Document stream operating system

1. A computer system which organizes each data unit received by or generated by the computer system, comprising:

means for generating a main stream of data units and at least one substream, the main stream for receiving each data unit received by or generated by the computer system, and each substream for containing data units only from the main stream;

means for receiving data units from other computer systems;

means for generating data units by the computer system;

means for selecting a timestamp to identify each data unit;

means for associating each data unit with at least one chronological indicator having the respective timestamp;

means for including each data unit according to the timestamp in the respective chronological indicator in the main stream; and

means for maintaining the main stream and the substreams as persistent streams.

2. The computer system of claim 1, wherein each timestamp is selected from the group consisting of: past, present, and future times.

3. The computer system of claim 1, wherein each data unit includes textual data, video data, audio data and/or multimedia data.

4. The computer system of claim 1, wherein the means for receiving further comprises means for receiving data units from the World Wide Web.

5. The computer system of claim 1, wherein said means for receiving further comprises means for receiving data units from a client computer.

6. The computer system according to claim 1, further comprising:

means for displaying alternative versions of the content of the data units.

7. A computer system according to claim 1 further comprising:

means for summarizing the contents of data units in one of the streams to generate one or more overview data units and for including the overview data unit in one of the streams.

8. A computer system according to claim 7, wherein the means for summarizing further comprises means for continuously updating the overview data units to include changes in the contents of data units in the stream being summarized.

9. A computer system according to claim 1 further comprising:

means for archiving a data unit associated with a timestamp older than a specified time point while retaining the respective chronological indicator and/or a data unit having a respective alternative version of the content of the archived data unit.

10. The computer system of claim 1, wherein the computer program further comprises:

means for operating on any of the streams using a set of operations selected by a user.

11. The computer system of claim 1 further comprising:

means to generate substreams from existing substreams.

12. A computer system as in claim 1, further comprising:

means for generating a data unit comprising an alternative version of the content of another data unit; and

means for associating the alternative version data unit with the chronological indicator of the another data unit.

13. A method which organizes each data unit received by or generated by a computer system, comprising the steps of:

generating a main stream of data units and at least one substream, the main stream for receiving each data unit received by or generated by the computer system, and each substream for containing data units only from the main stream;

receiving data units from other computer systems;

generating data units in the computer system;

selecting a timestamp to identify each data unit;

associating each data unit with at least one chronological indicator having the respective timestamp;

including each data unit according to the timestamp in the respective chronological indicator in at least the main stream; and

maintaining at least the main stream and the substreams as persistent streams.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein each timestamp is selected from the group consisting of: past, present, and future times.

15. The method of claim 13, further comprising the step of displaying the streams on a display device as visual streams.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein the step of displaying the streams further comprises the steps of:

a) receiving from a user one or more indications of one or more selected segments of the streams corresponding to one or more selected intervals of time, and

b) displaying the selected segments.

17. The method of claim 13, wherein each data unit includes textual data, video data, audio data and/or multimedia data.

18. The method of claim 13, further comprising the step of:

providing access to a first stream from a second stream by generating a data unit indicating the first stream.

19. The method of claim 13, further comprising the steps of:

selecting access privileges to provide to a first stream from a second stream; and

providing access to the first stream from the second stream according to the access privileges.

20. The method of claim 13, further comprising the step of:

displaying data from one of the data units in abbreviated form.

21. The method of claim 13, further comprising the step of:

summarizing the contents of data units in a stream to generate one or more overview data units and including the overview data unit in one of the streams.

22. The method of claim 13, further comprising the step of:

archiving data units having timestamps older than a specified time point.

23. A computer system for organizing each data unit received by or generated by the computer system, comprising:

means for generating a main stream of data units and at least one substream, the main stream for receiving each data unit received by or generated by the computer system, and each substream for containing data units only from the main stream; means for associating each data unit with at least one chronological indicator having a respective timestamp which identifies the data unit; means for including each data unit according to the timestamp in a respective chronological indicator in the main stream; means for maintaining the main stream and substreams as persistent streams;

means for generating a data unit having indicia to allow access to a first stream from a second stream;

means for including the data unit having the indicia in the second stream; and

means for providing access to the first stream from the second stream in accordance with the indicia.

24. A computer system according to claim 23 further comprising:

means for providing limited access to the first stream from the second stream by generating a data unit indicating access privileges to the first stream.

25. A computer system for organizing each data unit received by or generated by the computer system, comprising:

means for generating a main stream of data units and at least one substream, the main stream for receiving each data unit received by or generated by the computer system, and each substream for containing data units only from the main stream; means for associating each data unit with at least one chronological indicator having a respective timestamp which identifies the data unit; means for including each data unit according to the timestamp in a respective chronological indicator in the main stream; means for maintaining the main stream and the substreams as a persistent streams;

means for representing one or more data units of a selected stream on a display device as document representations, each document representation including the timestamp of the respective data unit and the order of appearance of each data representation on the display device determined by the timestamp of the respective data unit;

means for selecting which data units are represented on the display device by selecting one of the document representations and displaying document representations corresponding to data units having timestamps within a range of a timepoint; and

means for selecting one or more of the document representations with a pointing device so that the data units represented by the selected document representations are further displayed with a second document representation comprising an alternative version of the content of the respective data unit.

26. A computer system as in claim 25, wherein the document representations form a visual stream having a three-dimensional effect.

27. A computer system as in claim 26, wherein the three-dimensional effect further comprises a perspective view.

28. A computer system as in claim 25, wherein each document representation comprises a polygon and the polygons overlap to form a visual stream of polygons.

29. A computer system as in claim 25, wherein the alternative version is an abbreviated version.

30. A computer system as in claim 25, wherein the alternative version is a caption version.

31. A computer system as in claim 25, wherein the alternative version is an expanded version.

32. A computer system as in claim 25, further comprising:

means for selecting one or more alternative versions of the content of a respective data unit to display another alternative version of the content of the data unit.

33. A computer system as in claim 25, further comprising:

means for updating the display device to provide a document representation for data units associated with chronological indicators having timestamps which become the present time.