Object Oriented Encyclopedia's with Companions comment

 

Not so much a traditional encyclopedia as a framework for dynamic presentation and comparison of information.

 

There is a lot of digital information out there, but few ways to dynamically and actively access & connect it. It's time to abolish the information ghettos. Encyclopedia's have turned into being the producers subjective view of the world through glorious multimedia Technicolor. And what's worse; it's a self contained view.

Ever tried to compare even just the sizes of two aircraft in an encyclopedia?! Not easy. Current packages are presentations of mostly static material whose form has been determined by the producers.

The package would ship with a standard set of encyclopedic information. Companion pieces really make this make sense though: With a serious bent on object orientation. The Brain companion would essentially be a scriptable QTVR movie with sprites. That means that you can, on the most basic (and maybe most useful) level- rotate the model of the brain seeing what parts you want highlighted and functions and pathways named. Add scripting and you can have an animation (which you can pause at any time and always change the settings of) showing major functions and pathways. If there are new discoveries, a simple script downloaded from the web, or E-mailed, can animate the QTVR model and it's associated sprites and show it all.

But what if you want to add information yourself, like an article from Nude Scientist? That's where Info Catchers, or Portals (no, not 'Wizards' or even 'filters') come in. It's simply an input mechanism, but one which takes into account the possibility of diluting your encyclopedia with junk.

In case you didn't notice; this article was a sketch. This one's a biggie, I'll come back to it later. If you have any ideas you'd like to submit though, great, please contact us. Whatever you say, don't just say XML. This is more than a technology issue :)

 

 

 

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