General Magic Joins International World Wide Web Consortium; Takes Active Role to Standardize Intelligent Agent Technology
SUNNYVALE, Calif. — February 29, 1996 — General Magic, Inc. (Nasdaq: GMGC) today announced its entry into the International World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) <http://www.w3.org>. Tony Rutkowski, vice president of Internet business development at General Magic, plans to take an active role in developing standards for intelligent (active) agent technologies in the Consortium and related forums. Rutkowski has been named the company's representative to serve on the W3C Advisory Committee.
The Consortium is the principal international body for the development of open WWW software specifications and reference implementations. Its mission is to ensure the smooth evolution of Web protocols into a true information infrastructure throughout the world.
"Intelligent or active agent technology brings an entire realm of important, much needed applications to the Internet-Web environment," said Rutkowski. "General Magic has developed this technology over the past several years, including its recent release of Active Web Tools, and is committed to taking an active role with other industry participants in developing open, agent-related standards and developments in W3C.
"These developments are consistent with recent public remarks by W3C Director and WWW creator, Tim Berners-Lee, for the creation of agent-based documents, noting that, 'Agents will play a key role in helping users better understand and use the rich resources on the Web'" added Rutkowski.
General Magic's Telescript technology is designed to enable users to launch electronic surrogates, called agents, into networks like the Internet and intranets, capable of constantly searching for and monitoring information, and interacting with services and other agents on a user's behalf.
Telescript technology includes an extensible, object-oriented remote programming language for creating active, personalized agent-based network services. In January 1996, General Magic freely made available its first version of Active Web Tools, designed to enable developers to create Telescript-based services on the World Wide Web.
The 125 member consortium currently includes members of General Magic's founding partners such as AT&T, France Telecom and Fujitsu Ltd., Mitsubishi Electric Corp., and Sony Corp.
The W3C exists to develop common protocols and reference code for the evolution of The World Wide Web. It is an industry consortium hosted by MIT's Laboratory for Computer Science and INRIA. Services provided by the Consortium include: a repository of information about the World Wide Web for developers and users; a reference code implementation to embody and promote protocols; and various prototype and sample applications to demonstrate use of new technology. Details may be found at http://www.w3.org/.
General Magic was founded in May 1990. Its mission is to participate in the electronic marketplace by developing and licensing software to leading providers of communication products, network services and network application. The General Magic Founding Partners Council members are AT&T, Cable & Wireless, France Telecom, Fujitsu, Matsushita, Mitsubishi Corporation, Mitsubishi Electric, Motorola, Nortel, NTT, Oki, Philips, Sanyo, Sony, and Toshiba. The company's field operations are in Tokyo, Japan; Paris, France; and Sunnyvale, California. General Magic's Web address is http://www.genmagic.com/.
NOTE: Telescript is a registered trademark of General Magic, Inc. General Magic acknowledges the rights of the trademark owners for all trademarks referred to herein.
CONTACT:
Susan Nicolls, 408-774-6901, or [email protected]; or Tom Hershenson, 408-774-4343, or [email protected], both of General Magic, or http: