science

Olivetti Research Laboratory

Olivetti Research Laboratory is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Olivetti Research Laboratory rather than just read about it. In short: The Olivetti Research Laboratory (ORL) was a research institute in the field of computing and telecommunications founded in 1986 by Hermann Hauser and Andy Hopper. History When Olivetti acquired Acorn Computers in 1985, Hauser, who was Acorn's co-founder, became vice-president for research at Olivetti where he was in charge of laboratories in the US and Europe.

Key takeaways

Olivetti Research Laboratory belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Olivetti Research Laboratory to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Olivetti Research Laboratory from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The Olivetti Research Laboratory (ORL) was a research institute in the field of computing and telecommunications founded in 1986 by Hermann Hauser and Andy Hopper.

History When Olivetti acquired Acorn Computers in 1985, Hauser, who was Acorn's co-founder, became vice-president for research at Olivetti where he was in charge of laboratories in the US and Europe. In 1986, Hauser co-founded the Olivetti Research Laboratory (ORL) in Cambridge, England, along with Professor Andy Hopper. Hopper became the laboratory's Director. In 1988, Hauser left Olivetti. In 1997 the lab became the Olivetti & Oracle Research Lab. In January 1999 it was acquired by AT&T Corporation and became AT&T Laboratories Cambridge. AT&T Laboratories Cambridge was for three years Europe's leading communications engineering research laboratory. The laboratory was internationally recognised as a centre of excellence, undertaking advanced research into communications, multimedia and mobile technologies. As a result of heavy losses, AT&T restructured its worldwide research efforts and the Cambridge labs closed on 24 April 2002.

Notable achievements Original development of VNC and the Remote Framebuffer (RFB) protocol, the desktop sharing technology Development and maintenance of the free CORBA implementation for C++ and Python, omniORB The Active Badge System for the tracking of people and objects

External links Wrangling money men shut down the future, The Observer, 21 April 2002. An archive of many of the lab's technical reports XORL - an 'alumni' site formed at the lab's closure, with information about people and projects.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Olivetti Research Laboratory

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Olivetti Research Laboratory claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Olivetti Research Laboratory before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Olivetti Research Laboratory ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Olivetti Research Laboratory

In research: Olivetti Research Laboratory appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Olivetti Research Laboratory in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Olivetti Research Laboratory is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Companies based in Cambridge, Companies disestablished in 2002, Defunct technology companies of the United Kingdom, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Olivetti Research Laboratory outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Olivetti Research Laboratory in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Olivetti Research Laboratory means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Olivetti Research Laboratory out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Olivetti Research Laboratory in simple terms?

The Olivetti Research Laboratory (ORL) was a research institute in the field of computing and telecommunications founded in 1986 by Hermann Hauser and Andy Hopper. History When Olivetti acquired Acorn Computers in 1985, Hauser, who was Acorn's co-founder, became vice-president for research at Olive…

Why does Olivetti Research Laboratory matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Olivetti Research Laboratory?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Olivetti Research Laboratory.