Federal agencies are showing great interest in Wide Area Information Server (WAIS) technology for information search and retrieval. A new SIG-WAIS group is forming, with USGS and CNIDR hosting a full-day meeting in Reston, VA, on 3/19. Contact Eliot Christian (echristi@usgs.gov), (703) 648-7425. [Brewster Kahle (brewster@think.com), wais-discussion@think.com, 2/28. Richard Shyduroff (rdshydur@athena.mit.edu), com-priv, 3/1.]

WAIS Inc. is a Thinking Machines spin-off operating from a Victorian mansion in Menlo Park. Brewster Kahle (brewster @wais.com) and six companions are selling an enhanced [serial] WAIS server, consulting, and otherwise supporting the WAIS "movement." They are committed to open protocols and grass-roots development. (415) 327-WAIS, (415) 327-6513 Fax. [Ibid.]

Several WAIS implementors at Thinking Machines Corp. are still marketing WAIS services. Jim Fullton of UNC/CNIDR is "picking up the banner" of free WAIS for the masses. His enhanced search engine (R8 B5) has a new ranking algorithm and UBIO booleans. Contact root@kudzu.cnidr.org to tap into Jim's beta-test /home2/jim/eric-digests on kudzu.concert.net. [Simon Spero (ses@sunsite.unc.edu), PACS-L, 3/8.]

XMosaic is an X-windows client for World Wide Web (WWW) servers. It knows about WAIS, Gopher, archie, and veronica servers, so you can tap into just about anything. NCSA developed this graphic interface for asynchronous collaboration involving scientific data. You can FTP sources or binaries from Web/xmosaic on ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu, and the technical summary from Web/mosaic- docs/mosaic.ps. A Mac version is in the works. [Ray Allis (ray@atc.boeing.com), 2/22.]

Internet Talk Radio will be sending "radio" audio programming via FTP or world-wide UUNET distribution, starting 3/31. Contact info@radio.com for details. Half-hour shows will include a "Geek of the Week" interview, computer network news, gossip, book reviews and even restaurant reviews, all in 15MB of 8K-sample, 8-bit, mu-law PCM. The venture (by Carl Malamud) is sponsored by Sun Microsystems, O'Reilly & Associates, and Computer Literacy. [carl@malamud.com. Ed Vielmetti (emv@msen.com), CARR-L, 3/3.] The 3/4 NYT carried a Page 1 article by John Markoff about Internet Talk Radio. Its advantage is that you can select topics from a menu (if you're not listening in real-time). Perhaps we can now transmit dramatic readings, lectures, and conference sessions on demand. [Clifford Urr (cliffu@well.sf.ca.us), PACS-L, 3/5.]