News Briefs

In what could be a major blow to the development of a truly interactive Internet, it has been revealed that a pending patent on executable content currently exists. The patent, held by the University of California and licensed exclusively to Eolas Technologies, covers the use of embedded program objects ("applets") within Web documents. The patent also covers the use of any algorithm that implements dynamic, bi-directional communications between Web browsers and external applications. Most leading Web browsers, including those from Netscape, Spyglass, Microsoft, AOL, Navisoft, and others, currently support embedded applets. More importantly, Sun's Java language (and HotJava browser) is based on the concept of executable content. The technology was developed in 1993 by Dr. Michael Doyle, a UCSF faculty member and Eolas CEO. The first "Weblet" application was an interactive 3-D medical visualization used in conjunction with Mosaic-based Eolas browser.