Technology Showcase
Overview
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The Doug Engelbart Institute recognizes the following technology advancements, and the teams and visionaries who created them, as examples of what currently most closely demonstrates or satisfies one or more key requirements for the type of world-wide open hyperdocument system (OHS) that Doug Engelbart determined would be necessary for realizing the true potential of the information age, enabling dramatic gains in collective IQ at scale. 1a
To get familiar with Doug's concept of OHS and how that fits into a larger vision, see About OHS.
Gallery
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HyperScope 2.0
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All-new enhanced browsing features demonstrate Doug Engelbart's open hyperdocument system framework – a collaboration with the Doug Engelbart Institute and Bob Czech, who formerly worked with Doug Engelbart and Christina Engelbart on a browser interface for Augment.
- Basics: HyperScope was conceived as a first phase effort to kickstart populating modern browsers with OHS functionality, beginning with augmented browsing. Features include jumping and viewspecs, with dashboard interface choices for beginning and intermediate users. See About HyperScope for description and demo, with links to HyperScope-browseable publications and developers site.
- Status: Beta prototype released for demonstration and trial usage in 2022. It is freely available to users, content providers, and collaborating developers. Actively iterating.
- Watch:
See the Hyperscope Demo by Christina Engelbart.
hypothes.is
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Led by Dan Whaley, Founding Director of the
hypothes.is non-profit organization which emerged out of the Open Annotation initiative.
- Basics: hypothes.is - "Annotate the web, any time, any where." - an open source, non-profit, community-driven initiative. The tool essentially rolls an invisible layer over almost any file on the web, on which inidividuals and groups can highlight, hotlink, and annotate. The tool itself, the paradigm out of which it sprang, and their broad-based strategic approach, together offer great case example of Doug Engelbart's vision.
- Status: Released product, fully supported, widely used with 2M Annotated Readings to date. Freely available. An open community project Start here.
- Selected Articles: See Christina Engelbart's article Game Changer: Hypothes.is announces ‘direct linking’ across the web, Nate Angel's The Web at 30: Annotation Unleashed, and Fast Company's Are We Finally Ready To Annotate The Entire Internet?.
- Watch:
Hypothesis Animated Intro; and the Engelbart Symposium talk by Dan Whaley Through a Doug Lens
(and/or watch the panel start to finish)
HyPerform
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Offered by N. Dean Meyer, Engelbart Alumnus and President
N. Dean Meyer & Associates,
Executive Coach and Author of numerous case studies and books such as Principle-based Organizational Structure, Internal Market Economics, and Fast Track to Changing Corporate Culture.
- Basics: HyPerform - "a re-creation of the original high-performance thinking tool from the lab that invented the mouse and windowing." Dean got his start in Doug Engelbart's lab and remained close throughout his career. HyPerform faithfully integrates NLS/Augment functionality for individual and group knowledge work. Compose, edit, study, browse, link with all the ease and flexibility displayed by Doug Engelbart's team, on a modern platform. Runs on PC Window, available for purchase, full user's guide included.
- Status: Released, full-featured, comes with comprehensive user guide. Refer to Outlining Software: HyPerform for technical requirements and purchase information.
- Article:
HyPerform and Augment, posted by Christina Engelbart, excerpt: “Dad’s contention was that IT has to be a super enabler for concurrently developing, integrating, and applying knowledge. HyPerform is strong on all of them.”
Augmented Text Tools
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Offered by Frode Hegeland & Friends, founding director of The Future of Text symposium, book, software, and more.
- Basics: Augmented Text Tools - "Developers of the powerful minimalist macOS word processor Author & the richly interactive PDF viewer Reader." With a great motto: "We believe in the potential of what tools for thought can offer text manipulation to augment how we think & communicate." Consists of a short but sweet suite of tools for writing and reading PDF files that are interactive and dynamic:
- Author - a writing tool for richly featured documents, with integrated Concept Map, Quick Citations, & Export to Augmented Academic PDF
- Reader - a fast, minimalist PDF viewer with enhanced controls
- The above utilize Visual-Meta - a method of including metadata in a document, visibly as an appendix rather than hidden in a datafile, augmenting ordinary documents and making them richly interactive.
- Status: Available on MacOS App Store, growing community.
- Demo:
Reader & Author, a quick demo by Frode Hegeland
- Press: BBC World - Digital Planet Intervie (begins @11:09) with Frode Hegeland and Vint Cerf discussing Future of Text, and Augmented Text Tools; The Future of Text Redux, by Vint Cerf in ACM Communications
Demos @50
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A variety of Engelbart-inspired tools were demonstrated at the Engelbart Symposium on the occasion of the 50th Anniversary of Doug's legendary demo, held Dec. 9th, 2018, at the Computer History Museum.
- Basics: Visit Demos at the Symposium site for details. Tool developers inspired by Engelbart's vision were invited to demonstrate their work at the Engelbart Symposium. Demos ranged from experimental proof of concept to fully operational and broadly deployed, while some were celebrated for their historical significance. Several are also featured above.
- Status: Ranging from 'in progress' to 'experimental' to 'released'. Refer to each individually.
- More: Frode Hegland, who leads the Future of Text Symposium, convened a subset of the demoers to coordinate efforts ahead of the event on jrnl.global, and hosted with Vint Cerf an all day sprint-type workshop the day before the big day. See blog posts Demo Planning, and After the 9th including some great commentary by participants. Efforts among a core group are ongoing.
NLS / Augment
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Led by Doug Engelbart and his team beginning at SRI in the 1960s, continued to evolve through 1996.
HyperScope 1.0
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Doug Engelbart's 2006 project with Brad Neuberg, Eugene Kim, Jonathan Cheyer, Christina Engelbart, and others, under modest one-year NSF grant in 2006.
- Basics:HyperScope 1.0 was conceived as a first phase effort to kickstart populating modern browsers with OHS functionality, beginning with augmented browsing, and beginning with Firefox 2.0 browser. Includes Augment-like jumping and viewspecs implemented in beginner and turbo modes. See About HyperScope 1.0 for description and links to project website, and Past Initiatives on our Projects page for links to developers' project repository.
- Status: Replaced by HyperScope 2.0. Released in 2006 as a preliminary prototype for demonstration purposes, not iterated. It is freely available to the tech savvy able to deal with vintage conditions. Start here after perusing About HyperScope 1.0.
- Watch:
See Hyperscope 1.0 Demos by Brad and Eugene.
Purple Suite
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Led by Eugene Kim initially circa 2004 to populate webpages with "purple numbers" - the address numbers used in Augment and throughout our website.
- Basics: Purple - Tools for incorporating augment-like functionality on the web, initially implemented for generating "purple numbers" in web pages and wiki pages to add fine-grained addressability. Purple numbers can offer a point of reference while browsing. Clicking on a purple number "jumps" that item to top of your window. Right-clicking on a purple number to select "Copy link/location" generates a link that points directly to that item. In the Ontolog version you could optionally Hide or Show the numbers, as you can in Augment, HyPerform, and HyperScope. The Purple idea was that related functionality could be added under the Purple umbrella. Purple number generators were developed for use in web pages (PurpleSlurple) and wiki pages (PurpleWiki), then came Purple Media Wiki.
- Status: No longer supported as a tool, but the concept of supporting fine-grained addressability is still highly relevant. We at Doug Engelbart Institute still use our own version on our website.
- Key Articles:
An Introduction to Purple by Eugene Kim; PurpleSlurple making the Rounds by Earl Mardle; Purple Numbers for Everyone: Jon Udell Interviews Silona Bonewald by Matthew Schneider; Purple MediaWiki: Fine-Grained Addressability of Wiki Content by Peter Yim, Jonathan Cheyer in collaboration with Northeastern Univ.
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