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Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) to join SRI International

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Re: Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) to join SRI International

#41

Post by rchiang »

VagueMag wrote: post #23

For something of its size and influence very few people have heard of SRI, but it comes up frequently in 'noided online discussions about the overlap between Silicon Valley and military/intelligence. A lot of the things that PARC was credited with creating in the first place were really dreamed up at SRI, so it makes a certain sense for them to be merging: https://squamuglia.wordpress.com/2017/04/16/67/#more-67 https…

I think it's important to note that much (all?) of PARCs research has been oriented around the "office of the future". In the broadest sense of that vision, they had a huge hand in originating a lot of computing technologies.

And while SRI has had their impact in the computing industry, they also have other research labs that have very little to do with computing such as biomedical, education, and policy.

Re: Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) to join SRI International

#42

Post by jameshart »

rchiang wrote: post #13
osnium123 wrote: post #2

Will this mean that PARC will transition towards doing more government funded research? SRI is pretty heavily funded by the government as far as I know.

The Morningstar article had a few more details that I couldn't find anywhere else: "As part of the donation, Xerox will enter into a preferred research agreement, called the Technology Exploration and Innovation Program, in which SRI will provide contracted research and development services to Xerox and its clients. Through the collaborative program, Xerox and SRI will identify topic areas relevant to Xerox’s core pr…

TIL there is an investment oriented news site called https://morningstar.com. Was struggling to figure out why the Communist Party of Great Britain’s newspaper (https://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/) would have relevant coverage of this topic. Although I suppose the machinations of the Silicon Valley/US government research establishment have probably been of intense interest to international socialism since the 1960s..

Re: Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) to join SRI International

#43

Post by drfuchs »

usr1106 wrote: post #11
drfuchs wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But, just as with IBM and NCR, “SRI” is now just a 3-letter non-acronym, that officially doesn’t stand for anything.

anymore, you mean. Knowing history is good and so are mnemonics.

My “is now” indeed means “was, but no longer is.” So, no SNAFU; it’s OK.

Re: Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) to join SRI International

#44

Post by sundarurfriend »

jldugger wrote: post #37
usr1106 wrote: post #3

As a software engineer since the 1980s, of course I know (Xerox) PARC. But am I the only one for whom SRI does not ring any bells? I'm confident Wikipedia can tell me more, but if they don't tell in their press release I would claim they might overestimate their "brand".

SRI is like, the secret bit of stanford where the faculty only do research and no teaching. It's where Siri and Nuance came from, and two staffers who worked there in the 50s quit to found FairIssac. Most notably for the HN crowd, its where Englebart worked on his Mother of All Demos, and where LaTeX was written.

> FairIssac

TIL that FICO stands for Fair Isaac Corporation (or Fair, Isaac and Company, originally).

Re: Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) to join SRI International

#45

Post by robert-graham »

Remember that SRI is a patent troll. They are non-practicing entity. They don't build the things they "invent". They instead write patents then extort the people who do build things.

I say this from personal experience. I created many inventions in "intrusion detection", spent years in data centers making theory work in practice. SRI sued me using vaguely worded patents.

It's a harsh accusation, but objectively true. They never built a commercial intrusion-detection product, but they did sue people.

Re: Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) to join SRI International

#46

Post by fatneckbeard »

rchiang wrote: post #41
VagueMag wrote: post #23

For something of its size and influence very few people have heard of SRI, but it comes up frequently in 'noided online discussions about the overlap between Silicon Valley and military/intelligence. A lot of the things that PARC was credited with creating in the first place were really dreamed up at SRI, so it makes a certain sense for them to be merging: https://squamuglia.wordpress.com/2017/04/16/67/#more-67 https…

I think it's important to note that much (all?) of PARCs research has been oriented around the "office of the future". In the broadest sense of that vision, they had a huge hand in originating a lot of computing technologies. And while SRI has had their impact in the computing industry, they also have other research labs that have very little to do with computing such as biomedical, education, and policy.

sri was never gonna allow a bunch of hippies and bearded longhairs tour their facility in the spirit of academic comradeship. (IE no microsoft, no apple being allowed to walk around and talk to people in the 80s to get the ideas for Macintosh and Windows)

Ironically, Apple and Microsoft would never allow some stranger company to walk into their offices and see everything they were developing either. lol

Re: Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) to join SRI International

#47

Post by kjs3 »

eichin wrote: post #33
ricktdotorg wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"SRI" [1] [1] https://static.scientificamerican.com/sciam/cache/file/63774...

The one people will remember, though, is SRI-NIC because that's where you FTP'ed the offical HOSTS.TXT file from (mid-to-late 1980s before DNS.)

I dunno where you were at, but as a student admin at another major ARPAnet/NSFnet site we were using DNS on everything worth the admin time to configure it by 85/86 and noone was regularly FTP'ing HOSTS.TXT unless they had to (e.g. our BITNET connected machines had an IP gateway, but no DNS software for IBM VM/CMS and for a while).

Re: Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) to join SRI International

#48

Post by kjs3 »

usr1106 wrote: post #24
drewda wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't know the acronym SRI, then you probably aren't likely their target customer :) The S used to stand for Stanford. Just like RAND or Battelle or a half dozen others, it's nominally a non-profit organization that manages huge R&D projects, employs thousands of scientists and engineers, and manages government research facilities.

Not personally, you have a point :) I have used Ethernet since 1985ish without being PARC's customer either. I have used a mouse since 1987ish. If you had asked me before reading up on the topic minutes ago where the mouse was developed I would have probably answered PARC, too, and not Stanford and absolutely not SRI. Not sure how the former managed to build to build a "brand" for stuff they haven't even accomplished…

Because SRI focused on gov/mil/intel projects, and Xerox shipped commercial products? There are lots of places like SRI you've never heard of unless you come from their world (e.g. RAND, General Atomics, etc.).

Re: Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) to join SRI International

#49

Post by kjs3 »

drfuchs wrote: post #8
jeron wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SRI is Stanford Research Institute, which was established by the trustees of Stanford University in 1946 [0] [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SRI_International

But, just as with IBM and NCR, “SRI” is now just a 3-letter non-acronym, that officially doesn’t stand for anything.

Shame...National Cash Register had so much character. Like the similarly depreciated American Telephone & Telegraph.

Re: Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) to join SRI International

#50

Post by mlyle »

robert-graham wrote: post #45

Remember that SRI is a patent troll. They are non-practicing entity. They don't build the things they "invent". They instead write patents then extort the people who do build things. I say this from personal experience. I created many inventions in "intrusion detection", spent years in data centers making theory work in practice. SRI sued me using vaguely worded patents. It's a harsh accusation, but objectively true.…

All academic and research institutes tend to accumulate patents and weaponize them. It's not fair to characterize SRI as a "non-practicing entity". Aside from all the things they build for defense / NSF, they did invent this thing called "Siri" that a lot of people use.

> They never built a commercial intrusion-detection product

No, but they did give away things like Bothunter away (which is admittedly HIDS).

I'm sympathetic to the argument against patents, etc. I was your competitor in the IDS space and also made a very fast IDS and exited, and also was harassed by people without a product in the market (over sending TCP RSTs to close connections, of all things, where there was loads of prior art).

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