The current architecture of the web gives the server sole
responsibility for determining the content that results from
a browser's request. Because of the well-defined information
stream between browser and server, this architecture is easily
extended to allow multiple entities to cooperate in producing
the final delivered content. Applications can then be built
as intermediary components which live along the information stream. WBI defines intermediaries
which can observe, produce, and edit web content anywhere between
browser and server. WBI provides a place for applications
to manipulate web content. These applications can be used
for personalization, protocol extensions, collaboration, advising,
and dynamic content generation. The same concepts can be
applied to non-web information streams, such as mouse/keyboard
input, information push, and e-mail.
Dr. Barrett is a Research Staff Member of the User
Ergonomics Research department in the Computer Science function
at the Almaden Research Center.
He received B.S. degrees in physics and electrical engineering
and a M.S.degree in physics from Washington University (St. Louis)
in 1987, and M.S.and Ph.D. degrees in applied physics from Stanford
University in 1989 and 1991, respectively. He subsequently
joined IBM at the Almaden Research Center, where he has worked
on magnetic storage, scanned probe storage, computer pointing
devices, information retrieval technologies, and web-based intermediaries.