Intelligent Systems Report € March € 1996 € Volume 13 € No. 3

Products

NEURAL NETWORKS

Data analysis tool
NeuralWorks Predict 1.9 is a neural network-based data analysis tool. Version 1.9 enhancements include: support of Windows NT and Windows 95; the option to write trained networks out in FlashCode for Visual Basic and FORTRAN in addition to the C code currently supported in Version 1.0; and increased software performance, due in part to additional fine-tuning of the algorithm control parameters.

NeuralWorks Predict 1.9 also features enhancements to the output of the Gains Table for easier interpretation by the user; an improved "advanced" mode dialog which collects the most often used settings in one place for advanced users; duplicate record compression; and revisions to the selection scheme for the training, testing, and validation data sets. Predict automatically analyzes the user's data set, transforms it, selects training and test sets, chooses the right inputs, then builds, trains and optimizes the neural network model. The user provides the data, answers a few questions about the problem, and Predict does the rest. For advanced and expert users, the software has modes that allow them to guide the solution by providing access to advanced options and the control settings of the solution algorithms.

NeuralWare Inc., 202 Park West Drive, Pittsburgh, PA 15275, (412) 787-8222, , http://www.neuralware.com

VIRTUAL REALITY

3-D VRML platform
Netscape Live3D extensions for the Netscape Navigator 2.0 World Wide Web browser enable Virtual Reality Markup Language (VRML) graphics to be integrated into the Netscape software platform. Live3D combines VRML viewing technology and 3-D extensions to Sun Micro-systems' Java and JavaScript with Netscape's plug-in application programming interfaces (APIs). Live3D implements the Moving Worlds 3-D VRML specification being proposed for VRML 2.0 (see cover story on Moving Worlds).

The Live3D APIs provide a framework on which developers can build multi-user 3-D games, chat applications, geographical information systems, authoring environments, interactive advertisements, online presentations, and database visualization applications. It supports 2-D Netscape Navigator plug-ins such as ShockWave, VDOLive and RealAudio in 3-D space. Using JavaScript and Live3D, developers and authors can create layers of media including 2-D and 3-D graphics, images, video, text and sound. Developers can apply behaviors such as spinning or bouncing to any 3-D object, or make Live3D objects act on events such as a mouse click, key press or camera movement.

Netscape Communications Corp., 501 East Middlefield Road, Mountain View, CA 94043, (415) 254-1900, http://www.netscape.com

Desktop viewer
Visualizer for Silicon Graphics is a VR software tool for viewing virtual worlds on Silicon Graphics UNIX workstations and graphics supercomputers. This software tool enables users of Silicon Graphics workstations to view VR software applications (virtual worlds) created using Superscape's PC-based authoring tools.

The viewer will allow Superscape users to utilize the high-end visualization and rendering capabilities of Silicon Graphics' workstations, including the Indigo2 Impact workstation family and the Onyx Infinite Reality visualization supercomputer.

Superscape Inc., 2483 East Bayshore Road, Suite 103, Palo Alto, CA 94303, (415) 812-9380, , http://www.superscape.com

EXPERT SYSTEM TOOLS

Frames & rules
KDS 3.9 is an expert system development tool for PC-based platforms that combines frame-based and rule-based system technologies. It produces automatically up to 24,000 rules per module, can read and write up to 500 different Lotus or dBase III files at run-time, integrates and shows color picture files. Also, KDS advanced math functions with 15-digit precision are accessible.

KDS 3.9 can handle a number of application types, including help desk, procedure advisory, smart database access, store locator, product support and troubleshooting, financial models, emergency response, and catalog selection. Price: $1,795.

KDS Corp., 934 Hunter Road, Wilmette, IL 60091, (708) 251-2621, .

ANSI CLOS on Alpha
Franz's ANSI CLOS programming tools are now available on Digital Equipment Corp.'s Alpha platforms. Allegro 4.3, Allegro Composer 2.0 and CLIM 2.1 provide a set of software development facilities for Digital's Alpha workstations and servers. ANSI CLOS (Common Lisp Object System) is a second-generation dynamic object-oriented programming (OOP) language with automatic memory management, method dispatching and unlimited scalability. Dynamic objects can change behavior or classes at runtime, enabling applications to be tailored during development and after deployment without access to source code. Last year CLOS was named the first OOP language to become an ANSI standard (see ISR, April 1995).

Digital's AlphaStation and AlphaServer lines incorporate 64-bit microprocessor technology.

Franz Inc., 1995 University Avenue, Berkeley, CA 94704, (510) 548-3600, , http://www.franz.com

Linkable objects for GUIs
Exsys Professional Linkable Object Modules for GUI environments (Windows, Windows NT, Macintosh, Solaris, Motif and others) provides the ability to create highly customized expert systems. Systems are developed with an Exsys Professional Editor, and delivered with a customized run-time version.

Exsys Linkable Object Modules allow the user to add up to 100 user-defined functions, which behave like internal Exsys commands, to perform special functions for data acquisition or display. Custom windows or dialogs can be created in a custom command and updated from the event stream. The user can convert knowledge-based files to C code, which can then be compiled and linked with the Exsys inference engine to produce a single .EXE program. The inference engine can also be embedded within another application.

Exsys Inc., 1720 Louisiana Blvd. NE, Suite 312, Albuquerque, NM 87110, (505) 256-8356, , http://www.nm.org/~exsys

Blackboard graphics toolkit
GBB (Generic Blackboard Builder) 3.1 includes extensions to GBB's blackboard database capabilities as well as the ChalkBox graphics toolkit. ChalkBox provides the tools needed to create object-oriented graphical user interfaces (GUIs) that are portable across all GBB configurations.

ChalkBox 1.1 includes dynamic layout of GUI elements to fit the available display constraints and the ability to customize the behavior of widget classes. GBB 3.1 runs on Windows, Windows NT, Macintosh and UNIX platforms.

Blackboard Technology Group, 401 Main Street, Amherst, MA 01002, (413) 256-8990, , http://www.bbtech.com

SPEECH RECOGNITION

TAP-800 DSP compatible
The L&H.asr1000T (automatic speech recognition) software now runs on the Analogic TAP-800 digital signal processing (DSP) Board from Analogic Corp. (Peabody, Mass.). TAP-800 is a multiprocessor DSP platform that supports computer-telephony integration applications. L&H.asr1000T software converts speech spoken over a telephone to voice commands that can be used for telephone banking, hands-free operation of cellular phones, and voice commands for interactive voice and response systems. It provides continuous, speaker-independent speech recognition for vocabularies up to 1,000 words, and supports five languages: English, French, Spanish, German and Dutch.

The L&H.tts2000T (text-to-speech) software also runs on the Analogic board. The software converts text to natural-sounding, synthetic speech. It can be used separately or in conjunction with automatic speech recognition. This enables the user to access information from computers over the telephone for applications such as reading e-mail or providing database information.

Both the speech recognition and text-to-speech software products are also now Microsoft SAPI (Speech Application Program Interface) compatible and run on Windows 95 platforms.

Lernout & Hauspie Speech Products, 800 West Cummings Park, Suite 3100, Woburn, MA 01801, (617) 932-4118, .

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