While no single issue of Research is ever entirely devoted to a single
theme, the desire for unity is apt to prompt one to search for some underlying
motif. In this issue, a reader might be excused for noticing at least a common
thread linking a number of the stories.
For years, we have lived with the expectation-fueled by science
fiction, perhaps, as much as by the predictions of scientists themselves -that
computers will soon form part of a seamless infrastructure. In this scenario, we
will be able to interact with computers and assign tasks to them with almost as
much ease as if we were communicating with another human being.
That vision remains to be achieved in its totality, but important steps have
been taken. For example, the all-important ability to recognize continuous
speech has now been achieved within specific domains (see
"Talking
to Machines"). While true natural-language understanding on the part of
computers lies in the future, the current ability to dictate and give spoken
commands to one's computer represents significant progress toward natural
computing.
Many users have dreamed not merely of being able to speak to their computers
but to have them act autonomously on their behalf. A full-blown realization of
this dream has proved infeasible so far, but much is possible even now through
intelligent agent technology. In particular, the ability to dispatch mobile
agents into a network to execute on other computers offers the prospect of
entirely new kinds of services. A global implementation, however, requires the
construction of a suitable infrastructure. Java aglets are an attempt to create
the open standards needed for this to happen (see
"The
Secrets of Agents").
Aglets depend on networks and protocols, but so, increasingly, do we all.
Yet a truly networked world would encompass not only humans and computers but
all the objects with which we interact. This notion, summed up in the phrase "contagious
information," envisages a world in which people can exchange computer
information stored in wearable devices via a handshake and open a car door or
dial a phone with a simple touch of the hand (see
"The
Body Electric").
While it would be a stretch to connect this issue's remaining two
features with the theme of the first three, their subject matter is no less
significant.
"New
Strategy for the Matching Game" describes the problem of deciding
whether a new object consisting of a fingerprint, a molecular structure or a
comparable complex pattern matches one stored in a large database. The FLASH
algorithm reduces the computational demands of this task by allowing one to
search only among the likely candidates, much in the way that alphabetic tabs in
a dictionary allow one to zero in on a word.
Finally, a story on the digital versatile disc recounts the
behind-the-scenes labors that led to the merger of competing proposals and a
standard format for a new kind of compact disc. As this new technology becomes
more widely available, consumers can thank the efforts of the IBMers who played
a key role in brokering an agreement between two consumer-electronics consortia.
In upcoming issues, look for stories on the future of storage technology,
computer networking, electronic commerce, security and authentication, new ways
to compose music with a computer, uses for chaos and more.
