Edusoft (Tel Aviv and Orlando) is a $5M company with excellent growth (162% over last year) and profit margin (19%). Among its advantages in the educational software market are Israeli tax incentives and access to bargain-priced brainpower from USSR expatriates. In addition, Edusoft often finds partners to underwrite software development costs in return for royalties. Siemens underwrote an electronics tutor for a 20% royalty; Berlitz underwrote multimedia language tutors. [Michael Gianturco, Forbes, 9/13/93.]

(Maxis follows a similar strategy. One project is a refinery simulator for training petroleum workers. Maxis' latest commercial game is a farm where you decide what to plant and how to care for it.)

Avatar Partners (Boulder Creek, CA) will be working with RPI Advanced Technology Group (San Francisco) to develop DIVE, a virtual environment for simulated or networked infantry battles. It may eventually include intelligent agents under voice command. This is a US Army Phase I SBIR award. Peter Rothman (avatarp @well.sf.ca.us), (408) 338-6460. [sci.virtual-worlds, 11/25/93. Anandeep Pannu.]

NCR and I-NET Intelligent Systems will co-develop AI-based multimedia training software for the energy industry. [PR Newswire, 12/7/93. Tim Finin.]

American College Testing will offer computerized licensing exams to doctors, lawyers, engineers and other professionals. [St. Petersburg Times, 12/5/93. EDUPAGE.] (Could there be an opportunity for interactive simulations and CAI-style problem solving?)

Ted Nelson is talking up Xanadu Light, and do-able version of his electronic publishing vision. In Xanadu Light, all documents exist in a global hypertext space with two-way links. Publishers pay for storage; readers pay for delivery and a miniscule per-byte royalty. Anyone may quote anything via a link, with royalties from readers flowing to the original writer. Anyone may add annotations to anything without altering the original. For more information, send a SASE to Xanadu On-Line Publishing, 3020 Bridgeway #295, Sausalito, CA 94965. Contributions and volunteers are welcome. [Adam & Tonya Engst ([email protected]), TidBITS, 11/29/93. Bill Park.] (For the full vision, read Nelson's "Computer Lib/Dream Machines" and "Literary Machines." AutoCAD put in $5M over 5 years to develop related software.)