The Fishwrap
`Personalized News System
`Pascal R. Chesnazs,
`Matthew J . Mucklo, and Jonathan A . Sheena
`MIT Media Laboratory
`20 Ames Street
`Cambridge. Massachusetts, CSA
`
`Fishwrap is an experimental electronic
`Abstract-
`newspaper system available at MIT. Fishwrap a t t e m p t s
`to address the needs of the freshman integrating into the
`M I T community. Fishwrap a t t e m p t s this by balancing
`an individual’s desire for personalization with the need
`to participate and know about the world at large. This
`paper describes the scope of the experiment, t h e under-
`lying technology, and the evaluation by participants.
`
`. I. INTRODUCTION
`INCE the fall of 1993, the MIT community has been
`
`S using a prototype electronic newspaper under devel-
`
`opment at MIT’s Media Laboratory, called Fishwrap -
`after the journalist’s proverb: “Yesterday’s news wraps
`today’s fish.” It’s designed to address the needs of fresh-
`men integrating into the MIT community. Fishwrap
`attempts to balance an individual’s desire for person-
`alization with the need to participate and know about
`the world at large. Fishwrap provides its readers with
`an egocentric window into world affairs, allowing them
`to receive news from their home town as well as stories
`of personal interest. In addition to personally selected
`stories, Fishwrap provides a continuous update of se-
`lected general news items and features, thus connecting
`readers both to the MIT community and the world.
`The Fishwrap design readily accepts traditional news
`wire stories and direct contributions from the commu-
`nity. Social and cultural calendars are also collected
`and integrated into the system. All items coming into
`the system are analyzed for geographic or topical rele-
`vancy. Stories are automatically placed into categories
`such as: ‘Star Trek,” “softball,” “artificial intelligence,”
`or even “0. J. Simpson.” The Fishwrap employs an
`automated news model called “Glue,”[l] which is-com-
`posed of interrelated components that assemble an in-
`dividual’s news: user profile, knowledge representation,
`news suppliers, authentication, self and community or-
`ganization, customization, and presentation. Fishwrap
`employs a newspaper object abstraction built on an ex-
`tensible platform-independent data structure referred
`to as Dtypes[S]. Thus, not all the Glue modules need
`to exist within the same program or on the same ma-
`chine. The individual’s newspaper object is first loaded
`with information about the individual’s preferences and
`
`This project is p m of the ongoing News in the Future m a r c h
`consortium at the Media Laboratory directed by Walter Bender.
`
`is continuously updated as it passes through various
`Glue modules. Tools exist for manipulating these data
`structures in C and C++. Other tools can be written
`quickly. U’ith this model, we can develop modules in-
`dependently and distribute the load across the network
`to machines that have the necessary resources.
`
`11.’A READER’S VIEW O F FI’SHWRAP
`An MIT student’s first interaction with Fishwrap oc-
`curs in front of one of the four hundred publicly acces-
`sible Atbena workstations. Students learn of Fishwrap
`from friends, by exploring the computer’s pull clown
`menus, or seeing an advertisement around campus. Ac-
`cess to Fishwrap’s personalized news system appears as
`a U’orld \Vide Web (WWW) hypertext link. This link
`calls upon programs, t.o subscribe the individual to the
`news service.
`.4t this time an individ:ual access pass-
`‘ word is provided. After the initial session students can
`get Fishwrap from any computer connected to the MIT
`network (including personal computers in their dorm
`ro3ms and off-campus living groups) with a WWW
`browser (see Figure 1). It takes about 15 seconds to
`generate a personalized news presentation.
`Three questions are asked of the first time user.
`“Where are you from?”, “What is your afiliation with
`MIT?” and “What majors interest you?” These ques-
`tions provide the foundation for their personal news
`profile. The answer to the first question is used to
`create a “hometown news” section in the individual’s
`news profile. This section contains geographically rel-
`evant information ( “local” means something different
`to each person at MIT). The answers to the last two
`questions are used to create a section with news re-
`lated to career choices; news that will keep the individ-
`ual abreast of trends in specific industries; community
`news (seminars, job posting, etc.); and news affecting
`an undergraduate’s class government, or news regarding
`employees benefits (for faculty/staff participants).
`World Wide Web browser access allows for easy
`traversing of the information space (see Figure 2). The
`multilayered nature of the Fishwrap news presentation
`allows the individual to quickly determine where there is
`activity of interest. The main page shows which filters
`have found news content. The reader can then focus
`in on that news category and see summaries of stories
`
`275
`
`L
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`Petitioners Great West Casualty Co., BITCO Gen. Ins. Corp., and BITCO Nat'l Ins. Co.
`Ex. 1031, p. 275
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`

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`Fig. 2. A Fishwrap reader starts with their edition’s table of con-
`tents, then focuses on a particular news topic and, ultimately,
`articles that are illustrated with graphics and audio.
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`Fig. 1. Pascal’s edition of Fishwrap viewed with a N‘orld Wide
`Web browser. News topics are grouped into reader defined
`“sections” and are accessed by clicking on the hypertext link
`(underlined text in this illustration).
`
`Fig. 3. Below the Fishwrap’s clickable image is the path to the
`current document relative to the “top” of the hypertext doc-
`ument is always displayed. This provides the reader familiar
`reference points.
`
`that matched the filter. If an article summary seems in-
`teresting, the reader can expand on it - getting the full
`text and relevant graphics or audio augmentation. This
`structure provides the reader with a consistent model
`of where things are located within the Fishwrap. As a
`navigation aid, Fishwrap presents the individual with a
`status bar at the top of each page. The status bar indi-
`cates where the reader is in the hypertext document (see
`Figure 3). Fishwrap records how individuals navigate
`in order to adapt future presentations to their reading
`habits[2].
`Augmenting the content of the reader’s news profile
`can happen in many ways. The most commonly used
`method is to select from a list of existing news topics
`(topics are how articles are categorized when they are
`received). In addition, each article displays the news
`topics which it matches. This enables the readers to
`directly view similar articles or is used to immediately
`
`~
`
`add the news topic to their profile.
`Not all of the intelligence for article selection need
`reside in the server. The Fishwrap community also has
`a “front page” called “Page One” (see Figure 4) where
`readers add articles they think are important for the
`community at large. The ranking of stories on Page One
`is based on the number of people who actually accessed
`the article. This allows the reader to enjoy the breadth
`of community interests, be exposed to new commusi-
`ties, and participate both explicitly and implicitly in
`the collaborative process. Page One leverages off of in-
`telligence in the Fishwrap community.
`Fishwrap offers the reader a number of staples - social
`and cultural calendars, reviews, and advice columns.
`Calendars are provided by both large organizations
`(The Boston Globe, MIT Arts Office, MIT Activiti es...)
`and individual Fishwrap readers. While restaurant re-
`views provided by the large organizations (The Boston
`
`276
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`Petitioners Great West Casualty Co., BITCO Gen. Ins. Corp., and BITCO Nat'l Ins. Co.
`Ex. 1031, p. 276
`
`

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`i i
`
`r
`
`each article is supplied to the Fishwrap news database
`server [4] where it will remain for the next 48 hours. At
`this point, a copy of the article is also sent immediately
`over zephyr 1.51 to subscribers who have expressed real
`interest in that topic. For those readers. notification of
`the article appears right on their screen (see Figure 5).
`
`t
`
`Fig. 4. Fishwrap's "Page One" contains articles selected by read-
`ers. Articles are ranked by popularity. Not all of the intelli-
`gence for article selection need reside in the server. Page One
`leverages off of intelligence in our community.
`
`Globe and Zagat) reflect the likes and dislikes of the
`population at large, access to the reviews is organized
`from the perspective of a pedestrian on campus. Sub-
`missions from the readers provide reviews of the local
`fare (the food trucks, "cheap eats", etc.).
`111. THE LIFE OF AN ARTICLE
`Although an article's life begins long before it ever
`reaches our database server, within Fishwrap an ar-
`ticle begins when it appears on any incoming data
`stream. Each data stream has its own supplier pro-
`gram which monitors incoming traffic. Articles come
`to Fishwrap in many formats: over satellite, radio fre-
`quencies, email. and phone line. Each supplier program
`does three things: First, it translates all news items
`into an internal, wire-independent representation using
`the Dtype [3] expandable data structure. Second, the
`supplier adds a signature to each item. The signature
`represents an inference made from the data. Finally,
`
`Fig. 5 . Articles of interest to an individual can be delivered as
`Zephyr windowgrams bs they arrive in the Fishwrap system.
`
`LVhen a reader generates a newspaper through Fish-
`wrap, an article is retrieved if it matches one of the
`reader's global topics of interest (like stamp collecting,
`gay rights, etc.). or one of the reader's personal topic
`definitions (hometown news or special topic news). The
`article is then rendered by the front end application
`with hints given by the signatures. Fishwrap also checks
`its photo and audio databases to see if there are pho-
`tos and sound recordings that match the story. For
`most Fishwrap readers, articles are rendered in hyper-
`text markup language (HTML) for a WWW browser.
`The article's unique identifier is recorded as having been
`presented to the reader in his/her personal database.
`An article does not necessarily disappear when the user
`is done reading it. If the reader feels the article is in-
`teresting enough for the whole MIT community, he or
`she can add it to Page One, email it, save it to disk, or,
`soon, save it in his/her personal scrapbook. Fishwrap
`records any available observations: was the article read,
`in what order, did the reader inspect all the topics, etc.
`IV. WHAT IS GLUE?
`Glue is the process of forming a newspaper by re-
`trieving relevant articles. Glue is an iinfrastructure for
`news gathering and disseminating. Glue was designed
`to bind individual modules into one coherent, extensible
`package. It is this glue that holds together the hyper-
`
`.
`
`277
`
`Petitioners Great West Casualty Co., BITCO Gen. Ins. Corp., and BITCO Nat'l Ins. Co.
`Ex. 1031, p. 277
`
`

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`text, email. zephyr: and the hardcopy distributions of
`Fishwrap[G]. Glue provides a standard “plug and play‘‘
`set of tools for servers. knowledge representations mod-
`ules, user profiling systems, and presentation modules.
`It also takes care of all the bookkeeping; e.g. who‘s
`read what, where. and when. Figure 6 shows how Glue
`connects all the components of our personalized news
`process int’o one process.
`
`user
`M o d e l
`
`World
`Topics
`(knowledge representation)
`
`Fig. 6. The Glue infrastructure for news gathering and dissemi-
`nation.
`
`Glue defines a data format and outlines the flow of
`data between modules for all our news applications, and
`divorces the presentation specific code from the globally
`useful services. As a result new and diverse user appli-
`cations are created with relatively little work.
`An application can use Glue modules independently,
`or it can use the packaged Glue process outlined below.
`The module names are shown in boldface. Modules be-
`ginning with a p p are designed to hold the customizable
`portions of the Glue process, while the Glue- modules
`are the global services provided to all applications.
`v. MORE ON FISHWRAP’S INFRASTRUCTURE
`User Profire - It is important for the Fishwrap sys-
`tem to know an individual’s personal interests and com-
`munity affiliations. Fishwrap maintains a number of
`
`* laad environment vanabla
`
`* for rack secrum i n the profile
`information. includmg the list of topics included in thal S U o n
`* for each topic in the currcnl section
`
`- gluc2up rrads the USQ s profile
`- load the -on
`- glueZreguer6 uanslatcs the interest in a parucular topic (found In the
`- IppSenrchModif~ d f i e s search with appllcaaon s p e a k pjrarrrtcrs
`- appPoaFilter fillers k mcles reNmed from the sewer using applicaaon
`
`profile) inlo q u a y for gvcn news server ryp
`
`* glue2server subnuts the quay io rbc server
`
`specific paramdm
`* glue2booklc recordr chow arucles as ‘prcsenkd’ ID h e users pemnal
`darabilw
`* appRcorder reordas amcles uslog application spccrfic paramctcrs
`oppRender modcrs har topic using apphcauon specific pararmerr
`* don mtb lopic
`* appPostSectionFiltv
`appRc~der h s h t s rmdcnng that mp~c
`* d w mch section
`
`Fig. 7. Glue’s process flow for generating a personalized news-
`paper.
`
`data structures, the most important being the %ser
`profile” (see Figure 8.) This Dtype has all the per-
`sonal and global topic subscriptions, biographical in-
`formation. and the reader’s home town information.
`Fishwrap also maintains other data structures for book
`keeping purposes (which articles were read, when and
`which order).
`Supplrers and Servers - Fishwrap receives news
`from a variety of sources and formats. The tradi-
`tional news wires (Associated Press, Reuters, Knight-
`Ridder/Tribune, and BPI Entertainment all are p r e
`viding their news feeds to Fishwrap) come in ANPA[’i]
`format. Fishwrap also receives submissions via elec-
`tronic mail and a number of “homebrew” formats. In
`all cases Fishwrap repackages the articles into a Dtype
`(see Figure 9). This article structure preserves all the
`information that the supplier provides.
`All news items then run through a series of filters and
`add “signatures” to characterize the news item. The
`following are some of the signatures Fishwrap uses:
`Topic matches: Fishwrap’s content understanding
`module compares each story to the knowledge base
`of topic definitions. This can quickly be done by
`analyzing the article text to find relevant organiza-
`tions, personalities, or even trade jargon (see Fig-
`ure 10). Each articie is then tagged with a list of
`which topics it matched. Pre-categorizing stories
`in this way allows us to significantly speed up the
`searches.
`Q Geographic origin of the story: This is determined
`from the dateline. Stories with datelines in the
`US are tagged with zipcodes. Zipcodes allow us to
`quickly find news from surrounding neighborhoods
`and counties.
`4 Formatting information: Story containing tabular
`
`278
`
`Petitioners Great West Casualty Co., BITCO Gen. Ins. Corp., and BITCO Nat'l Ins. Co.
`Ex. 1031, p. 278
`
`

`
`(('type' ('nem' 'lexr 'article' ) ) ('story-number'
`'0914' ) ('selector-code"
`'Mx-' ) ('Priority' 'rush' ) ('source' 'AP stale' ) ('formatlD' 'let )
`('slugworS 'TX--USAtrCrash-SuR' ) rwordcounl' '0248' ) ('zipcode'
`7'CCIo' ) ('crty- 'HOUSTON' ) ('state' 7x' ) ('country' 'USA') (7x'
`'HOUSTON' ) rbodf
`HOUSTON (AP) -. Sufvwors of a Houston " a n killed in last year's
`USAir crash in Charlone. N C have filed a wrongful death sun against the
`airline in federal wun
`James Glaser husband of Mary .lo Klostemn filed the SUR Fnday
`seeking unspecdied damages for himself and the couple's 1Oyear-okl
`davghter and 7-year-okl son
`The Exxon geologist was retuming home froin a spsabng engagement
`at the Unrverslty of South Carolina-Columla *en
`the USAir CC-9 crashed
`July 2 after aborting a landing dunng a murderstom
`01 the 57 people on board. 37 were blled
`Glasets lawsuit contends the USAir cocrpn crew was neglgem in
`anempbng to land dunng a munderstm and in failing to read immedtately
`to a low-level wmd shear w m i n g they r-ed
`The sm also alleges grass neglgence by Me company in Mphaslzmg
`the need for Rghts to remain on schedule. rmhouf regard for safefy
`The air camer also toleram unacceptable k v e k of nsk-tabng the SUR
`USAtr spokesman Rick Weinfraub decllned to comment Wednesday
`because W e maner i m k s pending litrgahon
`Ftfteen passengers and five mew members siiNNed Me uash Donan
`Amery Doucene. 20. of Baytown. Texas. lost a leg as a resun of the crash
`and was bumed Over 70 percent of h s body He liked a $125 mllm sun
`agaimr Me Artigton. Va -based camer hsf year
`'AP-WS-0517-95 1149EDT ) (%~ll-slug' 'BC-TX-USAir
`' ) ('Date'
`Crash-Suit.MJW ) ('headline"SuMvors of Crash Vicfim Sue USAir' )
`("Queld' ~-TX-USAirCrash-Sum)914a95405' ) ('lope-matches' () )
`HOUSTON (AP) - Survrwrs of a Houston wornan lolled in last yeafs
`('summary'.
`USAir crash in Charlone N C nave filed a mongful death sun against the
`airline in federal muR
`James Glaser nustend of Mary Jo Klosterman filed the sun Frtday
`) (-Pastes '(05-17) t 1 49 18' ) ('unimme' 800725'VS ) 1
`
`said
`
`Fig. 9. An AP article in a Dtype structure. The first and third
`portion is material derived from the AIVPA format coding
`other information added to the article b:y the signature pro-
`cess.
`
`Fig. 10. The aviation topic is defined in a !server independent
`representation. This allows us to translate "has organiza-
`tion" into a form we can use during the analysis of articles
`as they come into the Fishwrap system or 21s a requests from
`an arbitrary server.
`
`279
`
`Fig. 8. Pascal's initial personal news profile. This data struc-
`ture contains the essential information for creating a personal
`news presentation. It is a list-like structure. The first list
`deals with news topic subscriptions, grouped into user-defined
`sections. The second list is the individual's biographical in-
`formation. The third list contains the individual's hometown.
`
`data or html formatting are tagged.
`Our current Fishwrap news server uses a media-
`independent representation, that allows it to accept
`items with graphics. audio, text. and motion pictures.
`It is up to the presentation application to determine the
`appropriate medium to provide.
`VI. FISHWRAP PRESENTATIOX ISTERFACE
`
`In order to reach as many people as possible, the
`Fishwrap personal newspaper generation has been de-
`signed to be independent of its interface. Its audience
`can be reached in the form of ink on paper, a hypertext
`document, an email message, or even a windowgam as
`news of interest enters the Fishwrap news servers. The
`primary mode of communication and interaction, how-
`ever, is through hypertext presented through a WWW
`browser.
`Why hyperted: Fishwrap uses hypertext as means
`of structuring the presentation. It allows the individ-
`ual to follow links along the Fishwrap table of contents
`akin to the way one would flip to pages of a traditional
`newspaper. HTML allows us to specify some of the
`visual attributes of the documents we present to the
`individual. HTML also provides a uniform mechanism
`for accepting input from the reader. HTML support is
`
`Petitioners Great West Casualty Co., BITCO Gen. Ins. Corp., and BITCO Nat'l Ins. Co.
`Ex. 1031, p. 279
`
`

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`widely available.
`WK’W client/server: We use the TVLVW client-server
`model to communicate HTML documents with our
`users. The Fishwrap user begins his/her session by con-
`necting to our i+%’W’ servers. The server verifies that
`the user is authorized to access our service. Fishwrap‘s
`server then presents users with a menu of choices: “Gen-
`erate a new edition of your newspaper”. “Jump to your
`last edition”, and “Make changes to your news profile
`with PaperBuilder” . Fishwrap servers also store the in-
`dividual’s news profiles. Fishwrap employs access con-
`trol mechanisms to restrict document access to particu-
`lar hosts on the internet, groups of people, and individ-
`uals. Mechanisms exist to allow the individual to define
`his/her own access groups.
`On-Demand Publtshing: Fishwrap’s use of the WWW
`is different from existing servers. Rather than be an
`archive of documents, Fishwrap contructs its personal-
`ized news documents on the 0y. Building documents
`on demand allows Fishwrap to provide the most recent
`news. Fishwrap can personalize the documents given
`the contextual information about origin of the docu-
`ment request (who asked for it and why). Personaliza-
`tion can take the form of providing timel?; information
`not necessarily related to the news being displayed (ad-
`vertisement, calendar reminders. etc.).
`Customtzation: Xn interface called PaperBuilder (see
`Figure 11) exists for use as an explicit set of methods
`for manipulating the user’s profile. A person‘s profile is
`primarily organized into sections defined by the reader.
`These sections are filled with topical filters. The filters
`are selected manually from a list of topics or are auto-
`matically based upon the specification of a geographic
`location. Users have full control over what sections a p
`pear in their individual papers. Sew sections can be
`added, removed or unsubscribed at any time. Readers
`can also assign section-encompassing filters such as one
`to remove articles related to sports. Fishwrap has the
`capacity to include other sorts of section-filters, such as
`ones to filter out politics, deaths, etc. in addition to
`PaperBuilder, articles will display the topic filters they
`matched, allowing the reader to immediately add that
`interest to their profile.
`Self Organization: Early in our work, we determined
`that there was a necessity for a mechanism to alter the
`final presentation of the user‘s news. Rather than rely
`on explicit tools for reordering the presentation, we de-
`veloped a system that adapts t.he presentation based on
`the way individuals actually read the paper. While a
`person is reading their paper, the system observes and
`records his/her behavior. On subsequent generations,
`those sections and topic filters that the users paid the
`most attention to in the past will appear closer to the
`top of their paper. These observations are easy to make
`
`~-.“.l..-”-”-.U
`
`~
`
`Fig. 11. PaperBuilder allows the individual to add to his/her
`news profile. A news profile is composed of user-defined sec-
`tions (i.e. “Hometown News,” “Interests”.. .) and within
`each section are news topics that are used to retrieve news
`on behalf of the reader.
`
`with a hypertext interface. Every click of the mouse can
`have an impact on the reader’s and others’ news pre-
`sentation.
`Community Organization: Page One is an example
`of community-based organization. Fishwrap maintains
`a list of articles selected by readers for Page One with
`a counter of how many people read the article. As the
`popularity of the article changes, so does its position
`on Page One (see Figure 4). This community-based
`organization model can be expanded to other parts of
`Fishwrap to help smaller comunities define themselves.
`
`VII. EV.4LUATION
`We have more than five hundred regular readers this
`semester using Fishwrap. We adapted our model to
`allow access from any machine connected to MIT’s net-
`work. We performed focus studies during Spring 1994
`to gauge the acceptance of the system. We also received
`numerous comments from the participants through the
`“comment boxn at the top of each page. This feedback
`from the participants in the experiment was critical to
`the development of our system. For example, students
`initially complained that access to Fishwrap was too
`limited because they had to travel to campus t o w e . a
`workstation capable of running Fishwrap.
`The focus studies examined issues about our inter-
`face and content. Students were generally pleased with
`the system. It tried to fill a niche that they felt was
`missing in the news services that were freely available
`on campus.
`Interface: Students responded favorably to the
`WWW interface. They liked that they could use the
`interface for more than just one purpose. Having three
`levels of depth in the hypertext document was about as
`much as they could endure. The students would have
`
`280
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`Petitioners Great West Casualty Co., BITCO Gen. Ins. Corp., and BITCO Nat'l Ins. Co.
`Ex. 1031, p. 280
`
`

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`like abortion. from different viewpoints.
`Przvacy: .4 lot of effort was put into protecting the
`information we collect about individuals. Yet students
`questioned in the focus studies would forego the secu-
`rity to gain greater access to the news service or to share
`material with their friends. We are working on new in-
`terfaces to provide the reader with greater controls in
`this area. Students were concerned that information
`might be given to outside sources (advertisers) without
`their knowledge. They were less concerned with the in-
`formation being used to tailor advertisers' presentations
`within Fishwrap.
`VIII. ACKNOWLEDGMENT
`The authors wish to thank Walter E3ender for his con-
`tinued support of this project as part of the News in
`the Future[8] research consortium at the Media Labo-
`ratory. The authors also with to thank The Associated
`Press, Reuters, BPI Entertainment, Knight-Ridder and
`The Boston Globe who provided their news reports to
`enhance the experiment. The freshmen who designed
`the original project were: Brad Bartley, Adam Cot-
`ner. James Deverell, Soloman Douglas, David Malott,
`Stephen hlorales. Wilfred0 Sanchez, and Greg Stark.
`Other members of the crew included: Douglas Koen,
`Brian Shea. Mark Hurst, David La.macchia, Jeffrey
`Rosen. Oliver Roup. Joe Barco, Jack Driscoll and Trip
`Dubard. P.R.C. thanks Felice Napolitano for her pa-
`tient reviews of these documents.
`
`IX. AUTHORS
`Pascal Chesnats is a research specialist with the MIT
`Media Laboratory's News in the Future program. He
`may be reached via email: lacsap@mit.edu
`Matthew Mucklo is a sophomore in the MIT Electrical
`Engineering/Computer Science department. He may be
`reached via email: mmucklo@mit .edu
`Jonathan Sheena is master of engineering candi-
`date in the MIT Electrical Engineering/Computer Sci-
`ence department. He may be reached via email:
`jsheena@mit .edu
`Fishwrap has a publicly accessible World Wide Web
`page located at http://fishwrap.mit.edu/
`
`,
`
`[2]
`
`[3]
`
`REFERENCES
`[I] Chesnais, Pascal R. and Koen, Douglas B. Strategies for
`personal dynamic systems: News in the future NextWORLD
`Expo, San Francisco CA, 1993
`Koen, Douglas B. Automated Restructuring of an Electronic
`Newspaper SB EECS Thesis, MIT, Cambridge MA, 1994
`Abramson, Nathan S. The dtype library or, how to write a
`server in less time than it takes t o read this manual Techni-
`cal Report. Electronic Publishing Group, MIT Media L a b e
`ratoryi Cambridge MA, 1992
`Rlount. Alan W. Bettyserver: More news than you can beat
`wrth a stick Technical report. Electronic Publishing Group,
`MIT Media Laboratory, Cambridge MA, 1991
`
`[4)
`
`28 1
`
`Fig. 12. Using the biographical information about the individual
`we can provide personalized weather reports. In Fishwrap.
`we can relate the weather at MIT with your expectations.
`The top two panels reflect a weather report for someone
`from Juneau AI.;. the bottom two for a San Juan PR res-
`ident. This is part of a larger computer generated comic
`strip project called iComix by Mark P. Hurst.
`
`preferred a more linear approach, where they could skim
`one section after another until the presentation was ex-
`hausted. They did appreciate the ease in which one
`could return to familiar parts of the news presentation.
`One blind student appreciated the consistent structure
`and audio segments for illustrations. Students were a
`bit concerned at the lack of a mechanism for changing
`the order of the news presentation. However, the self-
`organization facility seemed to make up for the lack of
`such a tool.
`Content: In the focus studies students expressed con-
`cern that there was no editorial voice to guide the reader
`to important issues. As a result we implemented Page
`One which seems to have adequately addressed this con-
`cern. Students were appreciative of the ability to get
`regional news; in particular, those students from foreign
`coutries and US small towns. Students were pleased
`that there was extensive material on political subjects,
`
`Petitioners Great West Casualty Co., BITCO Gen. Ins. Corp., and BITCO Nat'l Ins. Co.
`Ex. 1031, p. 281
`
`

`
`DelloFera, C. Anthony and Eichen. Mark U’. and French,
`R o b e r t S. and Jedlinsky, David C. and Kohl. John T. and
`Sommerfeld. William E. The Ocphyr notification system
`USENIX, 1988
`Schoon, Benjamin D. Fis hpaper:
`.4 U t om at ic Pers onallzed
`Newspaper Layout SB EECS Thesis, MIT. Cambridge M A .
`1994
`Wire Service Transmrssion Guidelines Special Report S u m -
`ber 84-2 American Newspaper Publishers Association.
`Washington, DC, 1984
`Bender, Walter News in the Future.Proceedings of the ISLT
`4 8 t h Annual Conference, Washington, DC. May 1995
`
`Fig. 13. An article illustrated with photographs.
`
`282
`
`Petitioners Great West Casualty Co., BITCO Gen. Ins. Corp., and BITCO Nat'l Ins. Co.
`Ex. 1031, p. 282