Kinetoscope, Inc.
Largo, Florida
Highlights:
Provides agent authoring tools for easily creating, editing and dispatching intelligent agents for customized information and notification services.
Background:
Kinetoscope, a developer of advanced Internet-based applications, is creating and marketing Java-based agent authoring tools, currently code-named "JAWs." JAWs will give Web site operators, Internet service providers and distributed application developers a set of pre-built intelligent agents and development tools for providing their customers with a wide range of personalized information and notification services.
Currently, the phenomenal growth of the Web is drowning users in a sea of information. Intelligent agents customized with JAWs authoring tools will represent users on the network while the user is off-line. The agents will be capable of performing a variety of tasks, dramatically decreasing the amount of time users currently spend "netsurfing" for relevant information or services. Some examples of the kinds of agents currently underdevelopment and slated for announcement later this year include:
According to Kinetoscope president, Marvin Scaff, "Today the Web is a passive experience. It is of no relevance to users unless they are actually sitting in front of the computer and browser. Using General Magic's Tabriz technology in conjunction with Java, we're making the Web work for people by dynamically notifying them about relevant information and events. JAWs will be your personal on-line secretary, news service, stock broker and more."
- Tracking stock activity and reporting results back to users via private HTML pages, alphanumeric pagers, fax or e-mail.
- Reminding patients to take prescription medication via alphanumeric pager.
- Monitoring a Web site or corporate server to send a notification when a site goes down or when it is taking the agent an unusually long time to connect.
Application:
To address the need for active representation of users on the Web, Kinetoscope is using Tabriz AgentWare to create intelligent agents which users can customize through an intuitive Java user-interface. Using Java "Assistants," users will be guided through a series of steps that "program" the agent for its tasks.
For example, with the prescription reminder agent, the user would simply provide the name of the medication, when and how often they would like to be reminded and their pager number. Similarly, a stock tracking agent would allow users to specify which stocks they wanted to track, how often they wanted quotations, and the delivery medium.
Benefits:
Using the JAWs agent authoring tools, Web site and intranet developers can rapidly customize the pre-packaged "plug-in" agents for their users without having to write a single line of code. Since JAWs is created in part with the Tabriz Agent Tools, JAWs agents are persistent, secure and robust. Tabriz offers class libraries and objects that bundle robust processes together, enabling agents to navigate Web sites while locating, managing and presenting information to the user. The Java interface allows JAWs agents to be personalized in any Java-compatible browser. Because of the seamless integration of Tabriz AgentWare and Java, the powerful benefits of delegating mundane tasks to intelligent agents is now possible for all Web users.
"The combination of Tabriz and a Java-enabled browser make an excellent platform for users who want an easy process for creating agent-based applications on the Internet," says Scaff. "By taking advantage of the security and safety aspects of Tabriz AgentWare products and Java's client-side platform independence, Kinetoscope has been able to create a new breed of applications that wouldn't have been possible just six moths ago. The integration of these technologies and their extensibility also means that our customizable Web agents are built on an extremely solid foundation. Thanks to Tabriz and Java, we're able to bring the future to market a lot sooner than we would have using other languages such as C++ or Perl."
For more information:
Gerry DeSeve
Kinetoscope, Inc.
(212) 367-7554Web: http://www.kinetoscope.com