Revolt of the mad scientists: "The entire editorial staff of The Journal of Irreproducible Results, fed up after years of fighting red tape, has resigned to start a new science humor magazine called The Annals of Improbable Research (AIR)," to appear bimonthly later this year. More than 40 editorial board members have also switched. The MIT Museum is sponsoring the new venture, including the annual Ig Nobel Ceremony. Marc Abrahams (air@mit.edu) is [still] the editor. Subscriptions to JIR will not necessarily be fulfilled by AIR, but mini-JIR subscribers will get the free mini-AIR; send a "subscribe mini-air your name" message to listserv@mitvma.mit.edu to enroll. For hardcopy subscription info, send a SASE to The Annals of Improbable Research (AIR), c/o The MIT Museum, 265 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA 02139. Librarians should contact Marilyn Geller (mgeller@mit.edu) about cataloging. [mini-air@mitvma.bitnet, 5/27/94.]

The management team at speech-recognition company Kurzweill Applied Intelligence has resigned because of questionable accounting transactions. [NYT, 5/24/94, p. C4. EDUPAGE.]

Microsoft will no longer announce suggested retail prices. Apple made the same move last year. Artificially high prices confused buyers and sometimes scared them off. [SJM, 5/10/94, p. 6E.]

Apple's new slogan is "Stand Out and Fit In." David Nagel of AppleSoft says that OpenDoc object modules in System 8.x ("Copland") and 9.x ("Gershwin") will include advanced graphics, speech recognition, and text-to-speech generation for "active assistant" system software. [Newsbytes, 5/26/94. Bill Park.] Their Active User Interface, or AUI ("owww-weee"), will be introduced within a year. [dot.COM, 5/27/94.] (Apple Fellow Don Norman is trying to simplify the user's view of system functions. To me, this feels like Apple is finally getting back to its roots, or core expertise. The slogan, though, is aimed at the business market.)