http://www.cs.yale.edu/homes/freeman/lifestreams.html
"Life is a series of events in time -- a timeline with a past, present and future. The events of your life and the memories in which they're recorded aren't parceled out into directories, or typed shoeboxes. An information beam incorporates documents of all types into one (focussable) beam. The question "where did I put that piece of information?" always has exactly one answer: it's in my beam.
Life isn't static. New information arrives constantly; time flows. So my beam has to flow. Or, in other words: the elements that make it up flow. They move at the rate of time. In this respect the structure is more of a "stream" than a "beam."
The stream has a past, present and future. The future flows into the present into the past. If I've posted an appointment or reminder in the "future" part of the stream, eventually it flows automatically into the present where I'll notice it and be reminded, and then into the past where it's part of the permanent, searchable, browsable archive.
When I acquire a new piece of "real-life" (versus electronic) information -- a new memory of (let's say) talking to Melissa on a sunny afternoon outside the Red Parrot -- I don't have to give this memory a name, or stuff it in a directory. I can use anything in the memory as a retrieval key. (I might recall this event when I think about Melissa, or sunny afternoons outside the Red Parrot.) I shouldn't have to name electronic documents either, or put them in directories. And I ought to be able to use anything in them as a retrieval key.
I can "tune in" my memories anywhere; I ought to be able to tune in my information beam anywhere too, using any net-connected computer or quasi-computer.
Those are the goals of our lifestream (or "information beam") project. In our view of the future, users will no longer care about operating systems or computers; they'll care about their own streams, and other people's. I can tune in my stream wherever I am. I can shuffle other streams into mine -- to the extent I have permission to use other people's streams. My own personal stream, my electronic life story, can have other streams shuffled into it -- streams belonging to groups or organizations I'm part of. And eventually I'll have, for example, newspaper and magazine streams shuffled into my stream also. I follow my own life, and the lives of the organizations I'm part of, and the news, etc., by watching the stream flow."
http://java.sun.com/developer/technicalArticles/Interviews/g...