| |
  |
| General Magic Ceasing Operations |
|
 |
|
posted by Editor on Thursday September 19, @05:14PM
|
|
|
|
|
This article on CNet reports that General Magic will cease operations due to lack of financing. Founded in 1990 with some of the key members of the original Mac development team, the company made a number of attempts to drive visionary user interfaces into the market, beginning with the Magic Cap operating environment, which was adopted by AT&T, Motorola, Sony, Philips and British Telecom, among others. When Magic Cap failed to gain traction with hardware suppliers, the company started focusing on Telescript, a software agent technology that could search the Web and automatically retrieve information such as stock quotes and airline ticket prices. Finally, it focused on voice recognition, developing the magicTalk VUI, which could build in personalities with specific accents and quirky mannerisms, heightening the illusion that the user is conversing with a real human being (GM selected the technology for its OnStar Virtual Advisor automotive computing service). Despite General Magic's innovations, and the aesthetic advantages of its interfaces over alternatives such as Apple's Newton and Windows CE, it was unable to generate significant interest from hardware makers, and lost more than $74 million from 1990 to mid-1996. The company's final efforts were hampered by the slow economy overall, a stalled voice recognition market, and lagging interest in automotive computing.
|
|
|
|
< Study Shows 98% Of Browsers Compatible With Flash | DiamondTouch Multi-User Touch Screen > | |
|
|
|
Don't have an account yet? Go Create One. A user account will let you customize the site's content according to your preferences. It will also allow you to moderate the comments of other users.
|
|
|
|
|
