February 5, 1998

The Brain
Natrificial
Version: 1.0
Info-Organizer/Brain Tool/Bookmarker/Cognitive Mapper

Wow. That's all we can say. Wow. We've been freakin' blown away. Our lives may be changed. Maybe forever. Maybe just for today. We're not sure. But we think we've glimpsed the future.

Sure, sure, sure...what kinda' bullhockey are we feedin' you tonight. OK. We do sometimes have a tendancy to get a bit , err, exhuberant once in a while. Maybe its the coffee. Maybe its a result of getting dropped on our collective heads as children. Maybe its a result of those special chemical supplements we occasionally avail ourselves of. Whatever. But we're really, really excited about our new Brain.

Our new Brain? Yeah-- we're sure that sometimes you suspect if we've got one at all. That's understandable. But we're not talking'bout that lump of barely-wrinkled grey matter floating in our skulls. Nope, we're talking about THE Brain, one of the coolest new info-organizing concept we've had in a long, long time.

What's The Brain? Hmmmm...kinda hard to categorize. In its own way its a bookmark manager. But that's just the beginning. Its kinda sorta a file manager. But only partway. It could be used as a media manager, but then you'd be missing a BIG part of its functionality. Maybe an organizer...hmmmm...not quite.

The closest we can come to describing what this skull-poppin' new...err...user interface (cognitive map? data gathering tool?) is that it's an accessory that organizes all the data in your life-- bookmarks, files, graphics, notes, dates, etc. -- into a dataspace that works the way you think.

Using strange new stuff like "thoughts" and "plexes" and "parents" and "children," The Brain allows you to gather information and link it in ways that make sense to you. You can browse the info, follow the links, share your maps, explore their associations, and generally just surf your thoughts as they come-- on the Web or off.

Cool, huh? We really think so. The thing that gets us so jacked about The Brain is that it finally moves the computer into a realm where the interface stops being some stupid metaphor for the physical world and starts acting like the mental world. What program a document's created in ceases to be as important as what's in the document-- a huge leap forward when you really grok the difference. Information-- no matter where its stored-- starts to come together in closely linked relationships. Instead of your jottings being thousands of little files in folders on your hard drive they become nodes in a Web of your own thought. We're hooked.

Go check it out for yourself. Give it a chance. We think that The Brain is a stunning glimpse into what your computer is to become in the future. At least we hope so.

- displayed with permission -