Wednesday, December 3, 2003|
Further on Implicit Query - Patents and Old Friends Following my post on Microsoft's Implicit Query project, former Apple colleague Dan Rose writes to point out that similar concepts have already been patented by Apple - twice! - and by a former MIT Media Lab student, under the moniker 'remembrance agent'. Dan also reminds me of the days when he and I and folks like Gitta Salomon, Tom Erickson, and Abbe Don hung out at Apple and spun designs and prototypes for similar background search agents. As I recall without reference to notes, at one point our hierarchy of proxies for individual's information interests was:
By the way, have I ever mentioned that I've always been a real pack rat for research notes and sources? Enough so that my own lateral file was once used as a test collection? And ended up once making me an expert witness in a controversial database patent case? So you all be careful what you're filing in this area. It would be a terrible shame if I were to have to suffer through another such $250/hr gig, yessiree... (Don't write letters: I've already sent the few tips I had re Eolas to the right people.) |
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You're only off by two decades, Kevin In the context of an interesting post re discussions among himself, Sifry, Dave Winer, and Steve Gillmor re a organizing frameworks for blogs, Kevin Marks comes out with "Dave thinks in hierarchies; whether this is because he invented outlining, or why he invented outlining I'm not sure." Umm, no. Dave may very well think in outlines, but he didn't invent it. I have it on good authority (the man himself, several members of his team, and video evidence), that that honor goes to the elder Wizard himself, Doug Engelbart, who not only implemented computerized outlining, but cross-item hypertext linking, back in 1968. My attic contains notes of Doug's description of the original Augment data model to a hypertext modeling workshop back in 1988, already 20 years after the invention at the time. I'm sure Dave would agree that Doug got there first. (Update: I think this means he does.) Mr. Winer does have the distinction of bringing outlining to the personal computer, starting with his own online version, LBBS, and then the packaged software Thinktank and More. (I still have an ancient copy of More on my OS X system, and it still runs.) So anyway, Kevin, if you want your Old Fart credentials, you've gotta get your history straight :) Update: Kevin rebuts: Tim - you're in VC. You should know the difference between a demo and a product.Kevin, NLS/Augment during its heydey was used as a living tool by dozens of people at SRI (and I can produce many of them). They created an enormous (for the time) corpus of hypertext data, probably exceeding everything up until the Web itself. If that weren't enough, the NLS system and rights were eventually sold to Tymshare, which attempted to commercialize the product. The fact that they largely failed is beside the point, as a VC I'm aware that a lot of attempts go down. The point stands. (Historical note: The Tymshare building referenced in the linked article stands at the intersection of Valley Green and Bandley in Cupertino. In the late '80s it was tenanted by Apple Computer, which called it 'Valley Green 6.' My workgroup, which included two veterans of the NLS team, sat very close to the location earlier occupied by Doug's team. You could still read the Tymshare lettering on the curbs in the parking lot. Spooky.) |
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Energy, Security, Investment Opportunties
Speaking of Winds of Change, Armed Liberal has an interesting post on energy issues in a security context, including an informative discussion in which I've been playing, albeit as a financial backbeat to a mostly political discussion. |
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Primer on Defense Contracting
Over at Winds of Change, there's the first installment of a three-parter on the ins and outs of defense contracting. While it's designed to support a discussion of the merits of Halliburton's contracts in Iraq, it's also a generally useful primer on defense acquisition for entrepreneurs or the informed citizen. I've been getting a board's-eye view of the topic due to the entry of one of our portfolio companies into the Federal marketplace. This kind of a cheat sheet should be useful to anyone contemplating such a move. |
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Blogshares closes down. Useful assets?
This has already been widely noted, but the fun 'blog futures' trading site Blogshares has closed down. (Thanks for your support, Stefan, but I'm afraid your shares just became illiquid...). I only mention it because this blog's audience includes both M&A types and blog/web services entrepreneurs, who might note that there's a blog crawler, futures market engine, and an odd, but possibly useful audience now going begging. I don't see exactly how to exploit them, but perhaps someone better placed or smarter will. Apply here if interested, I believe. |
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I'm back
Sorry for the unheralded absence. An extended T'giving holiday combined with a day in the hands of the medical profession (debugging what's apparently a cranky gall bladder), and a day catching up on things. Over the next few days I'll be entertaining the fund's auditors (Oh, Joy!), working on a startup's financial model with the right hand, and blogging off the left... |
