schatz@bambi.UUCP (Bruce R. Schatz) (02/02/85)
the following project may be of interest to readers of net.news : Telesophy literally means "wisdom at a distance". The goal of the Telesophy Project is to build a system which makes obtaining information as transparent as telephony makes obtaining sound. The system could be viewed as a "WorldNet" browser, which lets one navigate an underlying information space. The information units in the space can contain any type of data and the system hides their actual physical location. In addition to these retrieval facilities, there are also storage facilities for generation of new items from old. The system thus supports the notion of an Information Community, permitting the users to browse for AnyThing AnyWhere and share their findings with others. These notions are old desires, undoubtably familiar to the readers of this newsgroup. What is new is that these problems seem finally about to break because of coming mass availability of new technology. In particular, because of the speed and transmission characteristics of optical fibers, it is now feasible to consider the idea of building what is logically a single computer physically distributed over a wide area. This potentially worldwide single computer provides the hardware upon which an operating environment permitting the transparent fetching and manipulation of uniform objects can be built. My dream is a worldwide information community, a greatly generalized USENET. I work for Bell Communications Research, the central research organization for the local telephone companies (like Bell Labs before the divestiture). The fiber optic telephone network of the near future will likely obtain end-to-end speeds much closer to gigabits/second than the current kilobits. To utilize this, I have been investigating the architecture of a Telesophy System. Thus far, a long paper has been written describing the underlying philosophical and technological issues. I am now actively seeking colleagues to help build a first version on a local-area network of Apollo workstations. For more information, please contact me at one of the following addresses (a fuller description has been posted to net.jobs): Bruce Schatz physical: Bell Communications Research 435 South Street, Room 2A275 Morristown, New Jersey 07960 phone: (201) 829-4744 USENET: bellcore!bambi!schatz ARPAnet: bellcore!bambi!schatz@BERKELEY