Lucent Technologies is distributing an early version of its Inferno network operating system, which can link Websites into the phone network. Developers can download the Inferno programming language (Limbo) and other tools and beta applications for Windows 95, Windows NT 4.0, IRIX 5.3, Solaris 2.5, and the Plan 9 operating system. A commercial release is planned by the end of 1996. . [WEBster, 9/17/96.]

Microsoft has announced its Windows CE operating system, "an open, scalable Windows platform for a broad range of communications, entertainment, and mobile computing devices." Applications will be appearing at the 11/96 Comdex trade show, for devices from HP, NEC, Compaq, Casio, and Philips. . [NewtNews, 9/24/96.] (Apple responds that it's already shipping 2nd-generation Newtons with over 200 applications. Task-specific hardware platforms are being developed, and Newtons based on the StrongArm processor will be announced in a few weeks.)

Apple's Newton MessagePad currently has about 29% of the personal digital assistant (PDA) market, selling through 1,200 retail outlets and catalogs. U.S. Robotics' (Palm division) Pilot PDA has a 60% market share. (The Pilot has only been available for a few months, so this number may be as temporary as it is impressive.) The Pilot lacks Newton's communications capabilities and 3rd-party software, but is smaller, less expensive, and works very well. [PC Data. NewtNews, 10/1/96.]

Iran is trying to centralize all access to the Internet in order to maintain a certain level of decency, and to ban sites of the Mujahedeen Khalq and other opposition groups, the B'ahai religion, and any Western propaganda. [NYT, 10/8/96, A4. EDUPAGE.]

Burma has gone even further, outlawing the unauthorized possession of a computer with networking capability. Anyone who evades the law or who sends or received information about state security, the economy, or national culture will be subject to 7-15 years in prison. [Financial Times, 10/5/96. EDUPAGE.]

CompuServe has modified its membership license to say that it and its contractors have "a non-exclusive, paid-up, perpetual and worldwide right to copy, distribute, display, perform, publish, translate, adapt, modify and otherwise use in connection with CompuServe's business (and that of CompuServe's designated licensees, transferees, designees and contractors)" any files, software, or information you post to their service areas. This may be intended to permit conversion to HTML and other Web formats, but it claims much more. Publishers of the NetNotify e-zine have decided to no longer distribute their publication via CompuServe file libraries. [<74777.2670@compuserve.com>, net-hap, 10/11/96.] (If CompuServe decides that it is in the publishing business, does it have royalty-free rights to all posted material? Could it edit your material at will? Insert its own paid advertising on every screen?)

CompuServe also has a restriction on "adult" software, so Dave Morris' AIVR Corp. has moved its new Girlfriend Donna "AI game" demo to a different ISP. AIVR is selling a $59.96 CD ROM with full-motion video of a sexy model responding to your conversational inputs. . [Dave Morris <71334.1136@compuserve.com>, aivr-adultlist, 10/1/96.]

Prodigy is abandoning its proprietary online service in favor of being an value-added Internet service provider (ISP), or route to the Web. A $100M ad campaign will firm up its new image. [WSJ, 10/17/96, B11. EDUPAGE.] (Let's see... $100M divided by a few million users is how much per user?)

digital-culture is a new list for critical debate about technological issues. Send a "join digital-culture your name" message to . [, new-lists, 9/27/97.]

California will start its own Internet-based college program, rather than participate in the Western Governors' "virtual university" project. "California is uniquely positioned to become a world leader in the development and distribution of college-level software and courses." The CA plan will leave accreditation and control to the participating universities. "We do feel that faculty should be in charge." [Chronicle of Higher Ed. Academe Today, 10/3/96 and 10/11/96. EDUPAGE.]

NSF's Third International Math and Science Study finds US standards unfocused and aimed at the lowest common denominator. "A Splintered Vision: An Investigation of U.S. Science and Math Education" notes that US textbooks, which cover far more topics than is typical in other countries, are "a mile wide and an inch deep" -- emphasizing the least demanding topics. [Robert L. Park, WHAT'S NEW, 10/18/96.]

Want to influence US science policy? APS and AIP are sponsoring 1-year congressional science fellowships, usually running September through August. $45K plus relocation and benefits. . [Robert L. Park, WHAT'S NEW, 10/18/96.]

The open peer-reviewed J. of Interactive Media in Education (JIME) is now on the Web. . [, epub_announce, 9/2/96.]

Steve McCarty's "The Internet for Educator Development" is an article about how to hold an academic conference entirely online. . [, neteach-l, 10/14/96. net-hap.]

Kansas State U./CIS (Manhattan, KS): prof. of data/knowledge-base systems.

UC Irvine: prof. of DB, digital libraries, HCI, IR, multimedia, visualization, or communications.

SUNY Stony Brook (NY): two faculty in GUI, visualization, multimedia, logic programming, DB, networks, etc.

Siemens Corporate Research (Princeton, NJ): R&D personnel in ML, AI/ES, adaptive signal processing, fuzzy logic, user agents, NN, and intelligent control.

Lucent Technologies Bell Laboratories/Advanced Decision Support System group (Holmdel NJ): MS/PhD researchers in CS, OR, or industrial engineering.

Apple Computer (Cupertino, CA): information access researchers -- collaborative systems, filtering, indexing, browsing, summarization, clustering, visualization, etc.

GE Corporate R&D Information Technology Laboratory (Schenectady, NY): MS/PhD researchers in computational linguistics, NLP, and IR.

Franz Inc. (Berkeley, CA): director of [AI/KR/CAD/agent] engineering; also several Lisp developers.

Defense company (NJ): US MS sr. member of technical staff for AI/expert systems R&D.

UEast Anglia (Norwich, UK): RA for automatic segmentation of speech.

The British Library R&D Department (Lancaster): RA in concept-based abstracting.

Ubilab (Zurich): PhD multimedia-IR researcher.

Telenor R&D (Norway): Norwegian speech synthesis researcher.

The Ideas list is for discussion of the life-changing ideas (other than religion) in motivational or self-help tapes and books -- Alessandra, Brown, Canfield, Robbins, Waitley, Ziglar, Unlimited Power, Think and Grow Rich, Chicken Soup for the Soul, etc. Send a "subscribe ideas" or "subscribe ideas-digest" message to . R. Marshall . [, NEW-LIST, 9/22/96.]

Success Express Journal (SEJ) will "boldly communicate only the most positive and uplifting stories, lessons and articles" to "assist people in making one small positive change every morning, that after a long period of time will have a massive and positive effect on their lives." Weekly. Send a "subscribe sej" subject line and message to . Send a "subscribe sej-talk" command to join the associated SEJ-TALK unmoderated discussion group. Kaizen Technologies . [Ron M. , NEW-LIST, 9/8/96.]

How do you get people to work well together? Ask them what they would need in order to work well together. They'll come up with something, and develop a collective sense of responsibility. You might also redesign jobs, office layout, and group rewards. If you truly want to create a collaborative culture, it will happen. [Ann Majchrzak and Qianwei Wang, Harvard Business Review, 9/96, p. 92. NewtNews, 10/1/96.]

Rearranging home or office layout is a delicate design task, with seemingly trivial details often having psychological impacts. Whether desks face inward or have a view, for instance, affects whether people work as drones or have a visionary outlook. Look around you; does your view dominate the room, or do you feel dominated, threatened, or isolated? Desk placement relative to doors and windows determines whether you can concentrate peacefully or have to keep looking up to see who's entering your territory. Location relative to plants, filing cabinets, photocopiers, coffee makers, and mirrors can affect your energy and stress levels. Colors and shapes also have their effects. Such design elements would be considered by a Feng Shui practitioner, following comfort heuristics developed over thousands of years. Take a look at Master Lam Kam Chuen's "Feng Shui Handbook: How to Create a Healthier Living and Working Environment" (Henry Holt and Company, NY, 1996, 160 pp.) before you dismiss the idea. It's a beautifully designed book, with color illustrations on nearly every page. More importantly, it will sensitize you to psychological factors that have been affecting you subconsciously -- subtle factors, but strong enough to drain your energy and initiative, or to spark fights with your coworkers. The blissful peace of an Oriental garden or temple is no accident. Feng Shui can help you harmonize the physical patterns of your life, and that's a start on creating confidence and your own good fortune.

"I never said it was possible. I only said it was true." -- Charles Richet, Nobel Laureate in Physiology. [AWAD, 10/15/96.]

Deeper levels of Feng Shui are tied to astrology and an esoteric theory of chi lines in the Earth. I have no knowledge of the training, and no opinion as to whether the techniques produce useful results. (When ignorant, have no opinion. It seems such a simple principle, but people have trouble with it. I'm not agnostic about astrology, though; numerous studies of major systems have found them uncorrelated with any measures of success.) Anyway, I'm sure that one champion of Science who would question Feng Shui theory is James "The Amazing" Randi. His James Randi Educational Foundation (Fort Lauderdale, FL) is now offering $742K -- perhaps soon $1M -- for the first conclusive demonstration of any paranormal phenomenon. (You can make your own pledge if you wish, in $1K increments. Contact .) The foundation is prepared to pay in 7 days, so contestants don't have to handle collection from 200 donors. Even so, psychics have expressed objections: "I can't afford to be in a higher tax bracket." "I'm already rich." "I don't want the money; I'm totally spiritual." "You wouldn't pay me the money, anyway." "It's all a lie; there is no prize." "It's a trap by the CIA to identify and murder me." "The prize comes from the CIA (or from the communists)." "God told me not to get into it." "If I win, you'll have me killed to save the money." "You'll put out negative vibes to inhibit my powers." "Since you're a trickster, you'll fool me somehow." "It's too much money." "It's not enough money." "I want the money in a pile, in cash, (or a certified check) before I try." Etc. . [randi-hotline, 10/16/96.]

Although I respect Randi, I think the skeptics are too trusting of current scientific consensus. Science advances by testing hypotheses, but the hypotheses often come from outside. Physicists have been particularly willing to consider strange hypotheses, from whatever source. One theory of particle physics suggests that antimatter is just matter moving backward through time. (Photons are their own anti-particles, so they can be moving both ways at once.)

I've just been reading a 1975 book, Fritjof Capra's "The Tao of Physics," which suggests that modern cosmology is similar to Hindu/Buddhist/Taoist conceptions of the universe, and that energy packets in quantum field space may possibly be identified with Oriental notions of "chi." Cool, but it's pretty much just hand waving and poetic license. (Sometimes chi just means self-confidence, or goal-directed behavior, or "life force," or metabolic energy. Science needs a consistent vocabulary; mysticism does not.)

Randi lives in a world of fools (such as myself?) and frauds, and may be too quick to categorize non-science as nonsense. I'm hoping there's more to existence than Science has yet studied. In particular, I'd like to know whether the visions and healing anecdotes in Dan Millman's "Peaceful Warrior" books are factual. Medieval medicine has been looted for whatever good it contained, and the remainder can rightly be discarded as ignorance. (With exceptions. Just recently it's been reported that babies with cystic fibrosis have skin that tastes salty -- a diagnostic technique that had fallen into disuse.) Chinese and shamanistic mind-body medicine have not been subjected to the same sifting, and may have valid untested elements. That they look like hypnotism or medieval European medicine is not sufficient grounds for rejection. I'm pleased that NIH is putting some money into studying acupuncture and the like, although Randi and other skeptics are right to question whether the studies are scientifically valid.

-- Ken