According to Variety (August 27, 2008), "CSI" creator Anthony Zuiker has made a seven-figure deal with Dutton to create a series of three suspense-thriller "digital novels."

TREND ALERT

Similar to the project that I wrote about last week [visit my post about Stephen King's "The N" here], this new project from Dutton corresponds with the emerging literary segment that I mentioned a few posts ago leveraging hypermedia - a new media vehicle for storytelling referred to formally as "Electronic Literature" or "EL."

According to the Electronic Literature Organization (ELO), the term Electronic Literature refers to works with important literary aspects that take advantage of the capabilities and contexts provided by the stand-alone or networked computer.

Within the broad category of electronic literature are several forms and threads of practice, some of which are:

• Hypertext fiction and poetry, on and off the Web
• Kinetic poetry presented in Flash and using other platforms
• Computer art installations which ask viewers to read them or otherwise have literary aspects
• Conversational characters, also known as chatterbots
• Interactive fiction
• Novels that take the form of emails, SMS messages, or blogs
• Poems and stories that are generated by computers, either interactively or based on parameters given at the beginning
• Collaborative writing projects that allow readers to contribute to the text of a work
• Literary performances online that develop new ways of writing

STORY 2.0

Zuiker's project is a publishing hybrid that broadens traditional book reading into a multi-platform experience that includes filmed components and an interactive social networking site.

At the conclusion of each five chapters, readers will be given codes to log onto a website that will feature two-minute filmed vignettes providing a cinematic bridge to the next five chapters. At the book’s conclusion, readers can join an online community in which they can interact with others and hatch characters and storylines. "The best suggestions will be incorporated into future titles," Zuiker said.

Zuiker’s first interactive title, "Sqweegel," will be published by Dutton in fall 2009. Series revolves around an ex-FBI forensic investigator who retired early after his entire family was murdered. He becomes a rogue forensic detective, taking on cases that are too grim and graphic for "CSI."

Zuiker came up with the idea when he set out to write a crime novel and realized he had problems with the traditional format.

"I personally don’t have the attention economy to read a 250-page crime novel from start to finish," he said. "I realized that the way I’d like to consume a novel is to be rewarded every couple of chapters by seeing something visual that enhances the narrative."

Zuiker will write a 60-page outline for each book, then supervise a novelist who’ll turn it into a 100-chapter book. Zuiker will write and direct 20 "cyber-bridges," the two-minute video segments that supplement the pages.

ADVERTISING HOOK

Zuiker said the series will seek to bring advertisers to publishing through product placement in the book and the Web portal.

THE VERDICT

The verdict is still out if this can compete with the comfort of a paper-bound good ol' fashioned book.

Clearly, this genre will continue to grow as more people embrace it as an alternative to television and other electronic media.  It is truly "snack sized" entertainment that offers a more dynamic, immersive experience for the reader.

~Calliope

The problem is, some month ago, I've read another article, this time in Wired website, presenting another tool that do exactly the same (you can find it here in my blog). The only difference is Microsoft keeps the image data to have a colorfull representation while Washington University's tool seems to represent the vertex of the spoted object.

Interactive technologies like the internet and mobile phones continue to converge with other more "traditional" entertainment media outlets like movies, television, publishing and music.

Welcome to the world of HYPERMEDIA.

Artists of every genre today - musicians, writers, designers, etc. - are clamoring to take advantage of these multi-dimensional channels as a new medium for reaching new audiences...evolving their content to ensure that they are relevant in the future of their respective crafts.

Following cue, master storyteller (and apparent motorcycle enthusiast)  Stephen King has offered his latest short story -  “N.” - as a series of 25 graphic video episodes on-line and for mobile phones.

The original series "N." follows the story of a psychiatrist who falls victim to the same deadly obsession as his patient—an obsession that just might save the world!

Drawn by award-wining comic book artist Alex Maleev, and colored by famed comic book colorist José Villarrubia, the episodes were adapted by Marc Guggenheim, co-creator of the ABC-TV series “Eli Stone” with creative oversight from Stephen King.

The video series is based on King’s only previously unpublished short story from his forthcoming collection “Just After Sunset” (11/11/08), but it’s an original comic-style book adaptation specifically developed and produced for viewing on small screens.

It is Snack Sized Entertainment - only 2 minutes per episode!

The episodes are presented in “pan and scan” format, complete with comic book style graphics, an original score, sound effects and a full cast of voiceovers that includes Emmy and Golden Globe award nominee actor Ben Shenkman.

It is very cinematic - like watching a storyboard come to life!

The first episode became available on July 28th, 2008.  A new episode will be released every weekday until August 29th.  Blocks of five episodes will be released on iTunes each Monday until August 25th.

There are many different ways to experience "N.."

1. ON-LINE: Watch all of the episodes at www.NisHere.com as they become available
2. WIDGET: A Widget is available on the NisHere.com site that can be pasted into any social networking site or blog (Note:  I couldn't get it to work with WordPress.  Alas, alack!).  As each of the episodes become available they will automatically appear in the player.  Just click on the button next to the player that says “Grab this video player…” Click here to preview Widget.
3. MOBILE: You can watch “N.” on your mobile phone through CBS Mobile partners or via the Mobile Web with your video capable phone. To watch the series, subscribe to Verizon V CAST, AT&T CV or Sprint TV and go to the CBS Mobile folder. You can also type in http://m.cbs.com/n from your phone’s browser.
4. CBS AUDIENCE NETWORK: “N.” will be available across the web through the CBS Audience Network, through online partners such as AOL, Microsoft, Yahoo, Comcast, Joost, Bebo, Netvibes, Sling Media and Veoh as well as websites from CBS's owned television, radio, and affiliated stations.   Look for the video channel or player and search for “Stephen King’s “N.”
5. iTunes: You may also download “N.” from iTunes. Blocks of five episodes will be released on iTunes each Monday until August 25th. Purchase each block separately or buy a season pass. Just visit www.itunes.com.

In addition, Marvel has announced that they  will be releasing a comic book miniseries based on “N.” in early 2009!

Intrigued?  Here is Episode One of "N."

Watch them all on-line here:  www.NisHere.com

* * *

THE DANVERS PROPHECIES by ROBERT ROXBY

Even more interesting is the HYPERMEDIA work that Composer/Storyteller/Artist/Performer Robert Roxby has created with THE DANVERS PROPHECIES.

Yes, he really does it all himself!

Click here to visit his site for more information.

There is no limit to what we can do when we are inspired!

Enjoy,

~Calliope.

Extrait from the festival's site. More info coming soon.

Text from the festival's press release :

In 2008, the Ars Electronica Festival is scrutinizing the value of 

intellectual property and thereby facing one of the core issues of our modern knowledge- 

based society: that of freedom of information vs. copyright protection, big profit-making 

opportunities vs. the vision of an open knowledge-based society that seeks to build its 

new economy on the basis of creativity and innovation. And beyond that, we want to 

hammer out practical, workable rules to govern this new reality. 

The 2008 Ars Electronica Festival. September 4 to 9. In Linz. 

www.aec.at/culturaleconomy 

The second semester of my academic year turned around a “group project” called “Laboratoire des Fictions”.

We had to get together to think on the fiction laboratory topic. The project ends up with a public presentation in the Studio space (in Aix en Provence School of Art).

We (the class) had to think on different art works and space arrangement in this big room that is the Studio. Each of us presented projects, ideas, concepts, definitions and we debated on theme in order to get a coherent set.

We decided to build a space where the visitor is manipulated, and used as laboratory object of study. The visit starts with charming attendants dressed like nurses/scientist that gives the visitor a placebo pill explaining that the active substance in the pill will make theme feel never before felt sensations. Then the visitor passes through a set of two corridors built with elastic fabrics with the objective to disturb the visitor's senses. The visitor passes through a third corridor where the soil is soft, the left wall captures the visitors' shadows and the right wall (nearly invisible because of the darkness)  keeps falling on the visitor's head. This third corridor leads the visitor to the main room where several installations are establish. The first installation the visitor sees is an anamorphosis activated by a giant hamster wheel where visitors are invited to run. In the same room, the visitor can see the other side of the falling wall, this side of the wall has mirrors, when it falls (this time away from the visitor) our perception of verticality is disturbed and we feel like if we were falling. Another installation is a set of green neon lights that turn off after some time in order for the visitor to see the “Vie en rose” (there is an effect of persistence of vision, when the green light is switched off, the eyes have a adaptation time and you see everything in the opposite color – pink). When the neon light is turned off, we can hear a specialized quadriphonic mix of several versions of  “La vie en rose”. On the floor, a crazy robot drives around avoiding walls and visitors, presenting bugs and errors, annoying people. Finally, a door, in the center of the room, is used to play a Tetris game projected on a waterwall. The waterwall is also the exit. The visitor has to choose between waiting for a random waterfall stop, playing the game to see if it makes the water stop or just cross it with water anyway. Once outside the room, the visitor could find an evaluation machine called “I.D.I.O.” (in french it means “stupid”), where, during a performance, some of the visitors are randomly chosen to get evaluated by a group of (crazy) scientistes.

Since it's hard to explain the exhibition with words, here are some videos showing it :

Here is a 3D animations made by Floriane Rebatue:

My work in this project is the Tetris waterwall projection. I have designed, built and programmed a big part. The game was programmed using Processing, the door has sensors linked to a PIC 16F876. The waterwall is 4 meters width and 3 meters high, it's a closed circuit using a water-pump to inject water in a pipe with 1500 holes (1mm diameter). The collector is 4 meters width (in the central part) and is 1 meter large. A small bridge allows visitors to cross the water. The sound is generated by Pure Data (thanks to François Parra). I also got help from Jane, Pierre Loup and Florent.

Here are some sketches :

Here is a video :

Here you can find the code source (addapted to use with a computer keyboard and with a PIC) - Requires oscP5 (project site) library and Processing

Here is the PureData patch (activation of the OSC Library and PureData required).

HyperCard est lancé en août 1987... HyperCard est un "organisateur d'information". Il présente tellement d'aspects différents qu'il est difficile de vraiment le classer dans une catégorie de logiciels : base de données, programmation, multimédia... HyperCard est le premier logiciel grand public utilisant un concept très innovant : l'hypertexte. Avec l'hypertexte (ou l'hypermédia), les informations sont divisées en plusieurs unités (les cartes d'une pile dans HyperCard, ou encore les pages HTML sur Internet), et l'utilisateur peut passer des unes aux autres grâce à des liaisons (programmées avec HyperTalk sous HyperCard, ou grâce aux liens sur Internet).
En fait, deux sortes d'utilisateur coexistent avec HyperCard : les premiers sont des consommateurs, ils utilisent des piles conçues par d'autres, ils naviguent, il récupèrent des informations... Les deuxièmes sont des créateurs : à partir d'une pile vide, ils créent une application, offrant des fonctions nouvelles (navigation, calculs, jeux, utilitaires...). Les premiers utilisent le clavier et la souris, les deuxièmes utilisent en plus HyperTalk pour rendre leur pile réactive aux demandes des utilisateurs.

L'Aventure Apple est un site indépendant d'Apple Computer. Toutes les marques citées
appartiennent à leurs propriétaires respectifs. © 2000-2008 Jean-Baptiste Leheup

There is no standard to way to express hypermedia in JSON.  Mike suggests that we need clients.  I suggest that we need a standard and clients will come.  This standard doesn't need to be complex but it basically needs to provide a standard way that machine clients can look at JSON representation and be able to make decisions and navigate URIs to change application state.

I'd like to see this happen.

While we wait here is a video about openframeworks:

made with openFrameworks.

PS: Wordpress seems to be hostile to videos that are not in youtube or google videos... so I just guive you the link to the video... :(

The purpose of "Being Cenantua"
When completed (heaven knows how long that might be), "Being Cenantua" will be formally linked to and serve as supplemental text to this blog. Since my blog closely examines different issues about Civil War “memory” as well as the practice of Digital History, I figured it only fitting to create a hypertext non-fiction that serves as a form of introspection into my own "memory" of the American Civil War. I think that through the creation of a hypertext autobiographical narrative focusing specifically on my “memory” of the war, I can more efficiently interrelate different memories and experiences. Granted, this is just how my memory of the war came to be and it is not necessarily a reflection on how others think of the war, but I believe that it can provide a general idea about the different ways in which Civil War "memory" can develop in people.

A brief explanation of hypertext navigation
For those who may not be familiar with hypertext narrative, it is not read as standard linear text. Instead, hypertext is read by navigating through hyperlinks. Usually, the hyperlinks appear in each "node" (as designated by Roland Barthes; "lexia" if George Landow's terminology is preferred). However, there is more than one way to navigate through hyperlinks. In the case of "Being Cenantua," there are at least two additional ways to navigate through the hyperlinks; the blog format being the reason for so many different means of navigation. In addition to navigating through hyperlinks in the respective nodes, navigation can also take place as a matter of "tag surfing." As the reader will note, at the beginning of text in each node, there is a list of hyperlinked "tags." There are also hyperlinked "tags" available through the "tag cloud" that can be found in the widget column to the right of the node text. In any of these cases, using hyperlinks as a form of navigation empowers the reader with the ability to select a personal path through the narrative.

Though not a means of navigation through hyperlinks, readers may also make use of the "search box" that is available in the column to the right of the node text, and search for personal words of choice as a means of navigation.

Basics thoughts behind name and design
As the narrative relates how my "memory" of the war developed and evolved, when considering a name for the narrative, I use the word "Cenantua," as I have used it for a number of years as a personal identifier in communications on the Web. It is believed to be one of the original native American words from which "Shenandoah" evolved. The Shenandoah Valley is also the place of my birth and my current residence. The title of the narrative is also an adaptation from Being John Malcovitch, a movie about a puppeteer who discovered a portal that literally lead into the head of actor John Malcovitch. Though my hypertext nonfiction isn’t so “sci-fi” in nature, it is my hope that this will offer a “portal” into the way that my “memory” of the Civil War developed over time.

The theme of "Being Cenantua" has been adopted from among the different themes made available through standard WordPress.com services. I have selected "Dusk" as the theme for the hypertext narrative as, in my opinion, it fits well with a dreamlike/memory-centered experience (not to mention that the use of the blue-gray color scheme fits quite while with the subject matter). There are also design features within the theme that are reminiscent of the Victorian Era, of which the Civil War era was part. Imagery is limited throughout the respective nodes as it is the hope that the imagination of the reader will serve to facilitate a more interactive experience.

Parting words to the reader
Please keep in mind that this is electronic narrative currently under development (at a very early stage) and will be expanded considerably over time. In the end, it is my hope that through this project, I will create an innovative form of hypertext and lend better understanding to others about how memory of historic events evolves through us, even though we were neither present or alive at the time of an historical event.

"Being Cenantua" readers are encouraged to post comments in the different nodes of the hypertext narrative. Other questions and comments about this experiment are encouraged through the comment block below.

Enter the hypertext non-fiction"Being Cenantua," here

I started then to think about the possibility of building a click free interface. I started then to build a small sketch using Processing based on the Don't Click It propositions: gesture reading and time control (you will see the beta version soon here). Once I got it done, I realized that click free interface might not be the best for speed performance: the gesture is way bigger and you need to learn each gesture - that could change from one interface to another. And I suddenly realized: Palms, PDA and Pocket PC already used mouse free interfaces, and sometimes even keyboard free. I have a Palm Zire 71 (old school nearly) and I remember learning to write with the pen and learning all the shortcuts wasn't easy. I always had to open the reminder application to remember how the gesture should be done (and sometimes I just couldn't reproduce it). As a result: I notice that I type faster with a keyboard then doing all kind of gesture that approach in a very poor way handwriting (I write so bad on paper, I don't know how teachers do to correct my essays or even read theme). Then I thought, but palms are not the only devices that are mouse free, we have mobile phones and tablet PCs. And I remembered when I was teenager I used to text message a lot, so much that I could type a text message faster then on a regular keyboard (I used to take class notes on my cellphone). But today I type faster on a keyboard then on a mobile phone, I think it's a meter of training and practice - and a cellphone keyboard and a computer keyboard are quite similar in concept: keys pressed to reach a symbol. Then I thought on video games, they do not use keyboards... Well somehow, yes, they are. We press the control buttons to make an action/movement.

And when I was thinking that mouse was the black sheep of Human-Machine interaction (translating a real movement to a screen movement) I realized that I totally ignored a brand new trendy object: Nintendo's Wiimote: thanks to its accelerometers and to its built in infrared camera you can use it without pressing any buttons. Playing Zelda for instance, you just need to grab your Wiimote like a sword and your Nunchuck as a shield . In Wii Sports, you play box like if it was for real. Those gestures are way more easy then the old school key combinations (like for instance Up - Up - Left - A - Right - L1 - L2 - Left - R1 - A - Start - Select - Down - X - O - A - B - R2 - L1 so you can jump backwards).

PS: No buttons were pressed during the footage of this video.

I don't think that Don't Click It is a bad research, I agree that it's interesting for future technologies to think what are the possible solutions to avoid to use the present devices and standards. Some researches might get us more practical solutions then just moving the problems. I'm thinking on mind controlled computers.

In our post Guess what is better than Prozac we had stressed how reading can be a deep and relaxing experience and provide sometimes a full antidepressant trip, while, if we are in a bad mood and we switch on our TV set, “at each zap of our remote control the consciousness of our unhappiness may increase exponentially.”

This reflection had stimulated some discussion with readers on the differences between books, movies and multimedia. These readers belong to the new generation of Indians and Chinese: Ashish, Poonam and Falcon from India; plus AutumnSnow from China. In our blog and in Poonam’s we have also discussed a bit about movies and books. Poonam is also presenting a nice list of the top movies of 2007 (part 1 and 2), in case you are interested in getting to know India's cinema better, plus an extensive list of books as well.

Regarding multimedia and its educational effectiveness, I had said that I am not automatically in favour of books, being convinced that in some cases multimedia education can provide better results. The problem is to understand when and why multimedia is more effective than traditional media. By multimedia we mean here a type of communication that combines text, audio, still images, animation, video, and interactivity, at various degrees.

I will thus refer to some research I did in 2000 when I was requested to deliver some courses on Web education basics to some eastern-European teachers who were skilled in book-based education mainly. On that occasion I wrote a little booklet with the intent of providing them with some information about e-learning system basics. The intent was also that of convincing them (and myself) that multimedia was an excellent tool if inserted here and there judiciously.

KS and CS.
When Learning is Smoothed Away

How can we effectively communicate our ideas to students? - I argued. Which are the best models for linking web pages (and ideas in them) to one another and how can multimedia help? In order to understand this we need some concepts of the instructional communication theory so as cognitive psychologists conceive it.

According to cognitive theory, there is a relationship between what you have to say (content) and the mode of your communication; i.e. between the knowledge structure (KS) of content and the communication structure (CS) you choose to (re)present this content to others (Antinucci F., 1993, Summa Hypermedialis - Per una teoria dell’ipermedia, in SISTEMI INTELLIGENTI / anno V, n. 2).

I. KNOWLEDGE STRUCTURE

Examples of KSs can be the teacher’s mental representation of:

• a biological organism
• a story or facts in a sequence
• a computer operating system
• the functioning of a car engine.

KS is a structure of concepts and information, which are interrelated. Micro KSs are encapsulated into larger KSs, so as to shape a person’s world view, or general KS (not far from what German philosophers called Weltanschaung). Thus, the main goal of teaching is not that of having students memorize data. It is that of modifying and enriching students’ knowledge structure or KS, which is the way they represent the world - or sections of it - to themselves.

II. COMMUNICATION STRUCTURE

Examples of CSs can be:

• a book
• a movie
• a multimedia CD-ROM
• a speech
• a video game
• a hyper textual and/or hyper medial Web site.

CS is a medium, like voice or a book, or a combination of media, like text + hyper-text + sound + images + animations + videos. CSs allow communication between the teachers’ and the learners’ Kss.

Scientists are studying ways of connecting human brains to computers and translate the information they contain into bits; after which, from computers, in a reversed process, they are trying ways of transferring everything back into other people’s brains. However weird (or horrifying) this perspective may seem, it can signify that, in the future, learning could be immediate and effortless. At present, we cannot but communicate via a CS, in a process similar to this:

The more encoding and decoding it takes 1) to translate a KS into a CS by the teacher and 2) to re-translate from this CS back into a KS by the learners, the more strenuous is the process of instruction for both the teacher and the learners.

This means that:

*If KS and CS are similar, or isomorphic, the teaching/learning process is smoother, more natural and intuitive*
*If KS and CS on the contrary are dissimilar, or allomorphic, the teaching/learning process is more difficult* (Antinucci F, 1993)

Facts in temporal sequence (history, a narration etc.) are naturally linear and time lined. In this case a book or the human speech, which are also by nature linear and time lined, are very apt CSs, being here KS and CS isomorphic.

On the other hand, writing a book on the functioning of the human organism is a more complex task. A medium like a book (CS) is in fact allomorphic related to a biological organism. A biological organism is a system, non-linear and non-temporal (not considering its development). Thence it requires a lot of work for translating its relative KS into a linear temporal CS.

Everyone who has written a manual or a book knows this. We too, writing this paper – we argued - are experiencing the difficulty of sequencing in linear form a knowledge structure (KS) that is not linear by itself, being made of several non-temporal interrelated elements that make up the distant learning system we are trying to explain. Therefore, since KS (a DL system) and CS (this linear paper) are allomorph, the process of conversion is not without effort.

KS and CS are Tighter with Multimedia

This relationship between KS and CS, usually very loose, since the preferred instructional medium has always been the book (except for the special case of narration), can become tighter with hyper textual and hyper media web sites, with Multimedia CD-ROMs or with educational video-games, since these new media are totally free from a predefined communication structure (CS). This is usually not the case of a book or a lecture delivered by human speech (or by e-mail in a virtual classroom context), which are forcefully linear.

Note 1. The linear approach comes from speech and writing, which are linear by nature and follow a progression in time. The linear approach in human teaching and learning saw its triumph with the revolutionary technology of printing, which permitted an enormous diffusion of books at a low cost. It was the birth of the school we have today, based on books. Before this great innovation, a book cost the equivalent of today 15,000 US $, which totally impeded a learning model based on books on a large scale. Learning and skills were thence handed down from masters to apprentices, in shops, generation after generation, using experience and live example more than logical linear thought (Antinucci, F., 1993; Derry T.K. – Williams T.I., 1960, A Short History of Technology, Clarendon Press, Oxford ; Parisi, D., 2000, Scuol@.it, Mondadori, Milano).

New media instead are not naturally forced into a linear type of communication, which goes from A to Z, into a logical progression. New media can be non-linear. They can manipulate links and ideas, images, symbolic 3D models and can produce interactive simulations so as to express, in intuitive ways, what books and speech can express using hundreds of words.

Note 2. See classic computer games like SimCity, The Sims, Microsoft Flight Simulator etc. They allow new types of non-linear interactive learning not based any more on logical speech or logical writing, but based on interactive experience, similar again to the experience the apprentice had in the medieval shop (Antinucci, F., 1999; Parisi, D., 2000).

Teachers who have to translate a book into an on-line course must consider this cognitive perspective. In the process of adapting a book into an e-learning product many choices are possible, thence a deeper understanding of the mechanisms implied in the learning process can be of help when we plan for example an educational Web site, the structure of its links and pages, the animations and multimedia presentations in it. This will influence the final educational product and will determine its success with the learners.

Italian version of this post

websystemer.wikispaces.com

Hypermedia defineres:

 * En avanceret teknologi til at organisere information

 * Teknologien skal også tilbyde struktureringsmekanismer. Der gør det let at overskue information.

 * Desuden skal teknikken give mulighed for samarbejde i udarbejdelse af dokumenter og publicering af dokumenter.

Vanneevar Bush’s system betegnes som et første generations Hypermedia system. Jeg vil nu præsentere tre anden generations Hypermedia systemer.  Der er i litteraturen beskrevet flere forskellige systemer. Udgangspunktet for dette skriv er de tre systemer KMS, InterMedia og NoteCards.

Hvordan præsentere systemerne informationen for brugeren.

Informationsside:

De tre systemer benytter alle grafisk visning af informationerne i systemerne. Der er dog markant forskel på hvordan de udnytter den grafiske skærm.

KMS viser som udgangspunkt kun den bruger valgte side.  Når nye links følges erstattes den viste skræm med den nye. I KMS vises informationen som udgangspunkt kun et grafiskvindue. Alle informationerne vises altid. Informationer der fylder mere end en side skal opdeles i flere sider.

InterMedia benytter vinduer til at vise de forskellige informationer, og når der følges en link åbnes, der et nyt vindue hvor informationerne præsenteres. Her kan en informationsside have en vilkårlig størrelse og det er muligt at ”scrolle” på en side.

NoteCard opdeler og informationerne på mange små sider, alla KMS. Når siderne skal vises er det på en grafisk skærm. Hvor der kan være mange sider åben på en og samme gang.

Det interessante ved de tre systemer er, at de gør meget ud af hvordan, at det er en grafisk visning og at de kan vise andet en tekst.

Når vi nu kan vise informationen. Hvordan binder, de enkelte systemer disse sider sammen. Det er derfor interessant, at se hvordan de enkelte systemer definere links.

Links:

KMS har defineret to typer at links. En trælink til underlæggende træstrukturer og en der beskriver yderligere information også kaldet for annotation. Meningen med KMS er at "normale" links linker til en hierarkisk struktur som kan samles til en "udskrift", men medmulighed for at angive yderligger information via annotationer.

Linkene i KMS er envejs, men det er valgt ud fra at det skal være hurtigt at følge links og komme tilbage igen. Linkene i KMS har ikke brug for en underopdeling eller have tilknyttet yderlige information, da de kun linker til en helside i KMS.

InterMedia her er links to vejs, og samlet i "webs"/Maps, der giver mulighed for forskellige views over information.  Alt kan være links. Links vises med små ikoner. Når man klikker på et link som peger flere steder hen vise en liste med linkene og brugeren vælger så.  Det er muligt i InterMedia at have sine egne linksstrukturer.

NoteCard’es Links er to-vejs. Links peger fra et område på et kort til et helt kort. Måden at bruge links er meget identisk med hvordan KMS er på link. I NoteCard samles information ”i kasser” og en side skal mindste være i en kasse.

Ændring af information

For alle systemerne gælder, at det er muligt at ændre i indholdet på siderne. Men det meget forskellige løsninger de tre systemer har valgt. Men generelt er det simple løsninger.

For KMS her kan alle ændre og rette i siderne. Det er muligt at have flere versioner at siderne, når der rettes på en side. Oprettes der automatisk ny version af siden.  

InterMedia gælder det at det er designet til flere brugere. Der er et helt rettighedssystem, der sørger for at det kun er brugere med korrekte rettigheder som kan ændre i indholdet på siderne. Disse rettigheder er opdelt så de også virker på det at oprette links.

 NoteCard er kun beregnet til at få enkelte personer retter i siderne. Hvorimod den primære fokus i NoteCard er visning af informationer.

Sammenfatning:

Artiklerne afspejler meget godt de problemstillinger som var gældende i 80'erne med begrænset udbredelse af internet og personlige computere. Derfor er systemerne, designet i lukkede kredsløb med en begrænset brugerskare og en indbygget begrænset mængde viden.

 KMS brugsområde er elektroniske bøger, manualer, brugergrænsefalder til præsentationssystemer. Med vægten lagt meget på hastighed og enkelthed. Afvikles på meget specialiseret hardware. 

InterMedia er mere lavet som et allround informationssystem med vægten lagt på at strukturere viden gennem forskellige linkssamlinger til forskellige brugertyper. Brugerne her er tiltænkt studerende og læreanstalter.  InterMedia er også det system som har mest styr på brugerne. Systemet er lavet i et mere åbent platform(MAC).

 NoteCards er mere tiltænkt som et brainstormingssystem til at strukturere viden samt at det kan bruges til at browse efter information. Men lavet på specialiseret hardware og software.

Det er spændende at det er mange af de problemer de havde i dengang vi også vi slås med i dag.

Vores private hypermedia system i dag er internettet. Her er der rigtigt megen viden, præsenteret på en ganske ustruktureret måde. Der findes forskellige sider som prøver at samle viden: Google, wikipeida, egne bogmærker og bibliotekerne, men det er bestemt ikke godt endnu.

Wikipedia er nok det bedste eksempel noget vi alle kan anvende. Her samles informationen i sider og det er muligt at rette i al informationen. Så det vi i dag har er et megastort NoteCards system som vi alle leder efter viden i.

MEN hvem garanterer for oprigtigheden af informationen og hvad er sandheden. Dette får vi sikkert ikke svar på!

The first conference "The Diorama Revisited", presented by Erkki Huhtamo, treated about Diorama and many "ama" ending words (like panorama, diaporama, futurama...) history.

You can find here videos from the performance "Digit", done by Julien Maire, where Maire printes sentences passing his finger over white paper. He uses the words as lines to draw.

The third morning conference was a round table about yesterday's drone performance. The participants were with Stephen O’Malley, Joachim Nordwall and CM von Hausswolff, moderated by Mike Harding.

The afternoon started with the conference "INTERACTIVITY AND IMMERSION" held by Jeffrey Shaw and Marnix de Nijs.

Jeffrey Shaw presented different technologies to produce images providing an immersion experience and the ways to interact with this devices. He mainly focus his conference around the iCinema center. He presented Cave immersion (projections on the wall, roof and floor) and cylinder immersion environment (the viewer is in the center of a cylinder, the images are projected on the cylinder wall's) and spherical modular video cameras (cameras that films 360°).

Marnix de Ni presented some of his works:

Exercise in immersion is a 3D immersion experience game where the user wares a suit to travel inside a virtual world superimposed over the real space. The player is free to move around, interactivity is controlled by it's movements.

Beijing accelerator is an interactive installation with a rotating video projection. The viewer sits on a rotating chair with a joystick (that controls the chair rotation). The objective is to syncronize the chair with the image.

Run motherfucker run is an interactive installation inviting the visitor to run within one of the 25 scenes mostly shot at night in the Rotterdam area. The device, a roller carpet, tends to slow you down by increasing running resistance. This piece is about adrenaline and the expirience of speed.

You can find this post http://www.sonicacts.com/wordpress/?p=109 too.

The night started at Montevideo, where we could enjoy the exhibition opening. In there, we can see the instalations from Ulf Langheinrich (Soil - 2005 - and OSC - 2006)

Julien Maire (Low Resolution Cinema - 2005 - and Exploding Camera - 2007)

Boris Debackere (probe)

and Kurt Hentschläger (Scape - 2007).

After that, in De Bali, we could watch Stan Brakhage's film Dog Star Man (1961-1964,73’00), in parallel we could experience the live performance done by the Drone People(Joachim Nordwall, Mika Vainio, Hildur Gudnadöttir, C. Spencer Yeh, Carl Michael von Hausswolff, Stephen O’Malley and BJ Nilsen). The live performance is a 4 hours succession of individual performances. No rules were defined except to be alone on the stage and to end like the beginning.

Post done for the festival, you can see it here

The idea is not new, other tools using touch, and multi touch interfaces exist, like Korg's KaosPad, mini kp and Kaossilator.  Groups of artists also worked with touch as an interface. It is the case for Ractable, the video speaks by itself, so check it out: 

Having said the above and now being at the point where I need to make a decision as to what format to use for my web services and being that my clients are generally non-browser (I rarely see REST discussed outside the context of browser front-ends, some additional posts on this would be great), XHTML is really not that appealing (even though it could work). Atom doesn't seem to be a natural fit. This leaves me with deciding between XML or JSON.

I've used XML (and XSD) extensively in the past, so I really felt obliged to use this a my primary representation format. However, I began to objectively look at how I've used XML in the past and apart for validating using XSD, I can't really say that I've used the document processing features and libraries (XPATH, XSLT etc) extensively i.e. I rarely treat my XML documents as "documents". In fact, I use XML primarily for pure data transfer.

How do I know this? My code almost always, takes the incoming XML document and serializes it to an object that I can work with, finishes the business process, serializes the result of the process as XML and sends it back to the client. XML has been my ultimate data transfer format - and it has worked pretty well. However, JSON can work just as well (if not better) in such situations and ends up being closer to my problem domain.

I am not aware of a formalized way of specifying hypermedia (links) in JSON. If someone is aware of one, please share. But what I've chosen to do is mimic what you find in Atom with "link" metadata element.

I choose JSON (today).

KMS
KMS står for Knowledge Management System og var under udvikling gennem en stor del af 1980’erne. Det er hovedagligt en konceptuel datamodel, hvis database tilgås af en WYSIWIG workspace-frames, der indeholder elementer af tekst, grafik og billeder, som kan sammenlinkes på forskellige måder, eller som påkalder yderligere programmer. Interfacet beror i høj grad på direkte manipulation, som over 90% af interaktionen foregår via. Hermed opnår brugeren en høj grad af direkthed, som desuden også forøges gennem metaforen om, at databasen er et univers af sammenhængende rum, som man hurtigt kan rejse til. Herudover er muligheden for altid at editere indholdet i en frame, eller oprette helt nye frames. Ændringer skal ikke gemmes manuelt, men lagres i databasen så snart brugeren bevæger sig væk.

Intermedia
Intermedia tilbyder at sammenlinke indholdet af tekst, tidsliner og grafik i dokumenter i et netværk af maskiner. Hermed kan brugere browse gennem sammenlinkede, ikke-sekventielle informationer, og have adgang til adskillige indkoorporede programmer. Samarbejde fremmes gennem Intermedia, ved at systemet tilbyder nemt at sammenlinke information og benytte etablerede links. For at lave et link (som i Intermedia er tovejs) skal brugeren blot markere det, der skal være link, vælge Start Link, gå til det ønskede dokument, evt. markere en bid af teksten, og vælge Complete Relation. Dette betyder også, at alt fra hele dokumenter til lokale elementer kan benyttes. Når et anker er valgt kaldes det en block, som opdateres når dokumentet ændres, og som desuden kan have flere links. Eftersom Intermedia er et flerbruger system er det ikke hensigstmæssigt at gemme information om blocks og links sammen med dokumentet. For at undgå konflikter lagres information om links og bloks i en relationel database, som kaldes når et givent dokument åbnes. Hermed kan man kontrollere transaktioner, hvilket en database er meget velegnet til. Her er det desuden værd at bemærke at dangling links ikke er tilladete. Alle links der peger på et ikke-eksisterende dokument slettes. Intermedia er sidenhen blevet kritiseret for denne afvisningen af danglink links som noget nyttigt. Når et link er skabt og gemt på databasen, kan Intermedia illustrere dette på forskellige måder (f.eks. med et ikon eller fremhævning) i de aktuelle dokumenter. Udseendet er dog afhængig af linkets formål og bestandele samt brugerens ønsker.

NoteCards
Dette hypermediesystem blev udviklet på Xerox PARC, med henblik på at skabe overblik over en kaotiske samlinger af urelaterede tanker. Målet var at skabe en integreret og ordnet fortolkning af af idéer og deres indbyrdes forbindelser, målrettet til folk beskæftiget med at analysere information, konstruere modeller, formulere argumenter, designe artefakter eller på anden vis behandle idéer. NoteCards består af notecards, links, browsers og fileboxes: Et notecard er en elektronisk udgave af et normalt papir notecard, som afhængig af type kan indeholde forskellige typer af editerbar og ubegrænset information. Links benyttes til at forbinde notecards til netværk eller strukturer af relaterede notecards. Link vises ved indsættelse af et ikon, og så snart der trykkes hentes og vises destinationskortet på skærmen. En browser er et notecard indeholdende et strukturdiagram eller et netværk af notecards, som repræsenteres med deres titel. Fileboxes er specialiserede notecards, som kan bruges til at organisere større samlinger af notecards. Et notecard skal indgå i mindst én filebox. Brugeren opnår information ved at navigere i netværket af notecards, som evt. kan tilgås via en søgning. Eftersom NoteCard er integreret i programmeringssproget (Xerox) Lisp, kan man i oprettelsen af notecards benytte tilhørende Lisp funktioner eller integrere Lisp programmer.

Ligheder og forskelle
KMS, Intermedia og NoteCards er såkaldt historiske hypermediesystemer og blev alle udviklet i løbet af 1980’erne, hvor de indgik i den anden generation af hypermediesystemer. Systemerne er på trods af deres simple opbygning kraftfulde, hvor brugeren i et afgrænset rum kan nyde godt af en mere struktureret udgave af virkeligheden, som præsenteres gennem sammenlinkede informationselementer. Hermed effektiviseres samarbejde mellem involverede brugere, som gerne befinder sig i en kontekst af analyse og/eller design. Der er ingen af disse systemer, som ser ud over sig selv eller er mere åbne, såsom WWW er i dag. Afgrænsningen betyder, at systemerne er monolistiske, hvilket vil sige, at det ikke muligt at importere fra eller interagere med programmer udefra. Dette kunne bl.a. kunne være aktuelt i NoteCards, som man decideret kan programmere i. Ligesom på WWW understøtter alle tre systemer, at flere brugere benytter og opretter/editerer i systemet samtidig, hvilket er med til at underbygge det kraftfulde og brugbare aspekt i systemerne.

De tre hypermediesystemer består alle af forskellige udgaver af node, anchor og link, som jævnfør deres forskellige opbygning og egenskaber er navngivet forskelligt. Dog markeres links (bl.a.) med ikoner i alle tre systemer. I modsætning til KMS er links i NoteCards og Intermedie tovejs, hvilket vil sige, at linket fungerer begge veje. Måden at navigere i systemerne udgør et vigtigt omdrejningspunkt, da det er her, at en ny og forhåbentlig bedre forståelse for information opnås. Navigationen i de tre systemer minder om hinanden, da brugeren bevæger sig gennem et netværk af forbundne informationselementer. Men selve typen af interaktion er derimod ikke den samme i alle tre systemer. Som beskrevet tilgås frames i KMS i høj grad gennem direkte manipulation, hvor interaktionen fungerer direkte på de objekter der har interesse, hvorimod Intermedias documents istedet følger konventionerne for WIMP og således minder om størstedelen af de programmer, vi har i dag. Cards i NoteCards følger også WIMP men adskiller sig alligevel fra Intermedia, da dets opbygning tager udgangspunkt i en forståelse for fysiske notecards og udnyttelsen af flere vinduer, hvori information vises.

Ted Nelson beskriver hypertext som: “[…] a body of written or pictorial material interconnected in such a complex way that it could not conveniently be presented or represented on paper.” (A file structure for the complex, the changing, and the indeterminate, 1965, s. 144)
Den nutidige forklaring af hypertekst vil være en ikke-lineær tekst, som indeholder links/referencer til andre tekster, som muliggør at man kan skifte runde mellem tekster og dermed danne sig en forståelse på egne præmisser, frem for den lineære forståelse man vil opnå, ved at læse en bog fra ende til anden. For at benytte sig af disse links, er det normalt at en pc-bruger skal klikke på et sådan link, for at blive dirigeret hen til linkets destination. Det kan således forklares, at hypermedier er de medier, som muliggør en anvendelse af hypertekst og/eller af fordelene, der kendetegner hypertekst. Hypermedier optræder således som en struktur eller organisering af viden på tværs af tid og sted.
Jeg vil nu kort beskrive og sammenligne 3 hypermediesystemer som dog er forældede, men som stadig tjener til at give en god indføring i, hvordan hypermedier og hypermediesystemer kan laves og anvendes.

KMS

Hypermediesystemet KMS er en kommerciel udgave og af det tidligere tekstbaserede ZOG system, som var kendt for at have håndteret et af de største præ-web hypermediestrukturer. KMS står for Knowledge Management System og blev udviklet i 1983.
Selve grundstrukturer i KMS var frames. Disse frames blev koblet sammen og udgjorde KMS’ database. Sådanne frames bestod af forskellige ”items”. Et ”item” kunne f.eks. være et billede eller noget tekst. Flere frames kunne forbindes med hinanden og dermed fungere som et ”frame set”. Et frames størrelse fyldte typisk det, som svarede til datidens computerskærme. Til at holde styr på hvilket frame man står i – i hvilken relation, er der en forbindelse mellem ”frame parent” og ”frame child”. Denne relation er hierarkisk og skal ses som en træstruktur, hvor man altid kan gå tilbage/op, indtil man ender ved roden.
KMS understøtter samarbejde (CSCW) og tilbyder derfor muligheden at flere kan redigere i ”frame sets” og frames. En frame-ejer kan dog vælge at beskytte sit frame mod modifikation – men filosofien i KMS er mere, at hvis alle får adgang, så vil slutresultatet blive det mere perfekt.
Når en bruger arbejder i et frame, bliver det pågældende frame låst, sådan at flere brugere ikke kan ændre i samme frame på én gang. Dette er typisk adfærd for databaser, da man ikke ønsker at to personer skriver på samme tid og at resultatet enten bliver et mix af det, som de to har skrevet, eller at det kun er det, som person nr. to har skrevet.
Til at navigere i KMS brugte man en treknapsmus, som dækkede 90 % af alle tilgængelige funktioner, ved bare et enkelt klik. Dette anses af systemets udviklere som værende direkte manipulation.
Jeg har pt. svært ved at sammenligne direkte med et andet nutidigt system, men synes mest af alt at det minder om en slags OO-styresystem/publishingprogram. Hvis man således forestillede sig wikipedia og eller blogs som en del af net-baseret styresystem, vil jeg mene, at det svarer nogenlunde til programmets aspirationer.

Intermedia

Intermedia fra 1985 var et hypermediesystem, der skulle understøtte undervisningen på Brown University og var tænkt som mere åbent end KMS. Udviklere kunne f.eks. kode nye applikationer til systemet. Intermedia brugte WIMP (Window, Icon, Menu, Pointing) modellen til opbygningen af brugergrænsefladen, hvilket var mere genkendeligt og ligetil at bruge end f.eks. KMS’s treknapsmus.
Intermedia benyttede sig af documents, hvor man i KMS brugte frames. Disse documents blev samlet i et corpus, som således udgjorde den overordnede struktur. Mellem documents gjorde man brug af eksterne 2-vejs links, som gjorde det muligt at linke mellem tekst og figurer osv.
Et centralt begreb i Intermedia er webs, som gjorde det muligt at oprette sit eget web af links. Systemet var således ganske avanceret for sin tid. Webs er en samling af links og blocks, som gemmes separat fra dokumenters indhold. Blocks er lokale ankre i dokumenter, der er udgangspunkt for links og refererer til en del af teksten, hele dokumentet eller grafik. Systemet sørger selv for at holde styr på, hvornår links skal slettes, det vil sige at links, der peger på ikke-eksisterende destinationer automatisk slettes. Systemet tillader således ikke døde links. Dvs. der er ingen risiko for at få en fejl 404, som det ses på www.
Man kan have flere webs gemt i en database, men dog kun ét åbent ad gangen. For at få et hurtigt overblik over det system, man har opbygget, kan man bruge ”maps” som en anden gps-lokalisator, der muliggør, at man grafisk kan se, hvor i systemet man befinder sig.
Som er CSCW-værktøj muliggør programmet, at flere brugere kan følge ens web og samtidigt udbygge det med links. For at sikre sine dokumenter mod uønsket ændring, kan man definere disse til at være beskyttede. Andre brugere kan så ikke ændre i indholdet, men kan stadig pege på indholdet via links.
Med undtagelse af ”maps” så synes jeg, at systemet til en vis grad minder om LinkedIn eller Facebook. Visningen af relationer i disse social tjenester ser jeg som næsten analog i forhold til begrebet Webs.

NoteCards

I midten af 80´erne blev NoteCards udviklet af Xerox PARC og blev typisk anvendt som et hypermediesystem i forskningsmiljøer. En af hovedårsagerne til at systemet fungerede specielt godt som forskningssystem var, at det i høj grad (i modsætning til andre tilgængelige systemer) muliggjorde udvidelser. Grundlaget for disse udvidelser skyldes, at systemet var udviklet i Xerox Lisp, som, hvis man kender til Lisp, tillader at man kan skræddersy det, så det passer til ens egne behov.
Gennem et netværk af elektroniske cards, som kan indeholde mange forskellige former for information, har brugeren mulighed for at have alle ønskelige informationer og systemanvendelser visuelt præsenteret. Størrelsen af disse cards er 3 x 5 inches, og derfor har man typisk mange små vinduer åbne på én skærm, i modsætning til KMS hvor frames fylder hele skærmen.
I NoteCards kan man ligesom i Intermedia få et overblik over et netværk. Dette gør man ved hjælp af et card som indeholder et strukturelt diagram over et netværk af cards. Hvert notecard tilhører mindst en filebox, som er et specialiseret kort, der bruges til at organisere og kategorisere store samlinger af cards. Denne grafiske opbygning af systemet står i modsætning til KMS’s hierarkiske system. Dette system ligger langt fra noget nutidigt program/system, som jeg menes at have stødt på. Det eneste system jeg kommer til at tænke på, er et computersystem anvendt i filmen Minority Report, hvor brugeren direkte flytter rundt på en masse små vinduer med hver deres handling. Jeg kunne ikke lige finde et visuelt eksempel på systemet fra filmen, men har til gengæld fundet et nutidigt og (skræmmende nok) realistisk eksempel på dette system. Filmklippet er på ca. ni minutter, men selve eksemplet kan ses ca. tre minutter inde og varer ca. to minutter:

De tre ovenstående hypermediesystemer har det tilfælles, at de alle kører hver for sig og at de ikke giver mulighed for samarbejde mellem systemerne, da hypermediesystemerne er skræddersyede til bestemte forhold. Disse forhold indebærer bl.a. bestemte computere, systemer, samt at det kun er dette ene system der anvendes, hvorfor kompatibilitet med andre systemer var helt unødvendigt at tænke på.

In the meantime, Nigeria lost in QF to Ghana, Arsenal is on top of the Premiership, the Patriots lost, Pau is in L.A., McCain has practically won the GOP ticket and I've been developing a REST-based system using Microsoft's WCF technology. I'll have to post on my WCF experiences later.

However, during this exercise, its become very clear to me that hypermedia and application state are probably the two most important things in a RESTful system. How an application transitions from one state to the next via links (essentially what you do with your browser) is primarily what a designer should be focused on. The resources, URIs etc just begin to fall into place after that. The representation you use becomes less of an issue as one realizes that in order to keep the engine running, links must be provided.

Most SOAP-based web services cannot provide an application with links on what to do next. This may be okay if there are no more state transitions, but how often is this really the case? To me, this is the most important difference between building a MESTian web service or a RESTian web service. If your RESTful web service, does not leverage hypermedia, its not that much better than a MESTian web service.

Equally as important is the discipline to avoid URI construction in clients besides basic GETs. Doing this will lead to much pain and suffering.

Here is another good article by Peter Williams that addresses this.

Alle tre systemer er monolitiske dvs. at de arbejder ikke nemt sammen med andre programmer. De tre systemer er simple, kraftfulde og blev i sin tid, brugt af en masse brugere til mange forskellige formål. I modsætning til internettet i dag var disse tre systemer platform dependent, de virkede altså kun på bestemte maskiner og systemer.

Disse anden generations hypermediesystemer kom frem samtidigt med de første arbejdsstationer, som gjorde det muligt at have mere avancerede brugergrænseoverflader, med bla. grafik og formateret tekst.

KMS (Knowledge Management System) var et kommercielt produkt baseret på ZOG, som var kendt for at have håndteret et af de største hypermedie systemer før internettets begyndelse. Systemet blev udviklet på Carnegie Mellon University fra 1972 til 1984.

Knudepunktet (node) af en KMS database er kaldet en frame, og kan indeholde en række enheder i form af; tekst, grafik, eller digitale billeder. Brugergrænsefladen bygger på WYSIWYG (What you see is what you get) princippet, der er ingen scrolling og en frame passer til skærmens størrelse, alt information er dermed synlig på skærmen på én gang.
KMS systemet er opbygget på en hierarkisk træstruktur, og KMS frame hierarkier bygges med links som etablerer et en-vejs forældre/barn forhold mellem frames. Der kan navigeres ned igennem et træ via links og tilbage igen via en indbygget back funktion. Kilden for en link var et individuelt tekst element i en frame, og destinationen for en KMS link var en hel frame, i samme stil som NoteCards. Intermedia derimod brugte en individuel block i et knudepunkt (node) at linke til.

Et link var en attribut på et element og der var tre typer; tree item, annotation item og action item. Et tree item kunne linkes til lavere niveau frames i hierarkiet, som et kapitel i en bog. Annotation items pegede på overfladiske elementer så som kommentar og kros-referencer og kunne på på tværs af træerne. Et action item var links til programmer skrevet i KMS.

KMS systemet havde kun en type frame i modsætning til InterMedia og NoteCards. Forskel på frames i KMS blev sat af indholdet af elementerne i en frame.

KMS støttede samarbejde da det var muligt for flere brugere editere den samme frame. Udviklerne brugte et optimistic concurrency kontrol for at undgå locking. Det betød at, i en tidligere version fik andre brugere nægtet adgang til en frame hvis den var under opdatering af en anden bruger. I denne version ses det som yderst usandsynligt at flere personer ville editere den samme frame på samme tid, da systemet består af mange frames.

KMS systemet brugte en kontekstsensitiv treknappet mus til navigering af systemet. Brugere kunne tilgå 90% af alle operationer med et enkelt point-and-click, hvor konteksten af cursoren bestemte hvilke operationer der var tilgængelige via musens knapper. Response af klik til en ny frame var mindre end 0.25 sekund, hvilket sammen med musens kontekstsensitive funktioner gjorde systemet effektivt at bruge. Det tog dog nogen tid at lære musens mange operationer at kende.

Intermedia blev udviklet på Brown University til EDB-støtte til undervisning i 1985. Intermedia var opbygget af dokumenter som blev samlet i corpus, hvor man i KMS havde arbejdet med frames. Intermedia var baseret på en anderledes struktur end KMS, systemet havde en grafskruktur i stil med internettet. Et centralt begreb i systemet var webs, som var en samling af links og blocks. En block var et lokalt anker i et dokument. Det kunne være en del af teksten i dokumentet der blev refereret til, hele dokumentet eller grafik. Hvis en links destination ikke eksisterede længere blev linket slettet automatisk.

Links og blocks blev gemt seperat fra dokumenternes indhold og webs blev gemt i en database. Dette gjorde det muligt at have flere af disse set. Man kunne derfor have flere webs med forskellige kontekster, men med begrænsningen, at man kun kunne have et web åbent af gangen.

Man kunne hurtigt få et overblik over det system man havde opbygget ved at kikke på et lokalt eller globalt map. Local map viste et dokument og links til dets nærmeste naboer, og det globale map viste all links i et web.

Intermedia var ligesom KMS en monolitisk applikation, man kunne kun arbejde indenfor programmets enhed, og kun de værktøjer der var til rådighed her, kunne bruges. Intermedia’s framework havde en række forskellige editorer til rådighed, som alle havde en homogen brugergrænseflade, i stil med kendte Mac programmer.

Intermedia støttede samarbejde ligesom KMS, her kunne brugere følge og skabe links i det samme web og sætte read, write og annotation (links til doc men ikke write rettigheder) rettigheder på deres dokumenter.

NoteCards var et hypertekstsystem der blev udviklet hos Xerox Palo Alto Research Center i midten er 80’erne, og var tænkt som et værktøj til ide bearbejdning og authoring i et research miljø. NoteCards var implementeret inden i Xerox Lisp programmeringsmiljøet, hvilket gjorde det muligt af udvide systemet hvis man kendte Lisp. Man kunne på denne måde lave helt nye node types og derved skræddersy systemet så det passede til ens behov.

Systemet gav brugeren et netværk af elektroniske NoteCards, som var forbundet med links. I netværket kunne brugeren repræsentere samlinger af relaterede ideer, samtidigt med at det fungerede som en struktur for at organisere, gemme og hente information.

NoteCards var små 3x5 inch vinduer, som kunne indeholde ubegrænset meget materiale, både tekst og grafik. Links var, ligesom i Intermedia, to-vejs og gik fra et indlejret link ikon til et helt kort. En typisk skærm i NoteCards ville vise flere vinduer åbne på én gang.

I NoteCards, kunne man ligesom i Intermedia få et overblik over et netværk. Dette gjorde man med en grafisk browser, som var et notecard der indeholdt et strukturelt diagram over et netværk af notecards. Hvert notecard skulle tilhøre mindst en filebox. En filebox var et specialiceret kort som kunne bruges til at organisere og kategorisere store samlinger notecards.

NoteCards var først og fremmest et authoring system som var designet som et værktøj til at lave og modificere hypermediestukturer, og er på dette punkt lig Intermedia.

Ulempen ved Lisp data strukturen var at den lå i en stor klump. Dette gjorde samarbejde besværligt da der var kun én der kunne ændre noget i systemet af gangen.

Tre år efter NoteCards udgivelse blev der observeret en række problemer med systemet, nogle af dem reflekterer fundamentale svagheder i hybermediemodellen som det er bygget omkring. De Seven Issues, beskrevet nedenfor kan ses som en model for hvordan den næste generation af hypermediesystemer kunne designes.

1. Search and Query in a Hypermedia Network
   1. Hyperlinking er ikke nok til at finde rundt i et netværk af information, for kunne finde information mere effektivt må man kunne søge på det. I dag kan vi på internettet lave fulde tekst søgninger.
2. Composites - Augmenting the Basic Node and Link Model
   1. Der er to primitive konstruktører i NoteCards, som er cards og links. Alt andet i systemet er bygget på disse to ting. Der mangler en måde hvorpå man kan sammensætte nodes og links som unikke enheder.
3. Virtual Structures for Dealing with Changing information
   1. Brugerundersøgelser viste af det var svært at ændre en overordnet struktur, når den først var skabt. Der kommer hele tiden nyt information der skal passe ind i strukturen, man kom nemt til at sortere det for tidligt. Man har derfor brug for en struktur der kan omstrukturere sig selv.
4. Computation in (over) Hypermedia Networks
   1. Hypermediemodellen er passiv, skabt til at gemme og genfinde information. Der er ingen støtte for automatisk skabelse eller behandling af nodes og links.
5. Versioning
   1. Versionering er vigtigt i hypermediesystemer, da det tillader brugere at opretholde og manipulere tidligere ændringer til deres netværk. Indtil nu kun versionstråde for enkelte nodes og links. Versioner som virtuelle links, både versioner og nodes kan annoteres (linkes til ikke ændres).
6. Support for Collaborative Work
   1. NoteCards var et enkelt bruger system, der var brug for at kunne arbejde sammen i systemet. I dag har vi på nettet med f.eks. Google docs god samarbejdsstøtte, man kan her arbejde sammen i det samme dokument og ændre på det. Man kan se andres opdateringer imens man her dokumentet åbent.
7. Extensibility and Tailorability
   1. Behov for at kunne udvide et hypermediesystem så det passer til bestemte anvendelsesområder. Det skal ikke kun være programmør der kan udføre tilpasninger.