TIME EUROPE
FEBRUARY 14, 2000 VOL. 155 NO. 6
Techwatch
RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT
Ideas for Sale on the Internet
Ingram Pinn for TIME |
in the market for new technology? Try searching a virtual trading floor. This week marks the launch of Yet2.com (www.yet2.com), a global technology exchange offering more than $2.5 billion in proprietary research and development. The idea is to give corporations, scientists and researchers the chance to license, buy or sell cutting-edge discoveries from all industries. On average, only 20% of technologies developed at corporations are actually used for business purposes--and technologies that actually make it to market are often only applied for one niche use. Yet2.com aims to tap the potential of undervalued inventions and technological breakthroughs by streamlining the traditionally lengthy and ineffective process of technology transfer. The exchange's 13 founding sponsors--3M, Boeing, Dow, Du Pont, Ford, Honeywell, Monsanto, Polaroid, Procter & Gamble, Rockwell, SAIC, Philips and TRW--have agreed to provide technologies on an exclusive basis to the site. Collectively, these companies account for 10% of all U.S. commercial research and development. European and Asian companies are expected to join as founding sponsors within the next few weeks.
WEB RESOURCES
Speaking in Tongues
Finding the right words will be much easier when the Oxford English Dictionary goes online to subscribers next month at www.oed.com. Novel search options include by meaning, for words derived from Hindi and for quotes from Shakespeare. As well as the current 23 volumes, a chunk of the first complete revision will be available. In the original 1928 edition a computer was defined as "one who computes." Now buzzwords like e-tailer and firewall are included. Updates will follow every quarter. An annual subscription starts at $550.
LATIN AMERICA
Slim's Pickings
Carlos Slim, Mexico's wealthiest individual, has agreed to buy leading U.S. computer store chain Comp-USA for $798 million. The move presages Slim's imminent assault on the Latin American Internet through an e-commerce and information portal developed in conjunction with Microsoft. Slim's business empire is built on the three pillars of dotcom success: retail (Grupo Sanborns), telecommunications (Telmex) and finance/banking (Inbursa).
WAP PHONES
Talk of the Town
French firms Webraska and Alcatel have launched mobile phones that use advanced navigation technology to guide users in Paris. Besides directions, the phones give tips on restaurants, theaters and service stations.
SITE SEEING
Feeling uninspired? The latest version of cyberinnovator Ray Kurzweil's Cybernetic Poet will help you compose that Valentine's Day sonnet. The digital bard gives hints on rhymes, words and alliteration and will even complete a fragmentary ode based on what is already written. You can get your poetic license free at www.kurzweilcyberart.com.
Fancy a megabite? Covering over 5,000 websites devoted to French food, the www. gourmetseeker.com search engine has local specialties to buy online and thousands of recipes, along with potted histories of things like tartiflette (a potato dish from the Savoy region).
WHAT'S NEXT
U.S. firm Sunbeam, maker of household gadgets like Mr. Coffee®, is one of the first to use recent advances in technology to enable appliances with an embedded smart chip to talk to each other. Sunbeam subsidiary Thalia Products, Inc. makes an alarm clock, a kitchen console and a palmtop that link to devices--including coffee makers, smoke alarms and mixers--to control their operation or relay vital information. A smoke alarm can report via the alarm clock which room is on fire.
Digital day traders who long for the bustle and roar of a real trading floor can now tune into Marketsound's new software, which allows online traders to hear market activity in real time. An artificial intelligence system translates information gleaned from real-time electronic market data-feeds into commentary that is then broadcast over a PC's audio system. Another piece of software simultaneously gives voice to the trading actions of buyers and sellers. The audio helps traders operating in virtual trading pits to pick up bits of information that they might otherwise miss because of the speed at which trades take place.
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