One of the problems with the Web in its current form is that it’s not always easy to navigate a particular site: often you follow a link only to find it’s not what you wanted, leaving you to back- button your way back to where you started. MetaTools of Santa Barbara County thinks it has an answer to this quandary in the shape of new navigation software which displays the various pages of a Web site in three dimensions, so you can see what lies beneath the page you start from. Code-named Scout, the software uses a 3D interface to enable Web surfers to view and explore a Web site as a 3D hierarchy or map. Working with Netscape navigator or Microsoft Explorer, the technology is claimed to enable the surfer to observe the structure of the site itself, before ‘flying’ down to a deeper level. Scout’s technology may also be used to display the likes of search results, bookmarks and hotlists. Scout is expected to be available in the first half of 1997 for Windows 95 and Windows NT. It will require at least a Pentium 133MHz, 3D graphics accelerator, 16MB of RAM, and a CD- ROM.
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