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SRI International is one of the world's largest contract research institutes. It was founded as Stanford Research Institute in 1946 by the trustees of Stanford University as a center of innovation to support economic development in the region. Later it became fully independent and was incorporated as a non-profit organization under U.S. and California laws. Its headquarters are in Menlo Park, California, near the Stanford University campus. Curtis Carlson, Ph.D., is currently President and CEO of SRI International. SRI International has more than 1,000 patents and patent applications worldwide. SRI International conducts research and development in many areas, both independently and for hire, and sells reports on independent research. In 1970, the Stanford Research Institute formally separated from Stanford University and, in 1977, became known as SRI International. The separation was a belated response to anti-war protesters at Stanford who believed that SRI's DARPA-funded work was essentially making the university part of the military-industrial complex.
Projects The following is a summary of some important SRI research projects, as identified in the institute's publicity material *. 1940s In 1948, SRI began research and consultation with the petroleum company Chevron to develop an artificial substitute for tallow and coconut oil used in making soaps. SRI's investigation confirmed the potential of dodecyl benzene as a suitable replacement, and later Procter & Gamble used the substance as the basis of their highly successful household detergent, Tide. 1950s In the early 1950s, the Disney brothers sought SRI's advice regarding a small amusement park called Disneyland which they intended to build in Burbank, California. SRI provided them information on such topics as location, attendance patterns, and economic feasibility. SRI also selected a much larger site, in Anaheim, and prepared reports covering many aspects of operation. They also provided on-site administrative support and continued an advisory role for some time as the park expanded. In 1952, the Technicolor Corporation contracted with SRI to develop a near-instantaneous electro-optical alternative to the manual process of timing during film copying. In 1959, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences presented the Scientific and Engineering Award jointly to SRI and the Technicolor Corporation for their work on the design and development of the Technicolor electronic printing timer which greatly benefited the motion picture industry. In 1954, Southern Pacific asked SRI to investigate ways of reducing the losses due to damage during rail freight shipments by mitigating shocks to loaded railroad box cars. This investigation led to the development of the Hydra-Cushion technology which remains standard to this day. In the 1950s, SRI worked under the direction of the Bank of America to develop MICR, an automated check processing system with magnetic ink encoding. It is an industry standard. 1960s Doug Engelbart was the primary force behind the design and development of the On-Line System, or NLS. He founded SRI's Augmentation Research Center (ARC), and his team there developed the original versions of many modern computer-human interface elements. These included: bit-mapped displays, collaboration software, hypertext, and precursors to the graphical user interface including the computer mouse. As a pioneer of human-computer interaction, Engelbart is arguably SRI's most notable alumnus. In 1964, Bill English, then chief engineer at the ARC, built the first prototype of a computer mouse from Engelbart's design. In the 1960s, liquid crystal display (LCD) technology was developed at RCA Laboratories, which is now the Sarnoff Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of SRI. From 1966 through 1972, SRI's Artificial Intelligence Center developed the first mobile robot to reason about its actions. Named "Shakey", the robot had a television camera, a triangulating range finder, and bump sensors. Shakey the Robot used software for perception, world-modeling, and acting. SRI International researchers also developed the world's first and only all-magnetic digital computer, based upon extensions to magnetic core memories. ARPANET In 1969, ARPANET, the world's first electronic computer network, was established on October 29 between nodes at Leonard Kleinrock's lab at UCLA and Douglas Engelbart's lab at SRI. Interface Message Processors at both sites served as the backbone of the first Internet *. In addition to SRI and UCLA, UCSB and the University of Utah were part of the original four network nodes. By December 5, 1969, the entire 4-node network was connected. 1970s In the 1970s, SRI went on to develop many other technologies, including packet-switched radio (the precursor to today's wireless networking), over-the-horizon radar, Deafnet, malaria treatments, vacuum microelectronics, Laser Photocoagulation (a treatment for some eye maladies), and software-implemented fault tolerance. In 1972, Dr. Harold E. Puthoff, a researcher at SRI, put forth a series of proposals to study quantum mechanics in life processes. This resulted in the now controversial remote viewing CIA programs that have been reportedly discontinued and partially declassified since. 1980s In the 1980s, SRI developed, among other things, Zylon, stealth technologies, improvements to ultrasound imaging, FRASTAscope, frequency modulation spectroscopy, two-dimensional laser fluorescence imaging, surface analysis by laser ionization (SALI), a multimedia electronic mail system, intrusion detection expert systems, theory of noninterference in computer security, a multilevel secure (MLS) relational database system called SeaView, LaTeX, and order-sorted algebra. | ||||||||
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