Electric Word, July 1990
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
- eI.ECer'RiC WoRD . ST E P R GHT TH S WAY Editor/ Publishe r Louis Rossetto Invest in EW Contents Art Director Henri Lucas Executive Editor It's always a crap shoot, you never ACCESS GUIDE TO RICHARD SAUL WURMAN by Jonathan Beard 1 7 JulesMarshall Associate Editor knowhowanissue is goingto turnout. For 25 years, RSW has used his reserves ofignorance to help America understand itself JaneSzita Just coordinating all the elements is a Software Editor better. AsJonathan Beard found outwhen he met the author, architect, cartographer, Colin Brace task only slightly less humbling than creative director of a design agency on each coast of the US and chair of this year's . Editor-at-large Oenise Penrose trying to align all the planets. No epochal TED2 conference, there's plenty more where that came from. SeniorCorrespondent Andrew Joscelyne wonder it's become a standing joke 11ruedeI'Esperance around the EW office: that moment HELP! by Col in Brace 2 3 75013Paris France Tel.+33 (1) 458891 79 each issue when we start laying out When Ford consolidated its worldwide product design and engineering information Correspondents Claude Bedard pages and I get to see the magazine in into one huge online system, it created the world's largest private database. T he 2705RueEd. Montpetit, #11,Montreal, Quebec, its final form for the first time, when I problem: how to get everyone to use it without losing precious production time. The Canada H3T1J6 proclaim in genuine surprise, hey, this solution: create an online help system and interactive training modules. But how to Tel. +1 (514) 738-8861. MikeMarklew (Japan) , issue isn't so bad - in fact, it's even trans late all 72,000 help screens into four European languages? Tel. +81 (3) 760-2871 . Steve Rosenthal better than the last. (USWestCoast) What makes it doubly gratifying THE DEATH OF PRINT by David Henry Goodstein 2 9 Writers MarkOols, Richard Evans , this time is that this is the first issue of We know you've heard it before, but this time you better really pay attention. Ray Girvan , Charles Hugo , Jeffrey S. Mann , Brock the rest ofour lives. Thirty six months Electronic Media is about to wreak an astonishing transformation on the printing Meeks , JefRaskin , Ezra Shapiro, JohnSeifarth , Or. andtwo publisherslater, ElectricWord industry. The days ofprint are numbered - though this won't necessarily mean the NickBeard , Tony is independent. end ofpaper. Whitecomb Proofreading That means that this summer we Andrew Rogers ContributingArtists will be devoting our energies fulltime THE ORIGINAL CYBERPUNK: TIM LEARY by Louis Stiller 3 4 Ryu Tajiri, Max Kisman , to raisingnewfunding, and!orfinding Dr. Timothy Leary is converting his vision ofa cyberdelic future, where people use Henri Lucas Photographers a new publisher. We believe strongly thought applicances to free there own minds and change the world, into software OyanaVan Campen lanPatrick that the world needs a magazine like reality. Director of Marketing Jane Metcalfe Electric Word, one written not for an FulfillmentDirector utterly mythical corporate CEO ready HACKING THE BRAIN by Nick Beard 3 7 Ada m Eeuwens FulfillmentAssociate to buy5,000 computers at a throw, but After a false dawn, neural networks are winning back an increasingly large slice ofthe IngridBerk for the thinking computer user research cake. Nick Beard reports how natural language processing is benefitting. © 1990by language involved in the global revolution of Technology, BV. All rightsreserved . information technology and word WRITERS RIGHT NOW by Jane Dorner 4 3 Electric Word (ISSN 0921 crunching. And we are very optimistic The British Library commissioned a survey ofover a thousand writers to find out their 2787) is published by Language Technolo gy BV, that the commercial potential of the use ofand att itude toward information technology and writing. The first report on at Amsterdam , TheNether least boringcomputer magazine in the the results of the survey, plus a poll ofpublishers, specially for Electric Word. lands , bi-monthly(6 a year). world will attract new investors. Subscription price US$50 for individuals, Thank you for all your calls, faxes WORDWORKER: NICHQLSON BAKER by Mark Reid 6 4 US$95Corporationsl Institutions. and letters ofconcern and!or congrat Former technical writer Nicholson Baker has become a cult phenomenon, with his Exclusive Italian agents ulations, as well as your offers ofhelp first two novels drawing hot reviews. Logos SRL, viaCurtatona 51 2, 41100 Modena. Tel+39 and equipment. And while we are al (59) 280802. ready doing our utmost to line up new USPostmaster LANGUAGE TECHNOLOGY section Send all address changes to backing, you can certainly help: ifyou Electric Word ,clo Expedit ersof thePrintedWord Ltd. know anyone, or any company, that News You Can Use 3 2323Randolph Ave. , Rahway, NJ07001 USA. would like the opportuntity to invest Lingua Franca 9 Second Class PostagePaid at Rahway, NJ. in ElectricWord, we would appreciate Vie ws and Abuse 11 All inquiries your informing them and us. My per Stars 13 Emmalaan 21, 1075 ATAmste rdam , NL sonal number is +31 (20) 123 731. Sue Atkins, star lexicograp her Tel. +31 (20)6646551 Fax: 755091. See you in the fall - with yet again Paul Brai nerd, thefather of PageMaker Change of Address our best issue ever . MikeRyan, author of a powerful new typesetting prog ram for book production Please provideaddress from lastissue andnew - Louis Rossetto Revie ws You Can Use . address . Allow six weeks. Submissions Hardcopy Revi ew 56 Wewelcome submissions. Pleasemake surethey'reon Cal en dar 60 disk, andaccom panied by CyberLex 60 hardcopy. Type, lithosandprinting Clas-si fieds 61 Henkes Senefelde r, Purme rend , NL Ask Dr. Writestuff 62 A-GEVAERT N.V. Additional typesetting Niek vanOijk rot e Steenweg 224 Special thanksto COVER PHOTO Peter Rutten , without whose help andsuppo rt RichardSaulWurmanattheTED2 conference, shotby a participantwitha Sony this issue would not have 00 Berchem (Antwerp) been possib le. Mavica electronic camera. Image then manipulated usingAdobe's PhotoShop. BELGIUM Electr ic Word #20 KE NEW S YOU C ·A N USE INTELLIGENT NETWORKS HYPERDOC LANGU~_- Gasps at DRUPA: Direct-to-paper press The propaganda machines have been REVAMPED pounding away for years about how in The new 2.10version Following the reduction of the Berlin Wall to a telligent networks are finally coming, but of Hyperd oc, from UK i~s is theLeading Supplier based Hyperdoc PLC, in fact DRUPA was the first time that paperweight, the walls ofthe print and publishing allows IBM/clone users llingverifier correctors in Engli: products to implement distributed net 1 industries could be the next obstacles to free move to build complete multi " l ~h e , best selling electronic the: works looked real. A few advanced users media presentations ment to go. Interoperability was the name of the have had multi-site, even multinational, withmoving or still ~ , We use a powerful ' ~ A n" n """i''' , game at the recent DRUPA '90 high-end print and linkups in operation for severalyears, but images fromvideo or f~~RC), to squeeze the enti publishing fair. Held once every five years, the suppliers now intend to make this the camera, scanned im norm, rather than the exception. ages and drawings, text entries and 220,00 jungle that is the world's largest single trade exhibi and graphics from English spelling 1 Networks were the hottest news from tion featured a plethora of products designed to Scitex, which ran what it described as computer databases, and audiomaterial. It Italian lexicon tak compression techniques, ours require "the world's largest prepress configura 10K break down the walls between systems, companies, also supports touch under of 1 I J ,",\.IVll 1IJJ \;,');:)1011 is instantaneous. Our new phonetic tion" from its booth. Remote scanning, industries, individual country markets and even screen technology and tion algorithms are unsurpassed in the industry. proofingand recordingwere in operation multiple textfonts , as ur customers include Ashton-Tate, Claris, Lotus, MicroPro, Microsoft, Symantec, Xerox, between media for delivery ofinformation. withcustomers alloverEurope viaSciNet. well asSharp JX300/ Xy uest, and many others. Word Finder is the thesaurus bundled in ~i,~rosoft Word",::WprdStar This product runs on a very high speed 450colorscanners . All 4.0, FullWrite, Manuscript, and XyWrit~. Our ;.SQ~!~~r,w~n PC ¥if~{J,Zine Editor~S ii~hoice in David Henry Goodstein between the systems ofdifferent vendors. link, butusesonly a partofthe bandwidth function keys are now ~yWrite a,;;fi~ld Contone images, linework, and page de for digital data transmission. Remaining programmable, and 1987for the implementation in III PluS;,compared to of 32 products with there is improved sup spelling technology from -every vendor !1! the industry.I,l ~!S also used in FullWrite The entry of computer technology into scription files will be handled, as well as transmission space is available for video and voice teleconferencing, allowing op portfor GEM, Ventura !~l.. ~r . the global print and publishing business high resolution edge/contour informa and full color TIFF . )i;&; and MacWrite 5.0. erators as well as machines at communi pro~id~ tec~n~gy Sel~~Tronics Wqr.}t~inder originally served to deepen lines offrag tion. graphics format. We the in the WF-220 handheld mentation caused by differences in lan Obstructions to the free flow of in cating sites to be linked to each other in dicti<>narv/thesaurus ~ {tOther ann1icatiG9~ ~f oU~ H~.~~~~ ology Hyperdoc nowcomes include OCR and guage, culture and labor. With programs formation from desktop publishing to real time. with new graphics or Te,.,can customize for any requirement. created on different hardware, in differ full color systems appear to be melting Following its deal for exclusive mar libraries. program that works without indexing ent software languages, the problem of away too, as manufacturers adopt the keting rights to the Prepress Express ser From UK£1800.