Netomat and Non-Textual Users

Just found an article about something called "Netomat"
which is described below.  This may be of interest to Jonathan
and others who are dealing with alternate approaches to the
mostly textual basis of the web.

We're supposed to be able to download the software very soon
from http://www.netomat.com/ but it doesn't seem to be there
yet.

Apologies to our non-graphical friends, but I suspect that you
won't be able to use whatever this application is.  Note that
I haven't used it either, just read the hype and a little about
what it's _supposed_ to do.  I have no idea if it will _really_
do anything worth doing.

A quote from the Netomat page:

"netomat is a meta-browser that engages a different Internet - an Internet that is an intelligent application and not simply a large database of static files.
netomat dialogues with the net to retrieve information that is unmediated and independent in form. With netomat, the user has a dialogue with the Internet.
You can ask the net a question using natural language. netomat responds by flowing text, images and audio from the net to your screen. You respond or ask further questions or write keywords and the flow of data to your desktop is altered in response.
The data is not constrained by a web page or site but free floating and independent. netomat can retrieve almost all types of data that resides on the Internet: jpegs, gifs, aiff, wav, html, xml and plain text. netomat dialogues with you as well. It memorizes your session to further enable your search and exploration of the Internet.
netomat's structure is modular and adaptable. netomat is more accurately described as a platform for spawning countless browser interfaces that you or anyone can create!
Instructions for creating browser interfaces are known as netomatic. When netomat is started it builds a browser interface and functionality on the fly by retrieving components and instructions for combining components from the net.
The netomatic is the set of instructions that are written in the simplest and very natural language known as, netomatics or nml (netomatic markup language).
Eventually, netomat's meta-browser components will be available as open source software to be written by anyone who wishes to do so. As you can imagine, the potential is enormous for a countless number of browser interfaces to be created with a rich diversity of open source produced functionality written by a vastcommunity of users. The experience of the Internet becomes clearly different with the launch of netomat!
In today's world of Internet browsers, netomat has the feel of an anti-browser. netomat eschews the anachronistic page structure of today's web by not privileging layout and design. It atomizes text, images and audio loosening them from web sites and web pages. This allows the data to be recombined or viewed independently in a context determined by you.
netomat dynamically spawns multiple browser interfaces and functionality created openly and by many. The success of netomat relies on an active and distributed use by communities of Internet users.
netomat is about engaging the internet differently, much like the way it was originally intended and much further than currently envisioned.
netomat is freely distributed on a network of web sites that are alsoavailable to host netomatic files written by its users.
Ron Wakkary, june 1999"

-- 
Kynn Bartlett  <kynn@idyllmtn.com>                   http://www.kynn.com/
Chief Technologist, Idyll Mountain Internet      http://www.idyllmtn.com/
Catch the Web Accessibility Meme!                   http://aware.hwg.org/
Next Online Course starts August 2         http://www.kynn.com/+nextclass

Received on Thursday, 24 June 1999 17:30:27 UTC