Hanover, Germany - A wireless PowerBook connection led the pack of Macintosh products at CeBIT '92 here last week. In addition, major Mac productivity, multimedia and connectivity products were announced at the world's largest computer trade show.
>Wireless PowerBook.
The "weltpremiere" of Apple's first wireless computer took place at the company's CeBIT booth with a PowerBook 170 signing on to AppleLink with no strings attached.
Apple used Motorola Inc.'s RPM415 9,600-bps wireless modem, installed in place of the PowerBook's internal floppy drive, to make the connection.
Its 3-watt transmitter connects to the Modacom cellular data network, which will cover about 40 percent of Germany by year-end. Modacom then connects into Info/AG, a service based here, which in turn provides links to any German X.25 line, to gateways into information services such as AppleLink, and to systems such as US Sprint in the rest of the world.
The modem's ability to scan frequencies from 400 to 470 MHz will allow it to "roam" anywhere in Europe, automatically registering itself on local wireless networks.
Motorola said it will ship the wireless modem in July. Apple Germany plans to offer it as an option, priced at about $500, for its PowerBook 140s and 170s. The modem should be available from Apple in Great Britain, France and Hong Kong by year-end, the company said.
Motorola said U.S. PowerBook users can get the same wireless functionality as their German counterparts as soon as Apple commits to integrating the modem in its U.S. notebooks.
The RPM405i, a 19.2-bps version of the RPM415 that operates on U.S cellular data network frequencies, is already in use on IBM Corp.'s RadioPC wireless portable. The RPM405i uses ARDIS, a Modacom-like network that covers 93 percent of the United States.
>Video Machine.
Fast Electronic GmbH of Munich, Germany, previewed its $4,000 NuBus-based professional video mixer, called Video Machine, to ship in September for Windows and the Mac.
Video Machine comes with two 24-bit-color video input channels, which can accept composite or S-video in either NTSC (National Television System Committee), PAL (a European video standard) or SECAM video format; on-board time-based correctors, which automatically synchronize the video sources; two frame-grabbers; and a digital video mixer that will allow users to apply effects in real time.
The product also will ship with a program that will let users lay out clips from the board's two sources on a time line, apply hundreds of special effects and output the results on broadcast-quality signal.
>LanRover/L.
Shiva Corp. of Cambridge, Mass., officially introduced its AppleTalk Remote Access (ARA) server. Slated to retail for less than $800 when it ships in April, the LanRover/L will give network administrators at sites with heavy ARA traffic a way to handle the load without the expense of a dedicated Mac.
The device is a one-port, 68000-based box that connects to the Mac through LocalTalk. It can use any standard modem and can be accessed by any ARA client.
The only software required to run LanRover/L is a control panel, through which an administrator can set up, import and export user lists, and maintain the ARA server.
>Q&A.
The Germans call it "jungfernfahrt," the practice of taking a newly designed ship out on the water to see if it floats. And that is what Symantec Corp. seemed to be doing when it allowed its German distributor, Prisma GmbH, to demonstrate, but not officially announce, Q&A for the Macintosh at its CeBIT booth.
Q&A Mac, expected to ship this summer, is a flat-file database with an integrated word processor (see MacWEEK, Jan. 6).
Q&A will let multiple users on a network, including DOS users, share the same database file. This last feature will require an update to Q&A for DOS that should ship at the same time as Q&A Mac.
Q&A Mac is expected to cost about $395, the same price as its DOS sibling.
>SuperMac.
SuperMac Technology of Sunnyvale, Calif., announced an international trade pact with Miro Computer Products GmbH of Braunschweig, Germany, to resell SuperMac's entire product line in German-speaking Europe. Miro now holds the largest share of the German Mac display market, selling more displays than SuperMac, Radius Inc. and RasterOps Corp. put together.
The deal should catapult SuperMac to the No. 1 spot as Miro phases out its Mac products in favor of SuperMac's line.
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Vines gets a grip on the Mac as Banyan ships Version 5.0
Network OS features speedy name services
By Mitch Ratcliffe
Westboro, Mass. - Macs finally have their own branch of Banyan System Inc.'s Vines network operating system.
Vines for the Macintosh, an option for the company's Vines 5.0 software that shipped last week, had been promised since 1989. Users said the Macintosh client to the network operating system, which runs on top of Unix on IBM PCs and compatibles, provides access to a powerful directory service that makes it ideal for use in wide-area networking.
Mac users now have access to:
>Vines servers.
AFP (AppleTalk Filing Protocol) is implemented on the Vines server, giving Macintosh users a graphical interface to files on local and remote Vines servers.
Administrators can use DOS and Windows management applications to map documents residing on the Vines server to particular applications on the Mac. So, for instance, a file created in WordPerfect 5.1 for DOS can appear on the Mac desktop as a double-clickable WordPerfect 2.1 for Mac icon.
"I can't tell the difference between AppleShare, DEC VAX and Vines servers, except by their names," said Art Masson, director of transportation systems development at CSX Inc. of Jacksonville, Fla. "It may not be traditional Mac, [but] it is a very useful interface."
Vines' directory services, which are similar to Apple's recently demonstrated Open Collaboration Environment (OCE) directories, give the Banyan interface a few unfamiliar twists.
>StreetTalk.
Directories are available to Macintosh users through a StreetTalk Directory Assistance (STDA) menu item. The STDA compiles a complete list of all users, mailing lists and gateways on a network. For example, Mac users can select a gateway to IBM 3270 mainframe services, such as Digital Communications Associates Inc.'s upcoming IrmaLAN/EP, by scrolling through the STDA list.
"Now we don't need to run QuickMail and name servers for our Mac clients," said beta-tester Mehrdad Kasiri, network integration specialist with the Canadian federal government's Department of Communications in Ottawa.
Previously, Kasiri said, he had to manually update gateway naming services for the Macintoshes that logged onto his network of 80 Vines servers. "It was a real pain to update, but now it's automatic."
>Vines Mail.
With StreetTalk, Vines Mail users have access to any address on the network, including those across dial-up and other remote connections. Users, however, said the Macintosh client's interface shows its PC heritage. Kasiri described it as a hybrid of PC Vines Mail and CE Software Inc.'s QuickMail.
>WAN performance, no management.
Vines reportedly provides good file transfer performance and fast access to shared devices, even those scattered across a nationwide network.
Vines servers must run on a PC, and management applications that allow users to create accounts and set security for files and volumes are available only for DOS and Windows clients.
A Macintosh user on CSX's 10,000-node national network can receive an update to STDA listings in five seconds, according to Masson. "It's amazing, really, considering what it's doing," he said.
Vines servers will support users who dial into a Banyan network via AppleTalk Remote Access, according to Banyan. A Mac on the Vines network must act as an AppleTalk Remote Access server, which allows a remote Mac user to log in and select a Vines server from their Chooser.
Vines 5.0 is available now for $7,495. Unlimited Vines for Macintosh support is an additional $1,995, and Mac Mail services are $895. Until June 30, Mac Vines and Mail are bundled for $1,995.
Banyan Systems Inc. is at 120 Flanders Road, Westboro, Mass. 01581. Phone (508) 898-1000; fax (508) 898-1755.
MacWEEK 03/16/92
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Stay tuned for interactive TV
By Mitch Ratcliffe
San Francisco - John Sculley thinks people should watch more television.
Apple's CEO has been talking up the good points of a marriage between the personal computer and the boob tube. Sculley believes the offspring of this union would let people seize control of the vast amounts of information available to them as well as offer easy, interactive access to banking, software distribution and entertainment services.
"When we reinvent television this time, [I want to] get it right," Sculley said last month at the third Technology Entertainment and Design conference in Monterey, Calif. "The last time, I think we came up with an exciting technology. But the medium never really lived up to its potential."
At this month's Macintosh System Software Forum in Napa, Calif., Apple officials talked about the digital signature and authentication capabilities in the upcoming Open Collaboration Environment (OCE) as a key to using interactive services. According to sources, OCE authentication, which can be used to prove a user's identity, could allow people to use their computer as a virtual credit card when purchasing merchandise through electronic, interactive media.
A variety of existing technologies and recent developments will offer Apple and other companies an entree to the consumer market via the living room, or what some call "the electronic hearth."
>Broadcast television.
Hewlett-Packard Co. of Palo Alto, Calif., last month said it will join with TV Answer Inc. of Reston, Va., to manufacture and sell an interactive television device that will attach to home TV sets and broadcast viewer input during data and entertainment interactive programming.
The device, due next year, will allow home viewers to play along with game shows, pay their bills and order merchandise.
As an example, TV Answer cited a CBS News phone poll conducted after President Bush's State of the Union address. Of 25 million callers who tried to register their opinions, only 314,000 were able to reach CBS. "Our system could have taken all 25 million calls and processed them in 14 minutes," a TV Answer spokesman said. "Broadcast is the most cost-effective way to build an infrastructure for interactive, digital communications," he said.
TV Answer said any handheld or desktop computer with a video signal interface and software that emulates its commands, eventually will be able to interact with its network, bypassing the need for a TV set. For instance, a future version of HP's 95LX palmtop computer will include an interface that lets users bank, track stocks and receive software through the TV Answer network.
In another benefit for computer users, the HP/TV Answer device will include several slots for memory cards that are designed to accept software distributed over the TV Answer network. Software purchases could be downloaded to the 95LX, Macintoshes or IBM PCs and compatibles.
>Cable TV.
Sculley wants to piggyback on a high-bandwidth data highway that already binds the nation: cable television. Sources said Apple has been talking to cable TV operators about using cable channels.
Denver-based X Press Information Services Ltd. already has enacted part of Sculley's vision of a computer-to-cable link.
Since the mid-1980s X Press has offered a hardware- software interface to the cable network for Macs, PCs, Ataris and other home computers.
By tuning in to the appropriate cable channel, computer users can receive and interact with stock data, news and multimedia at 9,600 bps.
X Press said that by year-end, more than 22 million of the approximately 60 million cabled homes in the United States will have access to its service. The company, now an independent, was launched by Tele-Communications Inc., also of Denver, the largest cable company in the country.
Jerry Bennington, president of X Press, said an Apple cable initiative could be very successful, if its products sell at Nintendo game system prices.
Furthermore, he said, "Once the consumer market is going, it becomes feasible for businesses to use the medium for distribution of things like advertising, software, books and magazines."
For example, he said, a nationwide corporation could distribute by cable an internal newsletter to its employees at home or work. Users would simply run software that unlocks that part of the cable signal containing the newsletter.
Sculley said of interactive television: "We can help people learn to understand more. TV has probably narrowed our thinking and taken us away from things like books. But we have a second chance with television. Let's not blow it."
MacWEEK 03/16/92
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Tech Analysis: Apple predicts easy road to RISC
Porting Toolbox key to fast emulation
By Henry Norr
Cupertino, Calif. - The first RISC Macs are due in less than two years, and the PowerPC chips they will use promise to bring awesome processing power to the desktop.
The new technology will provide a platform for exotic applications - voice processing and cursive-handwriting recognition, for example - that have scarcely been possible on today's Macs' 680x0 processors.
But what about existing software? Will the move to a new processor mean massive incompatibilities or the sluggish performance typically associated with efforts to emulate one architecture on another? And will developers have to toss out all the code they've generated in years of Mac development?
Apple's answer to the latter questions is a resounding no.
The company's engineers claim that when the RISC (reduced instruction set computing) Macs hit the street, off-the-shelf software will run without modification. That will require emulation of the 680x0 instruction set on the PowerPC. But officials said their goal is to ensure that the first RISC Macs' performance in emulation mode at least matches that of the 680x0 models that will be available in the same price range at the time.
Of course, the real advantages of RISC will show up only when applications run in the new chip's native mode. But the company said it will supply tools to make it easy for developers to translate their software to the new platform.
>Porting the Toolbox.
The key to Apple's transition strategy is the fact that Mac applications spend most of their time executing Apple code - Mac Toolbox and operating system routines - rather than their own, according to Philip D.L. Koch, manager and technical lead at Apple's RISC Technology Development group. Koch was chief programmer and adjunct associate professor at Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H., until coming to Apple in December.
Using profiling tools developed by the company's Advanced Technology Group, Apple engineers have shown, for example, that 66.92 percent of the cycles consumed by Microsoft Excel are used for execution of Apple routines; less than a third are for the application's own code, Koch said. In the case of Aldus PageMaker, the ratio is even more dramatic: 88.5 percent Toolbox, 11.5 percent application code.
Moreover, a relative handful among the hundreds of routines provided by the Mac Toolbox carry most of the load. The Draw Text routine, for example, accounts for about 20 percent of PageMaker's Toolbox calls and about 35 percent of Excel's.
The speed of such routines is, therefore, critical to overall application performance. Since they can be executed 10 times faster in the PowerPC's native mode than in emulation mode, Koch said, porting them will give users much of the benefit of RISC - even before application developers begin rewriting or recompiling their own code for the new processor.
Apple programmers now are going through the Toolbox manager by manager and, in some cases, routine by routine, to ensure that key routines are ported first to the new chip. Rarely used routines might never be ported, he said, because doing so would have little benefit.
>Porting the apps.
To go beyond the performance levels a partially ported Toolbox will support, application developers will need to move their own programs to the PowerPC's native mode. In an effort to make that process as painless as possible, Apple plans to offer a unique binary-to-binary translator. Described by Koch as "essentially a compiler that uses object code rather than source code as input," the tool will generate PowerPC code from applications written for the 680x0.
Developers who want to take fuller advantage of the new processor and the microkernel Apple intends to release with the RISC Mac (see MacWEEK, March 9) will need to recompile or completely redesign their applications. Koch said Apple will use IBM Corp.'s "excellent compiler technology" in developing compilers for the new platform.
MacWEEK 03/16/92
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Farallon returns to network roots with hubs, routers
By Jon Swartz and Mitch Ratcliffe
Emeryville, Calif. - After a two-year multimedia flirtation that sidetracked its Ethernet development efforts, Farallon Computing Inc. is determined to reinvent itself as a Macintosh networking company.
"Customers are interested in networking, not multimedia," said Farallon CEO Reese Jones. "As the leading company in the Mac networking market, we need to expand into Ethernet and other areas."
Farallon last week vowed to return to its networking roots with an ambitious six-month product blitz and marketing campaign.
>AppleTalk update.
Farallon this summer will release a new version of the PC AppleTalk protocol stack with support for Novell Inc.'s IPX (Internetwork Packet Exchange) protocol, which will allow IBM PCs and compatibles simultaneous access to AppleTalk and NetWare networks. It also will include new virtual drivers for Windows applications that let PC users print to LaserWriters on an AppleTalk network.
>Hubs and routers. In July the company reportedly will introduce new network concentrators at Mactivity '92 in Santa Clara, Calif. The concentrators will support plug-in cards for building manageable LocalTalk and Ethernet hubs.
"Anyone who has purchased a StarController will be able to pop the case off and insert the card into the concentrator," said Steve Holtzman, Farallon vice president of marketing.
After two years of development, Farallon also will introduce routers that support AppleTalk-to-Internet Protocol gateways and AppleTalk tunneling across TCP/IP networks. Eventually the company might offer an IPX gateway as well, Holtzman said.
>Cross-platform applications.
Mac and PC users will be able to share screens with Timbuktu 5.0, also due this summer (see MacWEEK, Nov. 12, 1991). DiskPaper, a long-delayed document- distribution program, due this year, eventually will allow document viewing across platforms, sources said (see MacWEEK, Oct. 16, 1990).
A cross-platform version of the company's long-overdue multimedia application, MediaTracks, is reportedly on hold indefinitely.
"Our goal is to integrate PCs into the Mac environment," Holtzman said. "We're not going to offer a PC product if no Macs [are on the network]."
>Network-management software.
Farallon will build on its current management products, adding Ethernet monitoring and SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol)-based management capabilities.
>Ethernet cards.
Farallon this month began its re-emergence into the Ethernet market by introducing a line of network interface cards (see MacWEEK, March 9).
Industry observers said that while Farallon ignored the realities of the networking market during its dreams of multimedia dominance, many users moved from LocalTalk networks, the company's stronghold in the 1980s, to Ethernet. The resulting vacuum, they said, was filled by nearly a dozen Macintosh Ethernet card manufacturers.
"We could have introduced the (EtherMac) cards a year ago - not two weeks ago," admitted Farallon President Alan Lefkof.
Jones said Farallon will first go "head-to-head" with Asante Technologies Inc. in the Ethernet card market. Ron Volkmar, Asante vice president of marketing and sales, said Asante is "not worried," and that Farallon faces a tough market.
Farallon has taken several steps in the past year to narrow its strategic focus and expand its revenues. Internally, it installed a new executive team and laid off 10 percent of its staff. It sold two multimedia products, MacRecorder and SoundEdit, to MacroMind-Paracomp Inc. And the company has put its ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network) development on hold until next year.
Farallon's change of strategy also has put any initial public offering plans on hold until at least 1993, Holtzman said. He said Farallon's next round of financing will come from public markets.
MacWEEK 03/16/92
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Lotus will take Notes on Mac users
Collaborative software to get first Mac client
By Louise Fickel
San Francisco - Lotus Notes 3.0, an upcoming update for the Lotus Development Corp. workgroup environment, will for the first time include a Mac client, bringing Mac users a suite of functions most have never known.
Notes combines a client-server document database architecture with database, electronic-mail and scheduling support for DOS, Windows and now Mac clients. Notes works like Windows to some extent because it provides a work space on top of a computer's operating system where other applications can run. It lends collaborative capabilities to other applications by providing the ability to distribute and update documents.
The Macintosh client will, of course, contain some differences from the Windows client, such as support for Apple-specific protocols, the Finder and balloon help. Macintosh and IBM PC and compatible clients, however, will enjoy automatic translation of shared documents on Notes servers and therefore won't require any sort of translation, Lotus said.
Currently, Mac users can cobble together only some of the functions provided by Notes. For example, in the realm of group scheduling, ON Technology Inc.'s Meeting Maker and Now Software Inc.'s Now Up-to-Date are among those applications that forward an individual user's appointments to other users.
ON's Instant Update, a collaborative word processor document, provides some of the update capabilities found in Notes.
Because using Notes means either developing or having specific applications that can link into its collaborative functions, users usually find themselves defining new ways of working. Notes users in the PC world, now totaling about 130,000, have developed applications that changed the business of doing business.
Since becoming the first Notes customer in 1990, the New York-based accounting firm Price Waterhouse has developed more than 700 Notes-related applications in-house, according to Sheldon Laube, national director of information and technology at the company. "We have more than 9,000 users on servers in 10 countries, and everyone from senior partners down to secretaries uses it," he said.
Price Waterhouse uses Notes as a worldwide bulletin board where far-flung accountants can read and exchange up-to-date information on timely topics such as changes in tax laws. Individual departments store and distribute information such as boilerplate text for use in proposals and rsums.
Across town, about 100 users at New York Metropolitan Insurance Co. rely on Notes' ability to provide timely information to make them more competitive, said David Daniels, manager of executive information for investments.
The insurance company has developed an application that pulls strategic information on competitors from a variety of sources, including news wire services, internal reports and casual tips. Once stored in the Notes database, the information can be viewed in a variety of ways, such as by industry or by topic. "This lets people who aren't easily informed share in the information loop," Daniels said.
Other software companies, such as Corporate Software Inc. of Canton, Mass., and PeopleSoft Inc. of Walnut Creek, Calif., use Notes to track their own customer support.
One of Corporate Software's applications incorporates a contact log of all phone calls, a Lotus cc:Mail gateway that gives remote users access to the Notes database, and several combinations of Notes Views and Forms that let users read and respond to forms that describe user questions and problems. "We've customized the forms, depending on who the user is," said Sharon Foley, services administration manager at Corporate Software.
Notes 3.0 will let users choose Lotus cc:Mail over Notes mail, which the company said will benefit cc:Mail users who don't want to give up their native mail environment.
Lotus Development Corp. is at 161 First St., Cambridge, Mass. 02142. Phone (617) 577-8500; fax (617) 693-4663.
MacWEEK 03/16/92
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Infini-D 1.5 takes on QuickTime, EPS
By Neil McManus
Amherst, Mass. - Imagine a QuickTime movie of Michael Jordan's face wrapped around an animated 3-D model of a basketball. As the ball spins, Jordan moves with it, talking about his favorite pair of sneakers.
This is one of the new effects possible with Specular International Ltd.'s Infini-D 1.5, due in May for $895. The upgrade to Specular's modeling, rendering and animation package will offer several new features, including:
>QuickTime.
Version 1.5 will save animations to QuickTime movie format and images as compressed PICT files. A feature called rotoscoping will let users apply imported QuickTime movies to objects.
>EPS.
The new version can import Encapsulated PostScript files. The program also will let users model with Bezier curves in Aldus FreeHand or Adobe Illustrator and access the outlines in Infini-D through System 7's publish and subscribe features.
>Alpha channel support.
Infini-D will take advantage of the alpha channel in 32-bit QuickDraw. This will let users key models over QuickTime movies cleanly, allowing animations to interact with movies in a manner similar to that used in the film "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?"
>DXF.
The program will import and export files in DXF (Drawing Interchange File) format.
>Faster ray tracing.
It will ray trace five times faster working with objects modeled with the free-form and terrain tools, as well as objects imported through DXF and MacroMind- Paracomp Inc.'s Swivel 3D filters.
>Image quality.
The new version will offer smoother anti- aliasing in the shading modes and the ray tracer.
Infini-D users can upgrade to Version 1.5 for $95 plus shipping.
Specular International Ltd. is at 233 N. Pleasant St., P.O. Box 888, Amherst, Mass. 01004-0888. Phone (413) 549-7600; fax (413) 549-1531.
MacWEEK 03/16/92
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Special Report: Voice technology beckons
By Robert Hollis
With the addition of a microphone to Apple's current models, it is clear that the Mac will speak and be spoken to. But desktop computers have a long way to go before they'll understand normal conversation and respond to it in meaningful ways.
There are two main categories of voice technology: recognition of a user's voice to invoke commands, such as opening files or loading fonts, and the synthesizing of the computer's own voice to communicate with the user. Most vendors, including Apple, are working on one or the other of these, or both.
Experts agree that commercial applications allowing hands- free computing, epitomized by Hal, the shipboard computer in Stanley Kubrick's 1969 film, "2001: A Space Odyssey," are still years away. While there are several Mac applications that allow users to record their voices or other sounds and then append them to a file or data record, these functions are akin to aural Post-it notes. They add some functionality, but they don't fundamentally change the way humans relate to Macs.
But big changes are coming. This year promises to be a period of rapid development, with applications due that will create more-natural-sounding artificial voices. At the same time, information systems mana-gers say they see growing although still limited uses of voice-control technology emerging from independent software and hardware vendors.
>The hands-free Mac.
The technology that allows a Mac to be controlled by a user's voice is probably the area of greatest interest to business, said Gordon Campbell, manager of emerging technologies for Connaught Laboratories Inc., a vaccine maker in Swiftwater, Pa.
A factory or laboratory worker who must use both hands to control a machine or process soon may be able to carry on related tasks by uttering commands to a computer. The idea is to give workers more control over what they are doing while increasing productivity.
"You might be able to handle things in parallel rather than serially," Campbell said.
Environmental noise can be a problem for some voice interfaces, Campbell said. Better microphones and careful workplace design can overcome these obstacles. In a normal office, the level of background noise has the potential to trigger unwanted activity in a microphone-equipped computer unless the machine is placed in a sound-insulated area, such as a carrel.
In noisy work environments where users need to control their machines while working on other processes - such as in a laboratory - the answer may be for a user to wear a headset or to install unidirectional microphones that do not pick up any sounds but the user's voice, Campbell said.
He said he believes voice-control technology for the Mac, although still in its infancy, will lead to significant advances in computing in the next few years.
Campbell's early experiences using Articulate Systems Inc.'s Voice Navigator, a $795 device that gives users voice control over many Mac functions, demonstrated both the challenges and potential for voice recognition. "I frankly don't use it much now," he said, adding that the microphone-equipped desktop digitizer "needs a lot of improvement" before it becomes really useful. Users must spend considerable time up front training the Navigator to respond to commands, which is both annoying and costly for a large business, he said.
Campbell's assessment is echoed by Kevin Doyle, a Boston- based Mac consultant and systems integrator. "Unless [a Voice Navigator-like system] is highly integrated, where a single voice command executes a whole string of actions, it drives you crazy," he said.
Voice-recognition systems, however, are useful in such places as hospital emergency rooms where physicians enter data orally into computer systems for output to routine medical forms. "It's miles faster than any type of transcription," Doyle said. "This is an example of a perfect solution."
In fact, Voice Navigator-like systems represent a significant step toward the "Knowledge Navigator," the mythical portable computer of the future that has been promoted by Apple CEO John Sculley as a development goal.
While the Knowledge Navigator may never be more than a promotional device in company videos, Apple is steadily working at including voice-recognition capabilities in the Mac.
>Voice research at Apple.
Several times this year, Sculley and David Nagel, senior vice president of Apple's Advanced Technology Group, showed off a working prototype of a Mac- based voice-recognition system - code-named Casper - which, Nagel said, won't need the level of voice training necessary to operate the Voice Navigator II (see MacWEEK, Feb. 3). It was clear from the earliest demonstrations - in which a Mac Quadra 900 was augmented with a digital signal processing card - that it will be some time before Casper-like capabilities come to smaller Macs, such as the PowerBook models.
>Mac voice synthesis.
The power of synthesized speech is coming with software developed by San Diego-based Emerson & Stern Associates Inc. The company's Sound Bytes program, being marketed to systems integrators and value-added resellers, will give a natural-sounding artificial voice to the Mac as it synthesizes speech from text, the company said. Products incorporating the software should be available before the end of the year, according to Louise Courtier, sales and marketing director.
Sound Bytes is being developed for corporate multimedia applications such as employee training, as a verbal proofreading for desktop publishing and as a flexible way to provide technical support over the telephone, Courtier said. She declined to name the vendors that are developing applications using Sound Bytes.
Another Emerson & Stern Mac product, called Write This Way, synthesizes text as it is written using a word processor and is already available as an educational tool for people with limited reading and writing skills through Interactive Learning Materials of Katonah, N.Y.
The Sound Bytes software converts English sentences into intelligible synthesized speech through a process called diphone concatenation, which is the linkage of units of speech consisting of two sounds and the transition between them.
Sound Bytes also incorporates knowledge of sentence structure, called parsing, to create the intonation and rhythm of natural speech. Other voice synthesizers usually work word by word - such as the recorded woman's voice of telephone directory assistance - and they sound robotic by comparison. Like the phone company, Sound Bytes also will bring gender to the Mac; its artificial voice is female.
>Real-world voice recognition.
Even now, the potential of voice recognition is being explored within a number of vertical applications and in a handful of corporate settings.
Deep in the heart of the Ozarks in the town of Springdale in northwest Arkansas, Dr. Randall Oates, a family practitioner, has developed a HyperCard program called Medmos that allows him to print prescriptions; complete chart notes, patient histories and diagnoses; as well as generate handouts for patients, all by voice from the examination rooms of the eight- doctor clinic where he works.
When the Voice Navigator came out in 1990, Oates quickly realized he could take the process a step further by providing a hands-free alternative to the mouse and keyboard. "At first, [the patients] freaked out" when he installed Voice Navigators in exam rooms, he said. "They thought I was talking to them." When he explained the system to his patients, they were fascinated.
"During the first month I had it operating," he said, "I'd get calls from people who said, 'I hear you got a talking computer. I want one of them things.' " Oates estimates the Voice Navigator allows him to automate about 80 percent of the repetitive data entry he would otherwise have to do by hand. He also attaches voice files to patient records
Oates now has Medmos programs, without voice control, in the hands of 20 to 30 other physicians. "I figure they need six months of training [using just a mouse and keyboard] before they'll be ready for the voice interface. It's a pretty complicated system," he said.
Oates predicted that by bringing voice and pen interface technology, hooked into vast medical databases, into the examination room, the quality of care can be improved while costs and legal liability can be reduced.
>Corporate applications.
Yet for information systems experts such as Doyle, it remains unclear whether voice technology will become a relatively common Mac tool with broad applications in corporate settings.
At the moment, voice-based applications that provide real benefit for business users simply don't exist in large numbers, Doyle said. "You can't talk about the technology like it's going to be accepted by information systems managers unless they see real solutions evolving in the form of useful applications," Doyle said. "The future of voice recognition and voice synthesis products for the Mac will depend on how the market drives the technology to create such applications."
MacWEEK 03/16/92
Special Report: Emerging Technologies Page 33
(MacWEEK, March 16, 1992) (c) Copyright 1992 Coastal Associates, L.P. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
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Review: PowerPort/V.32 targets Mac PowerBooks
A modem with power, flexibility
By Jonathan A. Oski
Although Apple does include a combined fax and data modem in the PowerBook 170, it is only capable of supporting data transmissions of up to 2,400 bps, and its fax capabilities are basic at best.
Attempting to provide users with more power and flexibility, Global Village Communication Inc. recently released the PowerPort/V.32, a $795 internal modem designed specifically for the Macintosh PowerBooks. It is the first PowerBook internal modem that offers V.32 support and 9,600-bps send- and-receive fax capabilities in a format that makes it a natural for PowerBook users.
For an application such as AppleTalk Remote Access, which is included with the PowerBooks, the PowerPort/V.32's 9,600- bps capabilities seem more appropriate than those of the Apple Fax/Data Modem.
Its power consumption is extremely low: According to Global Village, the PowerPort uses less than 5 microwatts when the modem is idle and 0.7 watts when active. It supports MNP levels 2 through 4 and V.42 error-correction standards; MNP 5 and V.42bis data-compression standards; and the EIA 578 Class 1 and Group III fax protocols. The PowerPort also is compatible with the AT-command set created by Hayes Microcomputer Products Inc.
>Two parts per modem.
Global Village has been known for its TelePort series of Apple Desktop Bus modems and has taken a unique approach in engineering the PowerPort/V.32.
It comes in two parts - a card that plugs into the PowerBook internal modem expansion slot and an external telephone interface unit that plugs into the modem card's port on the back of the PowerBook when you want to use the modem. The telephone interface, made of plastic, is a little smaller than a pack of cigarettes and weighs 2.6 ounces.
Some people might not like having to carry around the external module, but we grew accustomed to it and kept it inside our PowerBook carrying case whenever it was not in use. Global Village sells additional modules for $75, if you would like to have a backup module.
The internal portion of the device contains the digital components of the modem, while the external module contains all the analog circuitry. One advantage of this approach is that it allows Global Village to offer different external analog modules that meet the power and telephone system requirements of various countries around the world.
As is the case with most Apple products, user installation of the PowerPort is not recommended by Global Village because it will void your PowerBook warranty. If you should decide to perform the installation yourself, detailed instructions for opening the case and installing the modem are provided.
To use the fax functions of the PowerPort, you must install the PowerPort Fax software that accompanies the PowerPort. The software consists of an Apple menu item, an extension, scripts for AppleTalk Remote Access and sample cover sheets.
A control panel for changing the error-correction and data- compression settings also is included, which is handy if you can't remember the AT commands to turn the options on or off.
>Full fax options.
One of the marvels of the PowerPort is the feature-packed PowerPort Fax software. The flexibility of this product makes it easy to use for the novice and powerful enough for the experienced user. With the PowerPort, faxing a document is analogous to printing.
If your PowerPort output is primarily in the form of fax transmissions, you can select the PowerPort Fax as your standard printing device from the Chooser. Alternatively, you can quickly send a fax by holding down the Option key when selecting the File menu. In this case, the Print menu item changes to Fax. We favor this approach over using the Chooser because it avoids having to make changes in your Page Setup when switching back and forth between printed and fax output.
The Fax Center application, installed as an Apple Menu item, is
the focal point for managing outgoing and incoming fax transmissions. With this utility you manage your address book, create fax "envelopes" and modify your configuration. The address-book feature is very flexible. With it you can create single-entry addresses and distribution lists called Address Groups.
Address books can be exported to or imported from other applications as well. Global Village provides support for PowerUp Software Corp.'s AddressBook Plus, Portfolio Systems Inc.'s Dynodex and After Hours Software Inc.'s TouchBASE, but you also can import and export data in text format, with the ability to create your own delimiters for fields and records.
Multiple address books can be used as well. You can change your configuration at any time to specify your default address book, and you can merge separate address books into a single address book.
When configuring the fax software, you specify your name, company, phone number, local area code, outside line and long- distance prefix. Once this is set up, the PowerPort uses this information to properly dial the phone when sending a fax. If you are sending to a number in the same area code, the PowerPort knows not to include the area code when dialing. This feature allows you to standardize your address books to include the full phone number for all addresses, lessening the effort required when sending faxes from a variety of locations.
One feature we'd like to see added is the ability to store multiple fax setup configurations. This would allow you to account for differences in user name, local area code and phone number, company, and dialing prefix as they apply to the different locations or people who may use a PowerBook.
Included with the PowerPort Fax software are four different cover sheets. These can be easily modified to suit your needs, or additional cover sheets can be created. Six standard fields are provided on the cover sheets, including addresses, fax number, sender's name, number of pages and a memo field. Any PICT image or graphic also can be placed on the cover sheet, allowing you to place letterhead, signatures and logos on your cover sheets.
If you do not have access to scanning equipment, Global Village will scan up to four different items for you and return them on disk.
>Data wizardry.
The PowerPort/V.32's fax capabilities are only half the story. As a full 9,600-bps data modem, the PowerPort allows you to use AppleTalk Remote Access and get significantly more tolerable performance than provided by 2,400-bps modems.
We tested the PowerPort using CompuServe Inc.'s CompuServe Information Manager and Navigator, Zterm 0.9, and Shiva Corp.'s Dial-In software and found it to perform admirably. During various file transfer tests, there was no noticeable difference in throughput when compared with a Hayes Smartmodem Ultra 96, another popular V.32 modem.
We found sporadic reports on the networks about incompatibilities between the PowerPort and some communications software, but we ran into no major problems ourselves. Tweaking the modem initialization strings seemed to resolve most of the problems.
Global Village originally included FreeTerm, a freeware terminal-emulation program, with the PowerPort/V.32. Since March 1, the company has added Version 1.6 of Software Ventures Corp.'s MicroPhone, a capable, though basic communications program. Early purchasers who did not receive MicroPhone can contact Global Village to get the software free of charge.
>Conclusions.
Global Village has hit a home run with the PowerPort/V.32. Coupled with the excellent fax software, the design of the modem illustrates the thorough consumer research that went into building this product. The manual is well-written and geared to helping you get started quickly using both the data and fax capabilities of the modem. End- user installation is not recommended unless you are willing to forgo the warranty on your PowerBook. Depending on where you purchase your PowerPort/V.32, this may present a problem, but any authorized Apple dealer should be able to perform the installation for you.
Score Card: PowerPort/V.32
Overall value Excellent
Performance Excellent
Features Excellent
Installation/configuration Good
Compatibility Very good
Documentation/support Excellent
List price $795
On Balance
The PowerPort/V.32 is everything that the Apple PowerBook modem should have been. Though some may find the external adapter a hindrance, we feel the advantages of having full V.32 data capabilities outweigh this. The PowerPort Fax software included with the device offers unparalleled flexibility in managing incoming and outgoing fax queues. If you own a PowerBook, the PowerPort should be one of the first accessories you look at.
Global Village Communication Inc. is at 1204 O'Brien Drive, Menlo Park, Calif. 94025. Phone (415) 329-0700; fax (415) 329-0767.
MacWEEK 03/16/92
Reviews Page 45
(MacWEEK, March 16, 1992) (c) Copyright 1992 Coastal Associates, L.P. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
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Knife: Floppy shield is no solution
Unless you've been vacationing in the scenic Korean People's Democratic Republic for the past few weeks you're well aware of (and probably quite properly embarrassed by) the spectacle of some of America's second-best scurrying around from state to state in a generally tasteless attempt to win electoral favor.
And whenever politicians are on the move you can be assured of several things: Airline ticket prices will go up, hotel rooms will be scarce, and journalists and other hangers-on of all stripes will be giving their laptops a workout.
Since discovering Apple's plan to upgrade the PowerBook 140s and 170s the Knife has learned that a more immediate PowerBook update is pending.
Many PowerBook owners are well aware that some 800-Kbyte floppy disks, particularly those formatted on commercial disk-duplicating equipment, are unreadable when inserted in a laptop drive. Engineers who live and breathe such matters say the drives used in desktop machines are more tolerant than those used in the PowerBooks.
Apple engineers first thought that the source of this intolerance was interference from the backlit display. So Apple's attempted solution has been to add more shielding, but the Knife now reports that adding shielding turns out to be only a half-solution at best.
In recognition of this situation, Apple has decided that the only solution is to redesign the drive. Since all PowerBooks are still in warranty, users suffering from the floppy problem can look forward to a free replacement. The policy should be announced in a month or two.
With more than 200,000 PowerBooks produced so far, the fix could take a bite out of Apple's swelling PowerBook profits.
>Power up.
With a lot of today's thoroughly modern Mac software, including, some would say, System 7, you really need the brute force of Apple's more powerful 68030- and 68040- based Macs. You don't need a spreadsheet to realize that we're rapidly approaching the point at which an '030 Mac can properly be considered an entry-level machine. And Apple apparently agrees.
The Knife is reporting that over the next year or so Apple is planning to introduce half a dozen or so new Macs based on the '040.
And, of course, Apple has RISC-based computers planned for us, too. The Knife has learned that these RISC-based machines and some of the new Quadras will ship with a new IBM-friendly 2.88-Mbyte floppy disk. These disks will be able to read today's SuperDrive format, but nothing earlier.
Apple's abandoning of the famous IWM (Integrated Wozniak Machine) technology may ultimately rate a footnote in someone's history of personal computers. But developers faced with higher media and duplication costs, as well as the burden of supporting two formats simultaneously, may conclude that they are the savings Apple realizes by moving to an industry standard will come at their expense. Then, no one ever said progress would be painless.
>Starship VITAL Enterprise.
Not all of Apple's energies have been expended on revising price-performance ratios. Sources tell the Knife that the specifications for VITAL, Apple's answer to the burning need for enterprisewide computing, will be formally unveiled at next week's DB/Expo in San Francisco.
DEC and Tandem are expected to lend their respective prestige to the affair, and some would be surprised if IBM didn't tag along to bask in the reflected glory.
OneWindowsScanner. Apple may increasingly see itself as a software company, but its first foray into the Windows market will be in hardware form, bundled with someone else's software. The Knife expects that by next month he'll be able to run out to his PC dealer and pick up a OneScanner, Apple's eight-bit gray-scale scanner, for his Windows box. The software? A Windows version of Light Source's Ofoto.
And it's likely to happen sooner than you may think. Watch for news this week.
The U.S. House bank may be permanently closed, but over at MacWEEK mug central t he lines are always open. If you've got the tip we'll supply the mug. (It may break but it won't bounce.) The Knife's at (415) 243-3500, fax (415) 243-3650, MCI (MactheKnife), AppleLink (MacWEEK) and CompuServe/ZiffNet/Mac.
MacWEEK 03/16/92
Mac the Knife Page 110
(MacWEEK, March 16, 1992) (c) Copyright 1992 Coastal Associates, L.P. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
