Advanced Technology Group
Encyclopedia
The Advanced Technology Group (ATG) was a corporate research laboratory at Apple Computer from 1986 to 1997. ATG was started by Larry Tesler
in October 1986 to study long term research into future technologies that were beyond the time frame or organizational scope of any individual product group. Over the next decade it was led by David Nagel
, Richard LeFaivre, and Donald Norman
. It was known as Apple Research Labs during Norman's tenure as VP of the organization. Steve Jobs
closed the group when he returned to Apple in 1997.
ATG had research efforts in both hardware and software, with groups focused on such areas as Human-Computer Interaction, Speech Recognition, Educational Technology, Networking, Information Access, and Language/action perspective
. Many of these efforts are described in a special issue of the ACM SIGCHI bulletin which provided a retrospective of the ATG work after the lab was shut down. ATG was also home to two Apple Fellows, object-oriented software pioneer Alan Kay
and laser printer inventor Gary Starkweather
. Further, ATG funded university research and, starting in 1992, held an annual design competition for teams of students.
Apple's ATG was the birthplace of Color QuickDraw
, QuickTime
, QuickTime VR
, QuickDraw 3D
, 3DMF the 3D metafile graphics format, ColorSync
, HyperCard
, Apple events
, AppleScript
, Apple's PlainTalk
speech recognition
software, Apple Data Detectors, the V-Twin software for indexing, storing, and searching text documents, Macintalk Pro Speech Synthesis
, the Newton handwriting recognizer
, the component software technology leading to OpenDoc
, MCF
, HotSauce
, Squeak
, and the children's programming environment Cocoa
(a trademark Apple later reused for its otherwise unrelated Cocoa application frameworks
).
Larry Tesler
Larry Tesler is a computer scientist working in the field of human-computer interaction. Tesler has worked at Xerox PARC, Apple Computer, Amazon.com, and Yahoo!...
in October 1986 to study long term research into future technologies that were beyond the time frame or organizational scope of any individual product group. Over the next decade it was led by David Nagel
David Nagel
David Nagel has held executive positions in a wide variety of technology companies and organizations.He was named CEO and elected to the board of directors of PalmSource in December 2001, and served in this position until May 22, 2005....
, Richard LeFaivre, and Donald Norman
Donald Norman
Donald Arthur Norman is an academic in the field of cognitive science, design and usability engineering and a co-founder and consultant with the Nielsen Norman Group. He is the author of the book The Design of Everyday Things....
. It was known as Apple Research Labs during Norman's tenure as VP of the organization. Steve Jobs
Steve Jobs
Steven Paul Jobs was an American businessman and inventor widely recognized as a charismatic pioneer of the personal computer revolution. He was co-founder, chairman, and chief executive officer of Apple Inc...
closed the group when he returned to Apple in 1997.
ATG had research efforts in both hardware and software, with groups focused on such areas as Human-Computer Interaction, Speech Recognition, Educational Technology, Networking, Information Access, and Language/action perspective
Language/action perspective
Language/Action Perspective is based upon the notion as proposed by Terry Winograd that "expert behavior requires an exquisite sensitivity to context" and that such sensitivity is more in the realm of the human than in that of the artificial....
. Many of these efforts are described in a special issue of the ACM SIGCHI bulletin which provided a retrospective of the ATG work after the lab was shut down. ATG was also home to two Apple Fellows, object-oriented software pioneer Alan Kay
Alan Kay
Alan Curtis Kay is an American computer scientist, known for his early pioneering work on object-oriented programming and windowing graphical user interface design, and for coining the phrase, "The best way to predict the future is to invent it."He is the president of the Viewpoints Research...
and laser printer inventor Gary Starkweather
Gary Starkweather
Gary K. Starkweather is an American engineer and inventor most notable for the invention of the laser printer and color management.In 1969, Starkweather invented the laser printer at Xerox's Webster research center...
. Further, ATG funded university research and, starting in 1992, held an annual design competition for teams of students.
Apple's ATG was the birthplace of Color QuickDraw
QuickDraw
QuickDraw is the 2D graphics library and associated Application Programming Interface which is a core part of the classic Apple Macintosh operating system. It was initially written by Bill Atkinson and Andy Hertzfeld. QuickDraw still exists as part of the libraries of Mac OS X, but has been...
, QuickTime
QuickTime
QuickTime is an extensible proprietary multimedia framework developed by Apple Inc., capable of handling various formats of digital video, picture, sound, panoramic images, and interactivity. The classic version of QuickTime is available for Windows XP and later, as well as Mac OS X Leopard and...
, QuickTime VR
QuickTime VR
QuickTime VR is a type of image file format developed by Apple Inc. for QuickTime. It allows the creation and viewing of photographically-captured panoramas and the exploration of objects through images taken at multiple viewing angles...
, QuickDraw 3D
QuickDraw 3D
QuickDraw 3D, or QD3D for short, is a 3D graphics API developed by Apple Inc. starting in 1995, originally for their Macintosh computers, but delivered as a cross-platform system....
, 3DMF the 3D metafile graphics format, ColorSync
ColorSync
ColorSync is Apple Inc's color management API for the Mac OS and Mac OS X.-Version history:Apple developed the original 1.0 version of ColorSync as a Mac-only architecture, which made it into an operating system release in 1993. In the same year, Apple co-founded the International Color Consortium...
, HyperCard
HyperCard
HyperCard is an application program created by Bill Atkinson for Apple Computer, Inc. that was among the first successful hypermedia systems before the World Wide Web. It combines database capabilities with a graphical, flexible, user-modifiable interface. HyperCard also features HyperTalk, written...
, Apple events
Apple events
Apple events are the canonical message-based interprocess communication mechanism in Mac OS, first appearing in System 7 and supported by every version since then, including Mac OS X. Apple events describe "high-level" events such as "open document" or "print file", whereas earlier OS's had...
, AppleScript
AppleScript
AppleScript is a scripting language created by Apple Inc. and built into Macintosh operating systems since System 7. The term "AppleScript" may refer to the scripting system itself, or to particular scripts that are written in the AppleScript language....
, Apple's PlainTalk
PlainTalk
PlainTalk is the collective name for several speech synthesis and speech recognition technologies developed by Apple Inc.In 1990, Apple invested a lot of work and money in speech recognition technology, hiring many respected researchers in the field. The result was "PlainTalk", released with the...
speech recognition
Speech recognition
Speech recognition converts spoken words to text. The term "voice recognition" is sometimes used to refer to recognition systems that must be trained to a particular speaker—as is the case for most desktop recognition software...
software, Apple Data Detectors, the V-Twin software for indexing, storing, and searching text documents, Macintalk Pro Speech Synthesis
Speech synthesis
Speech synthesis is the artificial production of human speech. A computer system used for this purpose is called a speech synthesizer, and can be implemented in software or hardware...
, the Newton handwriting recognizer
Handwriting recognition
Handwriting recognition is the ability of a computer to receive and interpret intelligible handwritten input from sources such as paper documents, photographs, touch-screens and other devices. The image of the written text may be sensed "off line" from a piece of paper by optical scanning or...
, the component software technology leading to OpenDoc
OpenDoc
OpenDoc was a multi-platform software componentry framework standard for compound documents, intended as an alternative to Microsoft's Object Linking and Embedding ....
, MCF
Meta Content Framework
Meta Content Framework was a specification of a format for structuring metadata about web sites and other data. MCF was developed by Ramanathan V. Guha at Apple Computer between 1995 and 1997...
, HotSauce
HotSauce
HotSauce was experimental software developed by Apple Computer as a sample application of its Meta Content Framework. HotSauce generated a 3D visualization of the contents of an MCF file, for example a website sitemap...
, Squeak
Squeak
The Squeak programming language is a Smalltalk implementation. It is object-oriented, class-based and reflective.It was derived directly from Smalltalk-80 by a group at Apple Computer that included some of the original Smalltalk-80 developers...
, and the children's programming environment Cocoa
Stagecast Creator
Stagecast Creator is a visual programming language intended for use in teaching programming to children. It is based on the programming by demonstration concept, where rules are created by giving examples of what actions should take place in a given situation...
(a trademark Apple later reused for its otherwise unrelated Cocoa application frameworks
Cocoa (API)
Cocoa is Apple's native object-oriented application programming interface for the Mac OS X operating system and—along with the Cocoa Touch extension for gesture recognition and animation—for applications for the iOS operating system, used on Apple devices such as the iPhone, the iPod Touch, and...
).