural proteins; they are not designed to fold predictably.

Engineers (in contrast to scientists) need not seek to understand all proteins
but only enough to produce useful systems in a reasonable number of attempts.
An engineer designing a protein that has 1000 amino acids may choose among
some 10randomly selected
sequences would yield a predictable conformation, yet this tiny fraction
represents a vast number of proteins. Through use of strategically placed
charged groups, polar groups, disulfide bonds, hydrogen bonds, and hydrophobic
groups, the engineer should be able to design proteins that not only fold
predictably to a stable structure (sometimes) but that serve a planned function
as well. Even a low success rate will lead to an accumulation of successful
designs. Thus, the difficulties encountered in predicting the conformations
of natural proteins do not seem insurmountable obstacles to protein engineering.

Computer modeling and chemical understanding of biological targets have
already found use in pharmaceutical design (8),
and an artificial 34-residue polypeptide designed to interact with RNA has
been synthesized and found active (9). It has
been proposed to give microcircuitry special sensitivities by adsorbing
engineered proteins onto selected surfaces (10).
The promise of enzyme design in chemical engineering is evident. As protein
science has great promise and difficulties in understanding natural proteins
need not block engineering, the substantial payoffs for improved capabilities
should lead to development of protein design technology. It would be foolish
to underestimate the time and effort that will be required to develop basic
design capabilities and then a broad family of working molecular devices;
still, the path seems clear to achieving the capabilities exhibited by existing
biochemical systems, by copying their features if need be.

A comparison of biochemical to macroscopic components will show the possibilities
of the former by analogy to the latter (Table 1).
With structural members, moving parts, bearings, and motive power, versatile
mechanical systems can be built. Molecular assemblages of atoms can act
as solid objects, occupying space and holding a definite shape. Thus, they
can act as structural members and moving parts. Sigma bonds that have low
steric hindrance can serve as rotary bearings able to support ~ 10-9
N. A line of sigma bonds can serve as a hinge. Conformation-changing proteins
(such as myosin) can serve as sources of motive power for linear motion;
the reversible motor of the bacterial flagellum can serve as a source of
motive power for rotary motion. The existence of this range of components
in nature indicates that power-driven mechanical systems can be constructed
on a molecular scale.

Move things Conformation-changing proteins, actin/myosin
Motors Turn shafts Flagellar motor
Drive shafts Transmit torque Bacterial
flagella Bearings Support moving parts

Sigma bonds Containers Hold fluids
Vesicles Pipes Carry fluids Various
tubular structures Pumps Move fluids Flagella,
membrane proteins Conveyor belts Move components

RNA moved by fixed ribosome (partial analog) Clamps
Hold workpieces Enzymatic binding sites Tools
Modify workpieces Metallic complexes, functional groups

Production lines Construct devices Enzyme
systems, ribosomes Numerical control systems Store
and read programs Genetic system

By analogy with macroscopic devices, feasible molecular machines presumably
include manipulators able to wield a variety of tools. Thermal vibrations
in typical structures are a modest fraction of interatomic distances; thus,
such tools can be positioned with atomic precision. As present microtechnology
(2) can lay down conductors on a molecular
scale (10 nm) and molecular devices can respond to electric potentials (through
conformation changes, etc.), such devices can be controlled by human operators
or macroscopic machines. Further, by analogy with biological sensors, molecular
scale instruments can evidently produce macroscopic signals, indicating
the feasibility of feedback control in molecular manipulations.

Together, these arguments indicate the feasibility of devices able to move
molecular objects, position them with atomic precision, apply forces to
them to effect a change, and inspect them to verify that the change has
indeed been accomplished. It would be foolish to minimize the time and effort
that will be required to develop the needed components and assemble them
into such complex and versatile systems. Still, given the components, the
path seems clear.

Ordinary chemical synthesis relies on thermal agitation to bring reactant
molecules in solution together in the correct orientation and with sufficient
energy to cause the desired reaction. Enzyme-like molecular machines can
hold reactants in the best relative positions as bonds are strained or polarized.
Like some enzymes, they can do work on reactant molecules to drive reactions
not otherwise thermodynamically favored.

These are clearly techniques of great power, yet the synthetic capabilities
of systems based on polypeptide chains might seem limited by amino acid
properties. However, enzymes show that other molecular structures bound
to the polypeptide (such as metal ions and complex ring structures) (11)

can extend protein capabilities. The range of such tools is large and greater
than found in nature. Thus, the synthetic capabilities of enzymes set only
a lower bound on the capabilities of engineered protein systems. Indeed,
as tool-wielding protein systems can control the chemical environment of
a reaction site completely, they should be able, at a minimum, to duplicate
the full range of moderate-temperature synthetic steps achieved by organic
chemists. Further, where chemists must resort to complex strategies to make
or break specific bonds in large molecules, molecular machines can select
individual bonds on the basis of position alone. Conventional organic chemistry
can synthesize not only one-, two-, and three-dimensional covalent structures
but also exotic strained and fused rings. With the addition of controlled
site-specific synthetic reactions, a broad range of large complex structures
can doubtless be built.

Still, the synthetic abilities of protein machines will be limited by their
need for a moderate temperature aqueous environment (although applied forces
can sometimes replace or exceed thermal agitation as a source of activation
energy and reaction sites and reactive groups can be protected from the
surrounding water, as in some enzymatic active sites). These limits may
be sidestepped by using the broad synthetic capabilities outlined above
to build a second generation of molecular machinery whose components would
not be coiled hydrated polypeptide chains but compact structures having
three-dimensional covalent bonding. There is no reason why such machines
cannot be designed to operate at reduced pressure or extreme temperatures;
synthesis can then involve highly reactive or even free radical intermediates,
as well as the use of mechanical arms wielding molecular tools to strain
and polarize existing bonds while new molecular groups are positioned and
forced into place. This may be done at high or low temperature as desired.
The class of structures that can be synthesized by such methods is clearly
very large, and one may speculate that it includes most structures that
might be of technological interest.
Firmness of the argument
The development path described above should lead to advanced molecular machinery
capable of general synthesis operations. As the results of this path can
be shown to have consequences for the present, it is of interest to discuss
the degree of confidence that should be placed in its feasibility.

It might be argued that complex protein or nonprotein machines are impossible
or useless, on the grounds that, if they were possible and useful, organisms
would be using them. A similar argument would, however, conclude that bone
is a better structural material than graphite composite, that neurons can
transmit signals faster than wires, and that technology based on the wheel
is impossible or useless. Nature has been constrained less by what is physically
possible than by what could be evolved in small steps. Thus, the absence
of a proposed kind of molecular machinery in organisms in no way suggests
its infeasibility.

To deny the feasibility of advanced molecular machinery, one must apparently
maintain either (i) that design of proteins will remain infeasible indefinitely,
or (ii) that complex machines cannot be made of proteins, or (iii) that
protein machines cannot build second-generation machines.

In light of the expected improvements in computation, the simplified task
of design engineers (compared with scientists), the possibilities offered
by sheer trial-and-error modification of natural proteins, and the progress
already made in protein design, the first seems difficult to maintain. Further,
even if protein design were to prove intractible (because of difficulties
in predicting conformations), this would in no way preclude developing an
alternative polymer system with predictable coiling and using it as a basis
for further development.

In light of the presence of the needed components for mechanical devices
in the cell, the second seems difficult to maintain. Indeed, the cytoskeleton
provides a fair counterexample.

In light of the results of synthetic organic chemistry and the ability of
molecular machines to make reactions site specific, it seems difficult to
maintain that nonprotein machine components cannot be built and assembled.

Each of the development steps outlined above seems closely analogous to
past steps taken by nature or by technology. Each of these steps can be
accomplished in many ways. To argue their infeasibility would seem to require
some general principle precluding success, and it is difficult to see what
such a principle might be like. Thus, the claim that advanced molecular
technology can be developed seems well founded.

Although the existence of molecular machinery in cells indicates the feasibility
of some sort of artificial molecular machinery, errors in assembly might
limit the synthesis of structures of great complexity. In the cell, molecular
machinery uses DNA to direct the assembly of DNA and other molecules. In
some eukaryotic cells, DNA directs DNA synthesis with an error rate of ~
10-11 per nucleotide added (12).
As engineers commonly design systems to function reliably with many more
failed components than 1 in 1011, such an error rate seems no
barrier to the construction of quite complex devices.

The possibility of low error rates is not surprising. For synthesis systems
permitting error detection and correction (such as DNA synthesis), the net
error rate in assembly can be reduced to roughly the product of the raw
error rate in assembly and the rate at which errors are falsely identified
as correct. As no uncertainty principle prohibits accurate discrimination
between objects of different kinds (such as correctly and incorrectly assembled
molecular structures), no limits to the detection and correction of errors
are apparent.
Applications to computation
Molecular technology has obvious application to the storage and processing
of information. A crude approach would involve literal "molecular machinery"
patterned on the Babbage machine. In a more subtle approach, bits could
be represented by protons, bound electrons, reactive groups, or conformation
changes and transferred by movement of protons or of well-localized electrons
(13), excitons, or phonons. The range of plausible
device speeds is suggested by the 10-6 -sec turnover time for
a fast enzyme, by the 10-13 -sec scale of collisional interactions
(11), and by the 10-16 sec taken
for an electron to cross an interatomic distance at a typical Fermi velocity.

It seems highly likely that a cubic cell 0.1 micrometers on a side (containing
some 108 optimally arranged atoms) can hold a bit or perform
a logic operation and, at the same time, transmit bits through itself to
provide communication from cell to cell in a lattice. If so, then computers
can be built with at least 1015 active elements per cubic centimeter.
In a well-designed computer (with elements closer to their true technological
limit and not laid out in regular cubical cells), this volume estimate should
prove quite conservative. Elements so small will be sensitive to radiation
damage; to be reliable, systems will require a large measure of redundancy.

Concern might be raised about the cost of such intricately patterned matter,
either because of labor or energy requirements. It seems clear, however,
that molecular-scale production systems can be completely automated (what
use is there for hands?). Thus, labor costs of production (including production
of additional production equipment) can approach zero. The energy needed
to produce molecularly engineered material will generally be greater than
the energy needed to produce ordinary materials of similar bulk composition,
but analogy suggests that the energy cost need not be vastly greater than
for the production of biological materials. In many cases (e.g., advanced
computers or any of a number of applications not discussed here), the unique
value of the products would make such energy costs unimportant, even if
energy costs remained high.
Some biological applications
Molecular devices can interact directly with the ultimate molecular components
of the cell and thus serve as probes of unique value in studying processes
within the cell. Further, molecular devices can characterize a frozen cell
in essentially arbitrary detail by removal and characterization of successive
layers of material (atomically thin layers, if desired). Although the amount
of data involved is large (a typical cell contains billions of protein molecules),
the physical bulk of a device able to store and manipulate this amount of
data will be quite small.

The change of temperature and water distribution during freezing modifies
cell structures in several ways, primarily by physical displacement of structures
by ice crystals and denaturation of proteins by concentration of solutes
in the residual liquid (14). With frozen tissue,
knowledge of normal structures (membrane geometries, natural protein structures)
and analysis of frozen structures (position of ice crystals, position of
denatured proteins) should permit quite accurate reconstruction of the nature
of the tissue before freezing.

Such procedures would have special utility in analyzing the structure of
tissue in the brain. Unlike, say, muscle or liver tissue, the function of
brain tissue depends on the detailed three-dimensional structure of intertwined
cells and their interfaces. The freezing process is far too slow to stop
such dynamic processes as action potentials and synaptic transmission; short-term
memory, however, is suspected to involve chemical modification of the neurons,
and long-term memory is believed to involve the growth and modification
of neuronal structures, particularly synapses (15).
At the modest freezing rates possible in substantial pieces of tissue, ice
crystals may be expected to nucleate and grow in the intercellular fluid,
displacing the cell membranes as they do so (16).
Electron micrographs, however, show that synapses (like many intercellular
junctions) involve complementary structures on both sides of the intercellular
gap, which should provide information enough to reconstruct the pre-freezing
configurations of the cells almost regardless of ice crystal locations.

The ability to reconstruct the prefreezing structure of tissue, when combined
with the general synthetic capabilities outlined above, will make feasible
the physical restoration of tissue damaged by ordinary freezing through
characterization, reconstruction, and restoration of successive segments
of frozen material. Although restored to a frozen condition, such tissue
would lack the characteristic damage caused by the freezing process. As
many tissues can survive the gross insult of ordinary freezing (17),
it seems likely that most could survive freezing followed by repair. The
remaining mode of damage would seem to be denaturation of proteins sensitive
to cold alone during the thawing process. Should cell components of some
species prove sensitive to short periods of cold, they could presumably
be modified to resemble those of hardier species (hamsters can survive freezing
of half their body water; ref. 17) without changing
either cell function or DNA.
Implications for the present
The existence of a path to an advanced molecular technology has implications
for the present. As with all technologies, long-range promise should tend
to increase interest in undertaking the early steps, even beyond the interest
springing from more immediate benefits. The longer the expected wait, however,
the less the interest.

On the other hand, molecular engineering of materials and devices can extend
the capabilities of technology many fold in many areas. The implications
of the feasibility of molecular technology are important to present day
speculations concerning the probable behavior (and likelihood of existence)
of extraterrestrial technological civilizations. Similarly, those concerned
with the long-range future of humanity must concern themselves with the
opportunities and dangers arising from this technology. Finally, the eventual
development of the ability to repair freezing damage (and to circumvent
cold damage during thawing) has consequences for the preservation of biological
materials today, provided a sufficiently long-range perspective is taken.
Conclusion
Development of the ability to design protein molecules will, by analogy
between features of natural macromolecules and components of existing machines,
make possible the construction of molecular machines. These machines can
build second-generation machines able to perform extremely general synthesis
of three-dimensional molecular structures, thus permitting construction
of devices and materials to complex atomic specifications. This capability
has implications for technology in general and in particular for computation
and characterization, manipulation, and repair of biological materials.

I thank C. Peterson, P. Morrison, J. Lettvin, A. Kantrowitz, and C. Walsh
for their comments and criticism.



1. Feynman,
R. (1961) in Miniaturization, ed. Gilbert, H. D.
(Reinhold, New York), pp. 282-296.

2. Krumhansl, J. A. & Pao, Y. H. (1979)
Phys. Today 32 (11), 25-32.

3. Itakura, K. & Riggs, A. D. (1980) Science
209, 1401-1405.

4. Nomura, M. & Held, W. (1974) in Ribosomes,
eds. Nomura, M., Tissiers, A. & Lengyel, P. (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory,
Cold Spring Harbor, NY), pp. 193-203.

5. McCammon, J. A., Gelin, B. R. & Karplus,
M. (1977) Nature (London) 267, 585-590.

6. Scheraga, H. A. (1978) in Versatilty
of Proteins, ed. Li, C. H. (Academic, New York), pp. 119-132.

7. Karplus, M. & Weaver, D. L. (1976) Nature
(London) 260, 404-406.

8. Gund, P., Andose, J. D., Rhodes, J. B. &
Smith, G. M. (1980) Science 208,

1425-1431.

9. Gutte, B., Dannigen, M. & Wittschieber,
E. (1979) Nature (London) 281, 650-655.

10. Anonymous (1980) Semicond. Int.
3 (5), 10.

11. Walsh, C. (1979) Enzymatic Reaction
Mechanisms (Freeman, San Francisco), pp. 33, 38.

12. Drake, J. (1969) Nature (London)
221, 1132.

13. Chance, B., Mueller, P., DeVault, D. &
Powers, L. (1980) Phys. Today 33 (10), 32-38.

14. Fennema, O. R. (1973) in Low-Temperature
Preservation of Foods and Living Matter, eds. Fennema,
O. R., Powrie, W. D. & Marth, E. H. (Dekker, New York), pp. 476-503.

15. Entingh, D., Dunn, A., Glassman, E., Wilson,
J. E., Hogan, E. & Damstra, T. (1975) in Handbook of Psychobiology,
eds. Gazzinga, M. S. & Blakemore, C. (Academic, New York), pp. 201-238.

16. Fennema, O. R. (1973) in Low-Temperature
Preservation of Foods and Living Matter, eds. Fennema,
O. R., Powrie, W. D. & Marth, E. H. (Dekker, New York), pp. 150-239.

17. Fennema, O. R. (1973) in Low-Temperature
Preservation of Foods and Living Matter, eds. Fennema,
O. R., Powrie, W. D. & Marth, E. H. (Dekker, New York), pp. 436-475.

PROTEIN ENGINEERING:
A 1988 view of some 1981 predictions
K. Eric Drexler

Visiting Scholar, Stanford University. Box 60775, Palo Alto, CA 94306

A 1981 paper [1] discussed de novo protein design as part of a long-term
strategy for developing complex molecular devices and systems. It presented
arguments against the view that the fold-design problem is an extension
of the classical (and still unsolved) fold-prediction problem (i.e.,
predicting folds from sequences without homologous models), a view which
has discouraged efforts at design.

Fold prediction is a scientific problem: it must deal with naturally evolved
sequences, but natural selection's 'design goals' enforce only the physical
reliability of folding -- not its human predictability. This results in
folds of only minimal stability. Fold design, in contrast, is an engineering
problem. Protein engineers, exploiting their freedom of design, can work
with sequences artificially selected for superior predictability and stability
of folding. These observations indicated that "the difficulties encountered
in predicting the conformations of natural proteins do not seem insurmountable
obstacles to protein engineering" [1].

In accord with the implications of this argument, we have seen the successful,
de novo design of a globular protein (alpha-4) [2,3] while the classical
fold prediction problem remains unsolved [4]. Likewise confirmed has been
the suggestion that design can increase protein stability beyond that enforced
by natural selection. In recent years, deliberate single-residue modifications
have raised protein stabilities through a variety of mechanisms [5,6]. Owing
to design choices consistently biased toward stability, the protein alpha-4
has a stability of 22 kcal/mole, substantially greater than the 4-9 kcal/mole
of typical natural proteins of similar size [3].

Successful protein engineering marks a milestone in a research agenda leading
toward capabilities of broad technological significance [1,7].
References

[1] K. E. Drexler, "Molecular engineering: An approach to the development
of general capabilities for molecular manipulation." Proc.
Nat. Acad. Sci., 78: 5275-5258 (1981).

[2] S. P. Ho and W. F. DeGrado, "Design of a 4-Helix bundle protein:
Synthesis of peptides which self-associate into a helical protein."
J. Am. Chem. Soc., 109: 6751-6758 (1987).

[3] L. Regan and W. F. DeGrado, "Characterization of a helical protein
designed from first principles." Science, 241:
976-978 (1988).

[4] T. E. Creighton, "The protein-folding problem." Science,
240: 267, 344 (1988).

[5] L. J. Perry and R. Wetzel, "Disulfide bond engineered into T4 lysozyme:
stabilization of the protein toward thermal inactivation." Science,
226: 555-557 (1984).

[6] B. W. Matthews, H. Nicholson, and W. J. Becktel, "Enhanced protein
thermostability from site-directed mutations that decrease the entropy of
unfolding." Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci., 84: 6663-6667
(1987), and included references.

[7] K. E. Drexler, Engines of Creation, Anchor/Doubleday
(New York, 1986).

Photomesa is based on the Jazz API (a Java class lib), that implements a ZUI (zoomable user interface), a paradigm sometimes described as 2.5 D interface.

You can use the mouse to move in xy plane und with an extra key press (or possibly via mouse wheel in J2SE 1.4) you change the height of the camera in z direction. This combined with semantic zooming, which means different levels of detail associated with the height, make for very nice user interfaces.

A similiar API has been developed at Xerox France, the VTM library which used by the W3C for the nice IsaViz tool.

Despite IMHO Java still sucks regarding performance, both APIs perform very well with large object scence graphs. Like I wrote, combined with Java's luxury 2D API, it enables us to build attractive user interfaces.

Regards,
Marc

Fast, low operating costs, free black ink, fantastic color. If only there were consumer models...

Mark Weiser coined the term ubiquitous computing in 1988, and defined it to be a use of computing devices, such that they were an integral and hidden part of our environment. Ubiquitos computing.

Where's the next PARC, Bell Labs, IBM ?

I know all of these still exist in name at least, but they sure seem to be mere shadows of what they used to be...

And, no, I don't think it's MSFT

Balam

I don't think Nielsen is limiting his scope to the PC. It's hard to tell because he doesn't say why each of his picks makes the list, but each of his choices for the current decade has a strong investment in ubiquitous computing, as well as speech understanding and generation, which have obvious implications for mobile phone interfaces.

Nielsen's piece is more important to read because of its (rightful) insistence on HCI as something which is rarely considered when it should be.

Paper User Interfaces for Paper Documents
I've been working on a product for a few years that uses paper as a user interface , kind of a follow-on to the graphical user interface. I used to joke with friends that I was working on an 8.5x11 inch 400 dpi gray-scale display that costs 2.5 cents.

Document Tokens -- making paper a first class citizen on the network
You scan your documents, and they get stored in a document repository on the network (using WebDAV over HTTP or some other protocol), and it prints out a piece of paper that refers to the electronic document on the network, kind of a like a paper document or a paper URL. I named it a "Document Token". You drop it in your copier, for example, press the big green button, and it automatically recognizes it, retrieves the original, and prints it back. Or if you asked it to e-mail the scanned document instead, it will e-mail the document as an attachment or just a hyperlink.

Cover Sheets as Forms
Another thing you can do is print out a cover sheet with checkboxes on it and some document meta-data built in, so you can drop the cover sheet for your "Legal Contracts" on top of the latest contract you got, check the box for the account you're dealing with, and press the start button. It will scan, store based on the directions embedded in the paper, and associate the document meta-data with the paper.

Situated Meta-Data Capture
One of the most expensive things about scanning is associating the meta-data with the document after scanning. When you have the paper in hand, you know what the document is and where it came from. The file folder or desktop location is right there in front of you, and the physical presence of the document triggers certain kinds of memory as well. In ethnographic terms, the document is what Lucy Suchman calls situated When you try to add meta-data to a document after scanning, you (or worse, someone hired to look at it for you) is staring at a set of bits on a computer screen, completely divorced from its context, and it's expensive to discover where it came from and what it means. If you can associate this information with the paper document when it's in the paper domain, by marking it down on a paper user interface, then you save lots of time and money.

W3C Standardization
For the web to become a truly ubiquitous computing interface, it must move beyond the desktop. We're working with the W3C to standardize an XML representation of forms such that the same form purpose can be expressed in different media -- desktop, pda, mobile phone, and even paper. Take a look at the XForms last-call specification.

Product
The product is called FlowPort

This was my final year project thesis. Just remember the golden rule unstructured 2 structured == convert 2 XML I wrote a [very bad] program in C++/Perl/tcsh IPC=pipes to add XML tags to English, and then index them into a search engine which would use the lingual data stored in the XML tags to help the search.

NIST does a MASSIVE competition on this annually. I don't want to be an XML-buzzword whore <Arnold Schwarzenegger accent> (XML commando eats Green berets, C++, Java, Perl, COBOL for breakfast)</Arnold Schwarzenegger accent> but you can't beat XML for easily converting anything that you can make sense out of into computer readable format. Real h3cKoRs use SGML, but us underlings have to stick with things we can understand like XML. As for expandability, if we want to encode something else into the document, then just tag-it-and-go

It took me 200 hours to fish out all these links (before the Google days), I don't want anyone to have to waste as much time as I did feeding the search engines exotic foods. It's a year old so pardon me for the odd broken link, armed with these you could probably turn jello into XML ;-)

My favourite bookmarx
PROJect[21 links]
Beginners' Guide[13 links]
Berkeley Linguistics Dept. Course Summaries, general stuffzzzzzzzzzzzzzzCryptic IR Vocabulary defined
Explanations of weird words like hypernym zzzzzzzzzzzzzzHow do we produce and understand speech
How Inverted Files are Created - Univeristy of Berkeley zzzzzzzzzzzzzzNLP Univ. of Indiana, very good basics e.g. word sense d
Simple langauge - useful.... zzzzzzzzzzzzzzWhat is Natural Language Processing, links
What is POS tagging........ zzzzzzzzzzzzzzWord Sense Disambiguation defined
Word Sense Disambiguation in detail, scroll down far zzzzzzzzzzzzzzWord Sense Disambiguator - LOLITA (tested at MUC-7 and SENSEVAL competition as best)
XML for the absolute beginner

HTML, XML stuff + parsers[19 links]
Apache plug-in that uhhh does stuff with XML zzzzzzzzzzzzzzConvert COM to XML
convert XML, HTML to Unix pipeable formats zzzzzzzzzzzzzzconverters to and from HTML
expat XML parser zzzzzzzzzzzzzzHTML Tidy - converts HTML 2 XML + source code!!
Parse DB (RDBMS, whatever) to XML zzzzzzzzzzzzzzPerl-XML Module List
PHP Manual XML parser functions - what the hell are they talking about, PHP Virtual M... zzzzzzzzzzzzzzPublic SGML-XML Software
Pyxie - XML Processor for Python, Perl, etc. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzSGML+XML tools.org
The XML Resource Centre - massive number of links zzzzzzzzzzzzzzW4F wrapper - wrapper converts XML to HTML
XFlat - convert flat file into XML zzzzzzzzzzzzzzXML Parsers and other XML stuff
XML.com - Parsers, etc. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzXML-Data Catalog System - uhhhh looks close
XTAL's general converter - convert anything 2 XML

other Background[8 links]
Is Linux ready for the Enterprise, scalable... zzzzzzzzzzzzzzLinux reliability
Linux Versus Windows NT, Mark(sysinternals bloke) zzzzzzzzzzzzzzPC reliability (pcworld)
SPEC - Standard Performance Evaluation Corp. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzSystems benchmarks
TPC - Transaction Processing Performance Council zzzzzzzzzzzzzzUnix Beats Back NT In EDA Workstation Arena
Proper TREC(-8) QA systems[2 links]

pg. 387 LIMSI-CNRS pretty deep parsing[2 links]
More links....
NLP, IR links - lots to corpii, etc.

pg. 575 U. of Ottawa and NRL (shit system, got 0%)[1 links]
LAKE Lab
pg. 607! University of Sheffield (crap system, but OPEN SOURCE!)[2 links]
GATE - FREE IE app w`source code
LaSIE - ER, coreference, template (cv)

pg. 617 Univ of Surrey (inconclusive matches)[2 links]
System Quirk - Or is this their search system..... Hmmmmmm
Univ of Surrey - pointers (hopefully this is their WILDER search system...)

SMU - Pg. 65[1 links]
Natural Language Processing Laboratory at SMU

Textract[2 links]
Cymfony - Technology
Textract - State of the Art Information Extraction

Xerox uhhhhh maybe[1 links]
Xerox Palo Alto Research Center
(OVERVIEW) 1999 TREC-8 Q&A Track Home Page
NLP bloke, Univ Sussex


Tcl-Tk[4 links] Tcl tutorial
Tcl-Tk Contributed Programs Index
Tcl-Tk Resources, sources
TclXML - manipulating XML using Tcl-Tk
Artificial Natural Language - Is this what I'm trying to parse into...
Comparison of Indexers - Prise vs. Inquery vs. MG, etc.
Eagles - Language Engineering Standards
Language Technology Group - lots of modules!
LDC - Linguistic Data Consortium, lots of corpora
Lexical Resources
Links 2 resources, indexers.....
Lots of IR stuff, University of uhhh
Managing Gigabytes Indexer
Managing Gigabytes Manuals and stuff
Htdig search system
NLP & IR (NLPIR, NIST) Group
OVERVIEW OF MUC-7-MET-2
Perl XML Indexing - XML search engine type thing
Phrasys Language Processing Software Components (money)
QA HCI bullshit
SIGIR - TREC-type thing, resources
SMART indexer system documentation
Text REtrieval Conference (TREC) Home Page
The Natural Language Software Registry
Thunderstone IE and IR products
WordNet - FREE DOWNLOADABLE lexical English database

Page created with URL+, nice utility for working with internet shortcuts

> Then they must use some hybrid approach: human editors and AI

Well, there's the implied assumption here that the people running this surveillance operate with standard hardware, where standard means something google, altavista, lycos, etc. can get their hands on. Sketchy information suggests that they do not; specialised hardware seems to be the order of the day.

Besides, there's a lot of research going on in terms of context recognition, here to name one place.

The article in Scientific American you saw "like a bajzillion eons ago" was probably the one written about the research at Xerox PARC by Mark Weiser, "The Computer for the Twenty-First Century," Scientific American, pp. 94-10, September 1991.

Parc Place was a Xerox PARC spinoff, that made a commercial product out of Smalltalk, which was originally developed at Xerox PARC long before Mark ran the lab. As far as I know, Parc Place didn't have much to do with Ubiquitous Computing -- they just sold a version of the SmallTalk programming language.

Speaking of pioneering influential Xerox PARC research, has anyone else noticed the striking similarities between Microsoft's ".NET" and Xerox PARC's "Portable Common Runtime"?

-Don

The article in Scientific American you saw "like a bajzillion eons ago" was probably the one written about the research at Xerox PARC by Mark Weiser, "The Computer for the Twenty-First Century," Scientific American, pp. 94-10, September 1991.

Parc Place was a Xerox PARC spinoff, that made a commercial product out of Smalltalk, which was originally developed at Xerox PARC long before Mark ran the lab. As far as I know, Parc Place didn't have much to do with Ubiquitous Computing -- they just sold a version of the SmallTalk programming language.

Speaking of pioneering influential Xerox PARC research, has anyone else noticed the striking similarities between Microsoft's ".NET" and Xerox PARC's "Portable Common Runtime"?

-Don

Ubiquitous Computing

Ubiquitous computing names the third wave in computing, just now beginning. First were mainframes, each shared by lots of people. Now we are in the personal computing era, person and machine staring uneasily at each other across the desktop. Next comes ubiquitous computing, or the age of calm technology, when technology recedes into the background of our lives. Alan Kay of Apple calls this "Third Paradigm" computing.

Mark Weiser is the father of ubiquitous computing; his web page contains links to many papers on the topic.

Two recent papers express elements of the ubiquitous computing philosophy: "Open House" (also in a MS Word version) , and "Designing Calm Technology".

What Ubiquitous Computing Isn't

Ubiquitous computing is roughly the opposite of virtual reality. Where virtual reality puts people inside a computer-generated world, ubiquitous computing forces the computer to live out here in the world with people. Virtual reality is primarily a horse power problem; ubiquitous computing is a very difficult integration of human factors, computer science, engineering, and social sciences.

Early work in Ubiquitous Computing The initial incarnation of ubiquitous computing was in the form of "tabs", "pads", and "boards" built at Xerox PARC, 1988-1994. Several papers describe this work, and there are web pages for the Tabs and for the Boards (which are a commercial product now):

Ubicomp helped kick off the recent boom in mobile computing research, although it is not the same thing as mobile computing, nor a superset nor a subset.

Ubiquitous Computing has roots in many aspects of computing. In its current form, it was first articulated by Mark Weiser in 1988 at the Computer Science Lab at Xerox PARC. He describes it like this:

Early Work in Ubiquitous Computing

Ubiquitous Computing #1

Inspired by the social scientists, philosophers, and anthropologists at PARC, we have been trying to take a radical look at what computing and networking ought to be like. We believe that people live through their practices and tacit knowledge so that the most powerful things are those that are effectively invisible in use. This is a challenge that affects all of computer science. Our preliminary approach: Activate the world. Provide hundreds of wireless computing devices per person per office, of all scales (from 1" displays to wall sized). This has required new work in operating systems, user interfaces, networks, wireless, displays, and many other areas. We call our work "ubiquitous computing". This is different from PDA's, dynabooks, or information at your fingertips. It is invisible, everywhere computing that does not live on a personal device of any sort, but is in the woodwork everywhere.

Ubiquitous Computing #2

For thirty years most interface design, and most computer design, has been headed down the path of the "dramatic" machine. Its highest ideal is to make a computer so exciting, so wonderful, so interesting, that we never want to be without it. A less-traveled path I call the "invisible"; its highest ideal is to make a computer so imbedded, so fitting, so natural, that we use it without even thinking about it. (I have also called this notion "Ubiquitous Computing", and have placed its origins in post-modernism.) I believe that in the next twenty years the second path will come to dominate. But this will not be easy; very little of our current systems infrastructure will survive. We have been building versions of the infrastructure-to-come at PARC for the past four years, in the form of inch-, foot-, and yard-sized computers we call Tabs, Pads, and Boards. Our prototypes have sometimes succeeded, but more often failed to be invisible. From what we have learned, we are now explorting some new directions for ubicomp, including the famous "dangling string" display.

========

"Dedicated to the memory of Mark Weiser and Alan Turing"

-Don

Some people say Aspect Oriented Programming (AOP) comes naturally after OOP. Instead of dividing everything into classes/objects, you divide into 'concerns' and, using some formerly specified engine, weave those together to produce your code. It looks very promising, but it's 'research in progress'.

Are all coming together. Go and see "Demon Seed" with Julie Christie. Then look at this: http://www.parc.xerox.com/spl/projects/modrobots/.

Think about it; wireless access to all other computers and their aggregated processing power, combined with basic modular parts like the ones they have created at Xerox, driven by something that wants to "get out of its box". This equals extinction.

Unless we explicitly dissalow autonomy in machines, all it will take to wipe us out is a few instances of something simulating only the will to replicte itself and then its "game over".

This will happen at a geometric rate, with machines duplicating themselvs out of these clever modular parts, which might of course, optimize themselvs every other generation until we can't understand how they even work.

Now imagine that they use the Xerox modular robot idea, but at the Nano scale.

...these words may be too late. Minutes to go, minutes to go, minutes to goo, minutes to green goo.William S. Burroughs

These "robots" will compete with us for natural resources and energy. That alone will be enough to wipe us out; this threat is not only one of walking anthropomorphized, lazer rifle carrying exterminators; the extinction of man will be slower, more painful and terrible than straight up war, as we are pushed out of the way by a terrible, autonamous very small or maybe not small, but very smart something.

...when someone begins to develop a truly original interface, instead of immitating Windows. Don't get me wrong -- Gnome and KDE are monumental achievements, and I congratulate their programmers. But what about all the really new and interesting ideas out there? Isn't creativity and exploration a goal of "free" software?

How about:

• Berkeley's Group for User Interface Research
• Semiotic Approaches to User Interface Design
• Xerox PARC, User Interface Research Group

While chasing Microsoft, let's not forget to stop and smell the alternative roses...

Unless end users can install and use their own modules (this is open implementation at the kernel level), a microkernel is no more than a mildly interesting implementation detail for the sysadmin. The moment you give access to malicious users, compile-time checks can't save you. You need some form of runtime barrier that either statically prevents unsafe code from being called or dynamically prevents unsafe instructions from executing.

The thing I like about static checking is that you don't need privileged access to special hardware to enforce it, and that means end users can easily avail themselves of it (this is why I mentioned JVM verifiers). Proof-carrying code sounds like a good optimization of them.

. .

Hey, flame / mod me away here - I deserve it because I've been looking for a thread in which to post this rejected story sub from a week ago . . But what the heck here it is anyway :

( I was originally going to say this post is well OT because of the distance limitations of the below, but what about using this transmission in a PA system at a stadium, or a train station, where volumes and hence transmission possibilities are greater / farther? And just how much is over the air networking really explored by companies? This story is already dang good and right where it hurts for community and campus networks, but if I were building this kit for business I'd be thinking that planning permission would be the area I'd be researching most. In other words, do the "amateurs" have a real chance at a lead in this technology, especially price / performance wise? After all, you and I personally *don't* have to make budgets for contingent liability just in case the town planning dept. gets difficult. I'm all for guerilla networks - take a look at the below . . )

Aerial Acoustic Communications

Network with just a pair of pc speakers and a $5 mic! This recent paper explains the theory and writes up the experiment.

This may not be the answer to all your needs - 1000bps was one of the best results - but the authors talk about short distance communications for PDAs, or a television using sound for remote control. The environmental noise against which the authors deployed Spread Spectrum techniques, and a reference to audio steganography make for interesting reading, and radio hams may appreciate the use of FSK. Is this the future, or just a hint that playing albums backwards wasn't really the way to get the message?

There's also a lecture video here which was held at PARC on 11/8/01. You can grab the stream as a file using ASF Recorder or you can read up on some applications musings here. Happy Listening . .

. .

Hey, flame / mod me away here - I deserve it because I've been looking for a thread in which to post this rejected story sub from a week ago . . But what the heck here it is anyway :

( I was originally going to say this post is well OT because of the distance limitations of the below, but what about using this transmission in a PA system at a stadium, or a train station, where volumes and hence transmission possibilities are greater / farther? And just how much is over the air networking really explored by companies? This story is already dang good and right where it hurts for community and campus networks, but if I were building this kit for business I'd be thinking that planning permission would be the area I'd be researching most. In other words, do the "amateurs" have a real chance at a lead in this technology, especially price / performance wise? After all, you and I personally *don't* have to make budgets for contingent liability just in case the town planning dept. gets difficult. I'm all for guerilla networks - take a look at the below . . )

Aerial Acoustic Communications

Network with just a pair of pc speakers and a $5 mic! This recent paper explains the theory and writes up the experiment.

This may not be the answer to all your needs - 1000bps was one of the best results - but the authors talk about short distance communications for PDAs, or a television using sound for remote control. The environmental noise against which the authors deployed Spread Spectrum techniques, and a reference to audio steganography make for interesting reading, and radio hams may appreciate the use of FSK. Is this the future, or just a hint that playing albums backwards wasn't really the way to get the message?

There's also a lecture video here which was held at PARC on 11/8/01. You can grab the stream as a file using ASF Recorder or you can read up on some applications musings here. Happy Listening . .

The name "Windows" has been used in a trademark since the release of the X Windows System in 1986, and it is held by the X Consortium (x.org).

On the other hand, take a look at Microsoft's timeline in their "museum". (Beware: Javascript and flash dependant.) They announced "Microsoft Windows" in 1983, and shipped it in 1985.

They've been fudding that long? BTW, check out their museum for a truly unuseable flash animation. If it doesn't make you throw up from motion sickness, you'll end up clicking the wrong thing or looking at the wrong page for sure.

You may also find something of interest at Xerox Parc.

IIRC, Xerox originally came up with the concepts of the personal computer, the graphical user interface, the mouse, and several other substantial breakthroughs in computer science.

According to this page, the personal computer was invented in 1949. Xerox was a chemical company called Haloid at the time, and was just getting into the photocopy business.

This very good primer describes how various pieces of the GUI were invented throughout the 50s and 60s by people such as Ivan Sutherland and Alan Kay.

The mouse was invented by Douglas Englebart in the mid-1960s.

Xerox did invent at PARC in the 1970s and beyond: several other substantial breakthroughs in computer science, such as Ethernet and Object-oriented programming.

Check out www.parc.xerox.com

For anyone interested, here is a paper (in Postscript format, on the parc FTP server) from 1993 by David Goldberg and Cate Richardson of PARC discussing unistrokes. It looks like the foundation for the strokes is there. I wonder how Palm's version measures up to their tests.

Sounds truly interesting. I suppose you don't have any links yet?

Sorry, no. The only thing that's close to release is a related framework component, STEnterprise (heh, let's see if we get sued for that name :-), which is intended to be a database independent object persistence layer (needed by some of the specialized managers in the MOM) intended to address the fact that Apple has mishandled EOF. That's due out at the end of the month, but it's not a major part of the STMOM framework, which is the core of Mary and MaryTool (the command line version).

Since there is growing interest in an updated user experience, I can provide a few links that I found inspirational in my work on Mary as a MOM.

• The Anti-Mac Interface got it right in 1996, but we didn't have the vast datastore on the desktop to make it worth it, or the processing power to make it happen.
• Liquid File System, insightful enough for me to say "screw it" to my own white paper and just implement the damn thing. :-)
• Placeless Documents, an excellent paper, as you might expect from Xerox PARC.
• SQLite, useful if you need to release software that would benefit from a database on a system that might not have one.
• Shore, which interestingly can have the object store accessible using directory navigation, addressing some migration issues.

Yeah I'm waiting for Xerox's digital paper to get released and updated to a state where it can be used as wall paper. Preferably dynamic enough to act as an affordable HDTV.

Yeah, it's all about the hack, I know. But the current tech will give you a) a 5" picture frame at $500 that isn't very flat, or b) a room fill of picture theming for BillGatesMoney(tm).

I've got the X10 stuff, I had the plans of setting the 'light mood', but it never happened. It's a great idea, but I ran out of time/interest in it.

The paper really spends most of its time talking about how they settled on the color scheme or arrangement of the circles on the graphs. This is perhaps more relevant in the context of the class the authors were taking. They spend only a few very short paragraphs on what they actually discovered or what could be discovered, and there were no real numbers presented.

A much more interesting article is here. It discusses a number of findings about Gnutella usage in the context of the famous "Tragedy of the Commons" dilemma commonly studied by economists, and the ramifications these findings have for the long term viability of Gnutella networks.

They gave some high school kids a bunch of these modules, and some lectures, and access to PARC people to bother with questions. The students came up with some pretty incredible stuff.

I don't have any urls for their work, but here is the PARC Forum announcement:

WIGGLEBOT, STRIKER, ARTBOT, ROAMER, AND NOX:
TEENAGE ADVENTURES IN MODULAR ROBOTICS

Apprentices from the Institute for Educational Advancement

Xerox PARC Forum

Thursday, August 09, 2001

4:00-5:00PM

George Pake Auditorium, Xerox PARC

Abstract:

This summer PARC participated in a project involving 10 exceptional high
school students from around the country, a few computers, a few PARC
scientists, and some advanced robotic modules. The program, one of several
sponsored by the Institute for Educational Advancement
(www.educationaladvancement.org), is based on an apprenticeship model for
learning, with mentors and hosts drawn from corporations, universities, fine
arts workshops, and other institutions.

In our two-week-long program, the students learned enough Java programming,
machining, and mechanical engineering skills to design and build 5 different
autonomous robots each made of up to 10 individually controlled "polybot"
modules. On the way, we lectured them, put them into discussion groups with
school administrators, took field trips to local robotics research labs, and
had them present their work alongside Ph.D candidate research projects.
There were many late night work sessions, and the robot designs that emerged
were surprising and exceptionally creative. It was all great fun for both
the students and the mentors.

At the forum, some of the students will return to present the results of
their work and their thoughts. We will also present, after brief (4 days)
reflection, some thoughts on the program and some thoughts on the
structuring of educational experiences of this kind.

Speakers:

Apprentices and Mentors from the Institute for Educational Advancement
(www.educationaladvancement.org)

for some interesting stuff on complex internet structure, see xerox parc's 'internet ecologies' area at http://www.parc.xerox.com/istl/groups/iea/.

Xerox has had this going for a while. It's been demoed at retail stores (flexible hanging banners with changing messages).

Here's a list of on-line electronic paper resources gathered less than a year ago by Shawn Hellenius.

Both Xerox and MIT had workstations with GUIs, desktops, and built-in networking, and you could buy those commercially. Apollo and several other companies also made such workstations. Tektronix had several workstations (and had had a much longer history, based on their graphics terminals). By 1984, people had already built Smalltalk machines out of commodity hardware.

As far as the Dynabook goes, yes Alan did conceptualize it twenty years or more ago, but it was a concept. It never came to fruition.

There were lots of handhelds before the Newton. One of particular note is the ParcTAB, a device in the Palm form factor, with handwriting recognition, wireless networking, and lots of other features. The Apple Newton, if anything, was a detour on the road to Palm and PocketPC--an inconvenient form factor, too small for real work and too large for putting in your pocket.

Apple did hit a sweet spot in the market, with nice looking, well-designed personal computers that were stripped down versions of the real things. That does not constitute "innovation" however. And whether it has been a good thing for the industry as a whole is an open question. I think the horrendously awkward design of the Macintosh toolbox has influenced the thinking of programmers for the last 15 years and had a very negative effect on even modern GUI libraries.

Has everyone forgotten the original givers? They are the reason we have the mouse. The interaction. The PC. Their research and ideas, abused by Case and later Gates, gave birth to CHI (Computer Human Interaction).

This article fails to mention anything worthy of being noted. It's too bad PARC isn't as big as it used to be.

• the "genes" to combine and cross,
• principles for mutating them, and
• domain models to simulate the effect of combining the genes in different ways (so you can give different the individuals [combinations of genes] heuristic performance scores and focus on mutating the better ones).

There's an academic and practice communinity around TRIZ, which you can find by searching for "TRIZ" on Google or looking at the TRIZ Journal.

The name "Invention-Machine" is taken. The Exact Science of Innovation is a brief background abstract from a founder of Invention Machine, Inc., which has developed process knowledge bases and search technology based on the TRIZ concepts.

Benefits:

1. Portable; can fit many on a device
   
2. Can download new books without going to the mall or waiting for Amazon to deliver it
   
3. Can potentially do text searches
   

1. Expensive: have to buy the device AND have to buy the books; higher risk of being stolen
   
2. Breakable; can't just toss it in my backpack
   
3. Harder on the eyes
   
4. Not standardized.
   
5. No low-cost "paperback" edition
   
6. Limited selection and very few current releases
   
7. Require power source
   
8. Can't give to a friend when I'm done with it, or sell it at a yard sale
   
9. Lacks that distinct feel and smell
   

• Xerox Alto
• Apple Lisa
• Apple Macintosh

Go ahead, use your ugly clones.

Once more time proving that Microsoft can not innovate, just copy.

Or postal mail and fax-based art, where artists mail and fax in artworks on a specific day. We did one of these in 1993 (and that was by no means early) with a specific time-period instead of a day, all based on copy/fax art. See copy art. Or do a search on google: fax art or mail art

No. You're thinking of 40-40.037N-073-59.347E. In the Western hemisphere, the Dancin'est Hemisphere in the World, those coordinates go to New York City. Don't believe me? Too bad. I'm right.

How cheap would a B/W printer be?

I see your point, but it depends on what type of printing you do. I work with black and white "laser" printers that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars (I don't really know how much, you'd have to talk to Xerox about the price, the bean counters could tell you though). What, that much? Well yea, but they rip and print 180 pages a minute. They are variable data printing monsters, but if you've got several million b&w unique pages to print, that's what you need.... It's all about finding the right piece of equipment for the job.

It's rare that you see someone giving up rather than sueing

We do not object to use of this slang term to describe UCE, although we do object to the use of our product image in association with that term. Also, if the term is to be used, it should be used in all lower-case letters to distinguish it from our trademark SPAM, which should be used with all uppercase letters.

I know: a stack of those brown envelopes that look all official like they're from a government agency, but when you open them up - just a sales pitch?

Xerox DocuShare

http://docushare.xerox.com

-Hal Incandenza

If you need an easy to use UI, take a look at Xerox Docushare or perhaps if you want to lean toward groupware look at Amphora.

"A microprocessor... is a terrible thing to waste." --

One problem is that it would depend very much on the type of website and thus the type of users you had. If you have a B2B website, and most of your visitors are from companies, your (unique user):(unique IP) ratio will look very different to a site with mostly home visitors coming through large ISPs.

The industry seems to be more concerned with developing more and more reliable versions of the half-hour timeout metric. Of course, they're chasing the wind. (And furthermore, all the different versions of their metric are then not comparable -- see this study from Xerox PARC (PDF, 228kb).)

I leave you with this thought from my essay How the Web Works:

"These problems are not really new to the web -- they are present just as much in print media too. For example, you only know how many magazines you've sold, not how many people have read them. In print media we have learnt to live with these issues, using the data which are available, and it would be better if we did on the web too, rather than making up spurious numbers."

Whatever. I was building web apps full-time in early 95, at which point CGI app development was common knowledge. The Xerox map server was running in '93, and it was more technically interesting than any web store.

What do you want to do as a Computer Science graduate?

Do you want to code and hack? Get a job right away.

Do you want to do research? Check out PARC's employment page.

An advanced degree will not get you any further than a bachelors in JoeSchmo Bank. But you won't even get talked to without one if you want to work in a research center (HP, PARC, MS Research).

Dancin Santa

Jeff works on the DataGlyph technology. I work on applications of it. See http://www.xerox.com/flowport for my application, which lets you put a sheet with DataGlyphs on your document, drop it in a copier, and get out a paper icon for the document (stored on a WebDAV or other network server). You put the paper icon back in, and press copy to get a copy, type an e-mail address to e-mail it, etc. It's like an electronic version of the paper document, but on paper. We call it a "Document Token". (There has been previous SlashDot discussion of Document Tokens and other applications of DataGlyphs, but I can't find it either).

We're also very interested in open standards, and participate in a variety of standards organizations on this and related technologys. For example I'm on the W3C XForms committee, designing the next generation of web forms, and paper is one of the new "devices" that is being targeted (along with voice, pdas, phones, etc.). Check it out and send your comments to the www-forms mailing list! As we said when XForms was launched:

For the Web to become a truly ubiquitous computing interface, it must move beyond the desktop. XForms and other W3C open standards will make it easy to create and to use rich, interactive Web documents and services on a wide variety of user interfaces -- graphical, voice, and paper.

I've heard of two types of "electronic paper", one uses black & white charged balls (developed at parc) the other uses capsules filled with ink and little white charged particles. ("electronic ink"