Company

Retrospective Software's mission is to design, develop, and market the most advanced system for chronicling one's life.

Our journaling system, Now & Then, combines advanced methods for information indexing and classification, with knowledge mining, and the latest presentation and display techniques. The journaling system is "tucked" into the familiar form factor of a traditional clothbound journal or diary―a form factor made possible by handwriting and voice recognition and pad computers.

A fundamental design stipulation was that users should relate to, and use Now & Then just like they would their traditional paper and pen-based diary. Early on, we decided that our journal would have to pass what we called the "easy chair test"―it could be comfortably updated and browsed anywhere a person happened to be―using a handwriting stylus, screen keyboard, or voice recognition. We pictured a favorite easy chair in quiet room.

Another design requirement was that Now & Then needed to provide much more than simple information recording, date stamping and keyword text search. A pad-based appointment book or Microsoft Outlook on steroids would not have the advanced capability required to justify bringing the product to market. It needed powerful differentiators. Now & Then needed to learn about each individual's worldview so that its search results would to be personally and contextually relevant. It needed to intuitive display query results, automatically structured, packaged, and formatted. Search results needed to be based on an ever-improving recognition of the content and context of the user's query―not just a haphazard list of journal entries matching keywords.

Thin, pad computers with the processing muscle needed to run the powerful handwriting, search, data mining, and presentation technologies have made Now &Then possible. Our product specification includes cutting edge methods for context-aware semantic processing, an Intelligent  Calendar, and self-organizing knowledge "mining"―developments essential for how Now & Then handles search, navigation, logging, tracking, formatting, and information time attributes.

To make Now & Then a reality, Retrospective Software blends a development team composed of employees, consultants, and technology partners―a team of experts familiar with the latest advancements in information indexing and search, knowledge engineering, handwriting recognition, and innovative presentation technologies.
 

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