Interval Research Corp

After four years of doing nothing but new technology research, Interval Research Corp. said Tuesday that it has provided the funding for three commercial ventures based on its findings. Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen committed $100 million over 10 years to the Palo Alto-based think tank when he and computer industry veteran David Liddle founded Interval in 1992. Allen is providing an additional $5 million to start the three companies, Purple Moon, Carnelian Inc.

For better or worse, a new video animation technology called Video Rewrite enables computers to automatically put words into someone else's mouth. Developed at Interval Research Corp. in Palo Alto, Video Rewrite (http://www.interval.com/papers/1997-012/) instantly creates new video of a person saying things they never said in the original footage. One astoundingly convincing result is a video clip of John F. Kennedy uttering the infamous phrase "Read my lips."

For better or worse, a new video animation technology called Video Rewrite enables computers to automatically put words into someone else's mouth. Developed at Interval Research Corp. in Palo Alto, Video Rewrite (http://www.interval.com/papers/1997-012/) instantly creates new video of a person saying things they never said in the original footage. One astoundingly convincing result is a video clip of John F. Kennedy uttering the infamous phrase "Read my lips."

After four years of doing nothing but new technology research, Interval Research Corp. said Tuesday that it has provided the funding for three commercial ventures based on its findings. Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen committed $100 million over 10 years to the Palo Alto-based think tank when he and computer industry veteran David Liddle founded Interval in 1992. Allen is providing an additional $5 million to start the three companies, Purple Moon, Carnelian Inc.

The co-founder of Microsoft Corp. and a veteran of IBM and Xerox, both known for creating user-friendly computers, on Monday launched a company dedicated to inventing high-tech machines of the future. Paul G. Allen, the multimillionaire co-founder of Microsoft and owner of the Portland Trail Blazers, planned to put up an unspecified amount of money for the venture with David E. Liddle, according to a spokesman for the men. But few other details were released about the new Interval Research Corp.

Eat your heart out, Dick Tracy. Researchers at Stanford University are developing revolutionary new technologies that could lead to digital cameras so small and efficient they could fit on a watch band. That's one up on the famous detective's wristwatch-telephone. Preliminary results have been so promising that Stanford danced around the primary hurdle confronting most cutting-edge research: funding. Five major companies--Canon Inc., Eastman Kodak Co., Hewlett-Packard Co., Intel Corp.

At a time when California is mired in a multibillion-dollar budget shortfall, one of the richest men in the world is asking the Legislature to throw him a rope. Billionaire Paul G. Allen, a co-founder of Microsoft Corp., has hired Sacramento lobbyists to press lawmakers for a return of tax credits that were taken from one of his firms last year. If he succeeds, Allen could pay less in state taxes, although how much is unclear.

For far too long, the world of computing has been dominated by boys. It was men in the military-industrial complex who created the Internet. It was mostly guys, tinkering with electronics in garages and laboratories, who started the personal computer revolution. Then it was boys who bought and played most of the computer games. That didn't leave a lot of room for women and girls. Or at least they weren't made to feel very welcome.

Sami Berley of West Hills loves computers, but she worries about what some industry pundits call "the geek factor." "I like playing card games, and I'll probably use the computer for my writing, but I definitely don't want to become a computer nerd when I grow up, ooooh, no," says the fourth-grade Girl Scout. Nine-year-old Sami is typical of young computer users, male and female.

She didn't even get his name right. Not that it mattered. He was just another '60s oddball "with a face that looks like an embodied question mark"--a skinny 27-year-old who had attracted a crowd outside the main gate of Columbia University. According to Sally Kempton's 1966 Village Voice article, he wore "a black top hat decorated with a flower, and a sandwich board decorated with the question: 'Why haven't we seen a photograph of the whole Earth yet?'

The co-founder of Microsoft Corp. and a veteran of IBM and Xerox, both known for creating user-friendly computers, on Monday launched a company dedicated to inventing high-tech machines of the future. Paul G. Allen, the multimillionaire co-founder of Microsoft and owner of the Portland Trail Blazers, planned to put up an unspecified amount of money for the venture with David E. Liddle, according to a spokesman for the men. But few other details were released about the new Interval Research Corp.