Computer science professor David Karger and former MIT professor Lynn Stein began work on the aptly named Haystack project back in 1995 as a way to organize computer files more intuitively, making them easier to retrieve than the typical name/type/date system. Haystack enables associations or groupings of files to be created among files of any type. For instance, e-mails can be linked with photos, Web sites, MP3 files or text documents. The Haystack project started just when search engines like AltaVista were first gaining popularity. "What really bugged me was that we suddenly had amazing tools for searching the Internet but still couldn't organize our own stuff," says Karger. "I don't think people envisioned having such a large personal repository of information that would need to be searched." Haystack's interface allows users to drag and drop files and attachments (such as photos) into collections. A right click on any item reveals its context menu, allowing immediate access to all operations that "make sense" for that object. The underlying organizational principle focuses on the information a user wants to save, not the application.
posted by Marcus Zillman |
4:10 AM
