European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - March 2, 1993, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Page 12 the stars and stripes computers tuesday March 2,1993 a no bits ram no in the beginning Quot icon do it Quot gave users a lot of innovative icons to use in windows replacing the Short list of icons a the Little pictures you Click on with your mouse to launch programs while looking at the opening screen on Microsoft windows. Then Moon Valley software introduced Quot icon hear it a which lets users add icons that have sound attached since the regular Microsoft icons Don t have sound. For example you can have the terminator s voice warn you that Quot ill be backs when you Click on a certain icon. There Are 400 icons in the package 100 sounds and other features including a talking clock. Now the software company has introduced Quot icon make it so that you can draw your own icons or modify others and add sound to them a even sound files that you make yourself if you have the proper hardware and software. Quot icon do it Quot retails for $29.95, Quot icon hear ill Sells for $49.95 and Quot icon make it has a suggested Price of $69.95. All of course probably can be found for much less at discount outlets. Fractal designs Quot sketcher finally is available in stores. Although the program was first announced in the Middle of last year the company delayed getting it into shrink wrap Tor a variety of reasons. But the program is there now and it fits a Niche that one else has aimed for. This windows based program allows you to paint and edit images in Gray scale. There Are lots of painting programs out there for windows and Many editing programs but nothing that limits images to Black and White. That makes sense As far As computer memory goes. Quot sketcher wont leave you gasping at 30 megabyte illustration files. You can use various simulated pencils chalks and paintbrushes on the pictures you create on your computer or those you edit from other sources and the end result looks Nice. Quot sketcher is designed to sell for $149. A a Quot Wang laboratories announced a new line of personal computers last week but the troubled company said the machines would be made by another firm. The pcs based on Intel  486 Chip will be sold to Wang s commercial and government customers according to John Langell a Wang marketing manager. Wang which filed for bankruptcy reorganization last year has made its own personal computers in the past but Langell said the company is scaling Back its pc manufacturing. He declined to identify the supplier of the new pcs. The company is shifting away from manufacturing to focus on software and services As it reorganizes in. Bankruptcy court. There Are few things in Home computing that qualify As a lifetime Purchase. Your computer is going to be outdated in a couple of years. So is the scanner and the Printer and every thing else but not the batteries in your Laptop a at least not if they re millennium batteries which come in the traditional a size used by a lot of laptops. Of course nothing is truly forever. The starter kit comes with two a batteries and a charge Man that will charge the batteries in 3 to 5 hours. It retails for about $12.99, a by Joe Fassbinder 7. And from wire reports using their brainpower by John Markoff the new York times san Francisco Intel corp. Has begun shipping samples of a computer Chip that imitates the circuitry of the human brain. The Chip is the largest and fastest neural net Wojic processor yet built and computer designers and scientists say the hew technology is the most promising approach toward building intelligent machines that mimic hearing seeing and think no a functions today a computers do poorly. The project is still a Gamble for the worlds leading maker of the microprocessors that form the Core of popular desktop computers. Researchers have been experimenting with systems that simulate Quot biological computers for More than a decade. A yet beyond some promising Niche applications Intel has not yet found a widespread use for these chips. Developed in partnership with Nestor inc., a Providence r.i., computer development company and with Only about $1.6 million from the Pentagon the new / a it i j  i i i i i ��.1 \ it Quot a a. It a. I i / / v777s7j / / a Quot neurons a each with a tremendous amount of memory to store and retrieve data. Artificial neural networks Are modelled on the human brains biological network of hundreds of billions of special cells or neurons that transmit information Back and Forth making possible behaviour like learning and recognition. The computerized neural networks May one Day be Able to perform tasks like recognizing objects and understanding speech which Nave so far stymied conventional computers. Moreover with the ability to Eam by themselves such machines would not require the laborious programming of rules and procedures now required to allow computers to work. Quot neural nets offer a whole new Way of viewing How computing can be done Quot Gordon Moore Intel a chairman and the company a co founder said recently. Quot this represents a significant step toward my tvs ass a. A it. A a a a i a a a it lamp it of of a amp it a i by it is pm i two Al Jay it it or of in re jf7<f or a pm a 40 a a Jam i get \ 4 i Job Quot or a 777? a of off. . Booher the  _ the designers of the Chip said it was capable of performing 20 billion simple operations a second a favourable rate when compared with that of today a most powerful supercomputers. Moreover the new Chip known As the in look contains 3,7 million Transf tors a larger number than Intel a new pentium personal computer microprocessor which is yet to be introduced. In addition the neural network processor is expected to be More resilient than its conventional microprocessor counterparts Intel a designers said. Because it is based on a network of separate neurons a single or even dozens of processing elements can fail and the chips performance will not be harmed. In contrast in a conventional microchip the failure of a single transistor can be fatal. A number of Small Start up companies As Well As targe electronics companies like Intel Motorola at amp to and Rich Are All pursuing neural network systems. But Many researchers in the Field Are sceptical about the economic viability of taking experimental designs and freezing them in Silicon Chip designs. A this gives the researchers less Freedom to change their particular design a said Donjon naj a neural network expert who is the head of Leicus inc., a Palo Alto Calif., pen software recognition company. Quot even if you do use them the Cost of putting them into a machine May limit the  but another Industry analyst said it was possible that Intel might find a profitable business for its new Chip. Quot there is a lot of attention being Given to fuzzy logic chips in Home appliances and cruise controls in cars a said Sanjiv Varma an artificial intelligence expert at new science associates in Mountain View Calif. Quot some entrepreneur might come up with an embedded application for Intel a neural processor that is not High tech but is More  because it is based largely on technology initially developed by Intel a memory division the neural processor took a fraction of the resources needed to develop the pentium. A a team of five circuit designers Laid out the Chip and it was produced with $1.6 million from the defense advanced research projects Agency and the office of naval research. Intel invested another $1.1 million and Nestor put up $400,000. The Pentagon has been investing heavily in smart weapons and a generation of automated Battlefield control systems. A number of researchers said the most interesting feature of Intel a new in look is the tremendous amount of memory More than 330 kilobytes on each Chip. Memory is increasingly being viewed As More important than raw Speed in determining the Power of neural networks. Memory provides the context that is thought to be vital to recognition in advanced systems. A new look at Microsoft a Mogul William h Gates is one of the busiest executives in the world people who work for him say yet he still finds time to read books. If he can do it so can anyone. An appropriate one to Start with Gates How Microsoft a Mogul reinvented an Industry and made himself the richest Man in America by Stephen Manes and Paul Andrews $25, double a t is not the first biography of Gates co founder and chairman of Microsoft corp. And As everyone seems compelled to add the richest Man in America Given that Gates is but 37, there will surely be Many other attempts. But this Book written by a Veteran computer Industry columnist and a reporter for the Seattle times is to Date the definitive work. The most Complete and thoroughly documented history of Microsoft corp., which created the windows software run on most computers and its role in the emergence of the personal computer Industry the Book provides Many surprises. Contrary to what one would expect from a company that so thoroughly dominates the software Industry Microsoft a Success arises from a steady procession of failures and missteps. The key is that each spurred Gates All the More to succeed. The Book gets beyond the cliche of Gates the billionaire nerd. It reveals instead a very smart Guy with a passion not Peter h. Lewis j ust to succeed it it to win. No to dominate. In his Early 20s, he rebuffed a lucrative buyout offer from Ross Perot. He works 72 hours a week with occasional bursts of up to 90, and even when he is not working he devours information the Way a Black Hole sucks up Light. But there Are lots of very smart and competitive men and women at the Helms of businesses and Gates is particularly Good at providing insights into what sets Gates apart. To use a computer analogy the Book tries to peer at his source code at the Basic instructions that define his essence. The Field of biotechnology is his second passion and logic and rationale replace spirituality and Faith in Gates cosmology. His management style is heavier on the stick than on the Carrot but the canot is Golden. A single $1 share of Microsoft Stock held since 1981, before in Ompa is Worth approximately $1,500 today. At one Point new programmers were Given 2,500 shares with a Promise that they would someday be a a Down payment on a  Gates Worth is estimated at More than $7 billion literally hundreds of his employees have Stock holdings Worth More than $1 million and gates1 chief lieutenant Steve Ballmer is a billionaire. So is Paul alien a High school pal of Gates and a co founder of Microsoft who now owns the Portland trailblazers basketball team. Gates appears to shrug off the current Federal Trade commission investigation into whether Microsoft s business practices Are monopolistic and impassive when the Stock Market buffets his Microsoft holdings Quot i have an infinite amount of Money. But he is truly outraged when he reads that a competitor Phil ipod Kahn of Borland International inc., referred to him As Quot not a technical  new Len Mai you Are he might As we us questioning the writers character. Although he has not personally coded any Microsoft software in years he still appears to take greater Pride in his technical savvy than in his substantial business skills. The nontechnical Side of Gates is illuminated to some degree a not enough but far More than in previous accounts of Gates life his Well to do family in Seattle with whom he remains very close his occasional escapades from Marathon poker games to undergraduate pranks at Iai Yard before he dropped out his collections of exotic cars and speeding tickets