E-books and e-publishing by Samuel Vaknin (summer reading list txt) 📖

and application

developers to meet this challenge by developing products that

support any language. This simplifies testing and

configuration management, accelerates time to market, lowers

unit costs and allows companies to quickly and easily enter

new markets and offer greater levels of personalization and

customer satisfaction.”

GlobalVu converts text to device-independent images.

GlobalEase Web is a “Java-based multilingual text input and

display engine”. It includes virtual keyboards, front-end

processors, and a contextual processor and text layout engine

for left to right and right to left language formatting. They

have versions tailored to the specifications of mobile

devices.

The secret is in generating and processing images (bitmaps),

compressing them and transmitting them. In a way, WordWalla

generates a FACSIMILE message (the kind we receive on our fax

machines) every time text is exchanged. It is transparent to

both sender and receiver - and it makes a user-driven

polyglottal Internet a reality.

 

Deja Googled

By: Sam Vaknin

http://groups.google.com/

http://groups.google.com/googlegroups/archive_announce.html

The Internet may have started as the fervent brainchild of

DARPA, the US defence agency - but it quickly evolved into a

network of computers at the service of a community. Academics

around the world used it to communicate, compare results,

compute, interact and flame each other. The ethos of the

community as content-creator, source of information, fount of

emotional sustenance, peer group, and social substitute is

well embedded in the very fabric of the Net. Millions of

members in free, advertising or subscription financed, mega-sites such as Geocities, AOL, Yahoo and Tripod generate more

bits and bytes than the rest of the Internet combined. This

traffic emanates from discussion groups, announcement

(mailing) lists, newsgroups, and content sites (such as

Suite101 and Webseed). Even the occasional visitor can find

priceless gems of knowledge and opinion in the mound of trash

and frivolity that these parts of the web have become.

The emergence of search engines and directories which cater

only to this (sizeable) market segment was to be expected. By

far the most comprehensive (and, thus, less discriminating)

was Deja. It spidered and took in the exploding newsgroups

(Usenet) scene with its tens of thousands of daily messages.

When it was taken over by Google, its archives contained more

than 500 million messages, cross-indexed every which way and

pertaining to every possible (and many impossible) a topic.

Google is by far the most popular search engine yet, having

surpassed the more veteran Northern Lights, Fast, and Alta

Vista. Its mind defying database (more than 1.3 billion web

pages), its caching technology (making it, in effect, one of

the biggest libraries on earth) and its site ranking (by

popularity and links-over) have rendered it unbeatable. Yet,

its efforts to integrate the treasure trove that is Deja and

adapt it to the Google search interface have hitherto been

spectacularly unsuccessful (though it finally made it two and

a half months after the purchase). So much so, that it gave

birth to a protest movement.

Bickering and bad tempered flaming (often bordering on the

deranged, the racial, or the stalking) are the more repulsive

aspects of the Usenet groups. But at the heart of the debate

this time is no ordinary sadistic venting. The issue is: who

owns content generated by the public at large on computers

funded by tax dollars? Can a commercial enterprise own and

monopolize the fruits of the collective effort of millions of

individuals from all over the world? Or should such

intellectual property remain in the public domain, perhaps

maintained by public institutions (such as the Library of

Congress)? Should open source movements gain access to Deja’s

source code in order to launch Deja II? And who owns the

copyright to all these messages (theoretically, the authors)?

Google, as Deja before it, is offering compilations of this

content, the copyright to which it does not and cannot own.

The very legal concept of intellectual property is at the crux

of this virtual conflict.

Google was, thus, compelled to offer free access to the

CONTENT of the Deja archives to alternative (non-Google)

archiving systems. But it remains mum on the search

programming code and the user interface. Already one such open

source group (called Dela News) is coalescing, although it is

not clear who will bear the costs of the gigantic storage and

processing such a project would require. Dela wants to have a

physical copy of the archive deposited in trust with a dot

org.

This raises a host of no less fascinating subjects. The Deja

Usenet search technology, programming code, and systems are

inextricable and almost indistinguishable from the Usenet

archive itself. Without these elements - structural as well as

dynamic - there will be no archive and no way to extract

meaningful information from the chaotic bedlam that is the

Usenet environment. In this case, the information lies in the

ordering and classification of raw data and not in the content

itself. This is why the open source proponents demand that

Google share both content and the tools to access it. Google’s

hasty and improvised unplugging of Deja in February only

served to aggravate the die-hard fans of erstwhile Deja.

The Usenet is not only the refuge of pedophiles and neo-Nazis.

It includes thousands of academically rigorous and research

inclined discussion groups which morph with intellectual

trends and fashionable subjects. More than twenty years of

wisdom and erudition are buried in servers all over the world.

Scholars often visit Usenet in their pursuit of complementary

knowledge or expert advice. The Usenet is also the

documentation of Western intellectual history in the last

three decades. In it invaluable. Google’s decision to abandon

the internal links between Deja messages means the

disintegration of the hyperlinked fabric of this resource -

unless Google comes up with an alternative (and expensive)

solution.

Google is offering a better, faster, more multi-layered and

multi-faceted access to the entire archive. But its brush with

the more abrasive side of the open source movement brought to

the surface long suppressed issues. This may be the single

most important contribution of this otherwise not so opportune

transaction.

 

Maps of Cyberspace

By: Sam Vaknin

 

“Cyberspace. A consensual hallucination experienced daily by

billions of legitimate operators, in every nation, by children

being taught mathematical concepts…A graphical

representation of data abstracted from the banks of every

computer in the human system. Unthinkablecomplexity. Lines of

light ranged in the non-space of the mind, clusters and

constellations of data. Like city lights, receding…”

(William Gibson, “Neuromancer”, 1984, page 51)

http://www.ebookmap.net/maps.htm

http://www.cybergeography.org/atlas/atlas.html

At first sight, it appears to be a static, cluttered diagram

with multicoloured, overlapping squares. Really, it is an

extremely powerfulway of presenting the dynamics of the

emerging e-publishing industry. R2 Consulting has constructed

these eBook Industry Maps to “reflect the evolving business

models among publishers, conversion houses, digital

distribution companies, eBook vendors, online retailers,

libraries, library vendors, authors, and many others. These

maps are 3-dimensionaloffering viewers both a high-level

orientation to the eBook landscape and an in-depth look at

multiple eBook models and the partnerships that have formed

within each one.” Pass your mouse over any of the squares and

a virtual floodgate opens - a universe of interconnected and

hyperlinked names, a detailed atlas of who does what to whom.

eBookMap.net is one example of a relatively novel approach to

databases and web indexing. The metaphor of cyberspace comes

alive in spatial, two and three dimensional map-like

representations of the world of knowledge in Cybergeography’s

online “Atlas”. Instead of endless, static and bi-chromatic

lists of links - Cybergeography catalogues visual,recombinant

vistas with a stunning palette, internal dynamics and an

intuitively conveyed sense of inter-relatedness. Hyperlinks

are incorporated in the topography and topology of these

almost-neural maps.

“These maps of Cyberspaces - cybermaps - help us visualise and

comprehend the new digital landscapes beyond our computer

screen, in the wires of the global communications networks and

vast online information resources. The cybermaps, like maps of

the real-world, help us navigate the new information

landscapes, as well being objects of aesthetic interest. They

have been created by ‘cyber-explorers’ of many different

disciplines, and from all corners of the world. Some of the

maps … in the Atlas of Cyberspaces … appear familiar,

using the cartographicconventions of real-world maps, however,

many of the maps are much more abstract representations of

electronic spaces, using new metrics and grids.”

Navigating these maps is like navigating an inner, familiar,

territory.

They come in all shapes and modes: flow charts, quasi-geographical maps, 3-d simulator-like terrains and many

others. The “web Stalker” is an experimental web browser which

is equipped with mapping functions. The range of applicability

is mind boggling.

A (very) partial list:

The Internet Genome Project - “open-source map of the major

conceptual components of the Internet and how they relate to

each other”

Anatomy of a Linux System - Aimed to “…give viewers a

concise and comprehensive look at the Linux universe’ and at

the heart of the poster is a gravity well graphic showing the

core software components,surrounded by explanatory text”

NewMedia 500 - The financial, strategic, and other inter-relationshipsand interactions between the leading 500 new

(web) media firms

Internet Industry Map - Ownership and alliances determine

status, control, and access in the Internet industry. A

revealing organizational chart.

The Internet Weather Report measures Internet performance,

latency periods and downtime based on a sample of 4000

domains.

Real Time Geographic Visualization of WWW Traffic - a

stunning, 3-d representation of web usage and traffic

statistics the world over.

WebBrain and Map.net provide a graphic rendition of the Open

Directory Project. The thematic structure of the ODP is

instantly discernible.

The WebMap is a visual, multi-category directory which

contains 2,000,000 web sites. The user can zoom in and out of

sub-categories and “unlock” their contents.

Maps help write fiction, trace a user’s clickpath (replete

with clickable web sites), capture Usenet and chat

interactions (threads), plot search results (though Alta Vista

discontinued its mapping service and Yahoo!3D is no more),

bookmark web destinations, and navigate through complex sites.

Different metaphors are used as interface. Web sites are

represented as plots of land, stars (whose brightness

corresponds to the web site’s popularity ranking), amino-acids

in DNA-like constellations,topographical maps of the ocean

depths, buildings in an urban landscape, or other objects in a

pastoral setting. Virtual Reality (VR) maps allow information

to be simultaneously browsed by teams of collaborators,

sometimes represented as avatars in a fully immersive

environment. In many applications, the user is expected to fly

amongst the data items in virtual landscapes. With the advent

of sophisticated GUI’s (Graphic UserInterfaces) and VRML

(Virtual Reality Markup Language) - these maps may well show

us the way to a more colourful and user-friendly future.

 

The Universal Intuitive Interface

By: Sam Vaknin

The history of technology is the history of interfaces - their

successes and failures. The GUI (the Graphic User Interface) -

which replaced cumbersome and unwieldy text-based interfaces

(DOS) - became an integral part of the astounding success of

the PC.

Yet, all computer interfaces hitherto share the same growth-stunting problems. They are:

(a) Non-transparency - the workings of the hardware and

software (the “plumbing”) show through

(b) Non-ubiquity - the interface is connected to a specific

machine and, thus, is non-transportable

(c) Lack of friendliness (i.e., the interfaces require

specific knowledge and specific sequences of specific

commands).

Even the most “user-friendly” interface is way too complicated

for the typical user. The average PC is hundreds of times more

complicated than your average TV. Even the VCR - far less

complex than the PC - is a challenge. How many people use the

full range of a VCR’s options?

 

The ultimate interface, in my view, should be:

(a) Self-assembling - it should reconstruct itself, from time

to time, fluidly

(b) Self-recursive - it should be able to observe and analyze

its own behavior

(c) Learning-capable - it should learn from its experience

(d) Self-modifying - it should modify itself according to its

accumulated experience

(e) History-recording

It must possess a “picture of