Following Your Lifestreams

By Ayon Nandi

courtesy Eric Freeman Eric Freeman, GRD '96, developed Lifestreams

"I don't want to save little bits of paper, nor computer disks, nor do I want to organize my computer documents into 'files' nor be obliged to make up silly names each time I create documents. I want my life to be perfectly organized, and I want to spend no time whatsoever organizing."

Yale Computer Science Professor David Gelernter seems to be making an incredibly tall order. However, he has found the answer to part of his own organization problem. One of his former students, Eric Freeman, GRD '96, has already started a company that develops products based on Gelernter's ideas.

Gelernter's answer to the problem of organizing electronic data is the Lifestream. A Lifestream is exactly what it sounds like: a stream of documents representing your entire "electronic life." This stream includes every piece of data that you have ever read, used, or received, from an electronic birth certificate to a reminder about your mother's birthday two months from now. Visually, a Lifestream looks like a 3-D stack of papers on the computer screen stretching out towards you with "future" documents and stretching back into the screen and into the electronic past. Each piece of data has a time stamp, indicating when it was created. Together, the time-oriented ordering of data and the idea of a "stream" of documents combine to create a simple new alternative to the present "desktop metaphor."

'It is a rather poor basis for organizing information.'

The "desktop metaphor" is the current method of electronic organization. We name each piece of data and tuck it away into a "file" or delete it, by throwing it into the "Trash" or "Recycle Bin." The principles behind this system come straight from the paper-and-pencil world of file cabinets and folders which contains paper documents. However, as Freeman notes on his Lifestreams website, "Although this metaphor has been successful to a point the paper-based model is a rather poor basis for organizing information."

Exactly what is wrong with today's desktop metaphor? Consider this problem: Remember that one-page outline you wrote for your English essay last week? Well, one week later, you need the outline to do another paper. So where did you put it? Under the directory, "My Documents," or maybe "Papers"? What did you name the file, anyway? "Outline.doc" or "paper1.doc"? With the increasing amount of data people have to deal with today, the desktop metaphor can get pretty clumsy.

Elegantly simple

That is where Lifestreams comes in. Currently, the Lifestreams idea that Gelernter put forth is being developed as an engine and a user interface by MirrorWorlds Technologies, a high-tech start up founded by Freeman, Gelernter, and Scott Fretig in 1996. These three men were part of the original Lifestreams research team at Yale. Now, Freeman is the Chief Technology Officer of MirrorWorlds and Fretig is the Chief Executive Officer. The Lifestreams engine and user interface have patents pending.

courtesy Eric Freeman The basic Lifestreams interface (click on it for a larger image)

On the Lifestreams web page, MirrorWorlds offers a peak at the possibilities for the Lifestreams interface. The design is elegantly simple: a stack of documents, and underneath, a "time" scrollbar that allows one to browse the stack according to time. In addition, there are several actions the user can perform. They can create a new document, which would then go into the "present" part of the stream, or even the "future" part of the stream. An example of a future document would be an electronic reminder to get your Mom a present for her birthday in May. Another command could possibly be transfer, that is, to move one of the documents in your stream to another stream, perhaps in the form of an email. Then there are the search commands. These search tools allow a user to create "substreams" based on logical searches. For example, you could search your stream for "all English papers." This search command would create a temporary collection of all your papers. This would act as a "virtual directory," a collection that is not fixed and rigid, but rather flexible enough to put together some of your documents temporarily (Click here for an article with a more detailed description of the interface).

At present, MirrorWorlds has a prototype up on a UNIX box, which is the original prototype that was developed at Yale. In addition, versions of Lifestreams have been developed for Sun workstations and the Newton PDA. At present, the company is working out a Java-based Lifestreams applications for corporate Internet sites. According to Freeman, the ultimate version of Lifestreams will be a network-centric "operating system." Lifestreams as an organizing engine works well with large amounts of data. Thus, it is well suited to large Internet or Intranet-based applications, as well as a central storage and organizing scheme for large workgroups. Thus, MirrorWorlds has a number of contracts with large corporations.

"We are currently working with our largest corporate partner (Ricoh, the $13 billion Japanese office appliance company) to adapt Lifestreams to their next generation of office products. We are also in the early stages with partners in other vertical markets, health care for instance," Freeman said.

Will Lifestreams soon be coming to a computer near you? Probably not right now, Freeman said. To invade the private, individual computing market, MirrorWorlds needs the resources of a "major corporate partner in that field," according to Freeman. In addition, Freeman noted that people who use Lifestreams do not seem to want to jump completely into the new operating system.

"Most people that come in contact with Lifestreams want it on their desktops, but are reluctant to completely throw out the desktop. Initially, they want to initially live in two worlds."

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