Two men, two visions of one computer world, indivisible

Article Abstract:

Theodor Holm Nelson and Douglas C. Engelbart share a common goal despite their basic differences: both have been trying to refine hypertext for decades but have repeatedly fallen short. Hypertext is a way to organize information that allows a user to jump to information about various topics that are contained within one piece of information. It is a way of linking various types of information together. Both Nelson and Engelbart foresee far more advanced systems than are currently available or even imaginable by others. A goal of Nelson's company, Xanadu, which was purchased by Autodesk in 1988, is to assist people in working together and tracking documents. Xanadu will be a database program that will store each piece of information only once while incorporating it into many different documents, saving disk space. Engelbart's company, Bootstrap, wants to assist organizations in making faster and better decisions. Nelson and Engelbart may never see the results of their efforts, but the work they are doing may benefit all computer users.

Hypertext, Engelbart, Douglas, Nelson, Theodor Holm

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Computer translator phones try to compensate for Babel

Article Abstract:

Teams working at Japan's Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute International (ATR), Carnegie Mellon and Karlsruhe Universities and Siemens AG conducted the first public demonstration of an automatically interpreting international telephone system on Jan 28, 1993. The system takes about 20 seconds to translate a grammatical sentence spoken at a nearly normal rate in Japanese, English or German. Conversation is limited to a predefined topic and a vocabulary of 500-700 words. Within these limitations, translation is flawless. The system uses one computer workstation to convert utterances into text, another workstation to translate the text into a foreign language, modems to transmit the translated text over international telephone lines and a workstation on the receiving end to synthesize the translated text into speech. While interpreting telephones capable of limited applications may be available by 1999, fully fluent systems are at least 20 years in the future.

Telephone and telegraph apparatus, Commercial nonphysical research, Colleges and universities, Universities and colleges, International aspects, Research institutes, Telecommunications, Siemens AG, Telecommunication, International communication, Carnegie Mellon University, International Communications, Cooperation, International, Language Translation, Carnegie-Mellon University, Translating machines, Electronic translators, Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute, Karlsruhe University

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Coming soon: data you can look under and walk through

Article Abstract:

Research is under way at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center - Xerox PARC - to develop 'information visualizers,' which are techniques to allow viewing and analyzing information by navigating through three-dimensional computer-generated representations. An organization chart, for example, is displayed so that it looks on screen like a hanging Rolodex. If a name is selected, the structure spins to bring the selected name to the foreground of the screen. The other names rotate away, showing in perspective in the distance. It is thought that such three-dimensional tools might supplant existing two-dimensional graphical user interfaces (GUIs), which use icons, menus and mice. In fact, those techniques - icons, menus and mice - were also developed at Xerox PARC, in the 1970s.

Computer and Office Equipment, Commercial physical research, Innovations, Xerox Corp., XRX, Image processing, Computer graphics, Three dimensional graphics, GUI, Graphical user interfaces, Computer Industry, Three-Dimensional Graphics, User interfaces (Computers), Organization charts, User interface, Visualization, Xerox Corp. Palo Alto Research Center

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