Semantic Web
From Blindside
Contents |
[edit] What is it
In the semantic web content is expressed not only in natural language, but also in a form that can be understood, interpreted and used by software agents, thus permitting them to find, share and integrate information more easily. It derives from World Wide Web Consortium director Tim Berners-Lee's vision of the Web as a universal medium for data, information, and knowledge exchange.
It comprises - a philosophy http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/Activity - a set of design principles http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/ - collaborative working groups, and - a variety of enabling technologies.
Some elements of the semantic web are expressed as prospective future possibilities that have yet to be implemented or realized. http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/SW-FAQ#What3
Others are expressed in formal specifications http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/#spec
[edit] Impact & Maturity assessment
We assign this an Impact Level of 3, our highest level, as the possibility of a step-change in the functionality of the World Wide Web and the Internet would radically alter information flows and introduce new information assurance issues even as it solved others. We assign this a Maturity Level of 1, as it really hasn't been properly described, let alone invented.
[edit] Information Assurance issues
Critics focus on basic feasibility of the semantic web and how it might interact with human behavior or preferences.
It might aid censorship and make it easier for governments to control the viewing and creation of online information as this information would be much easier for an automated content-blocking machine to understand.
See metacrap; Leaky abstraction
[edit] Timescale
Semantic Web has been implemented and presently is been work on by various groups for developing various applications based on it. But its impact can be seen in the next 2-5 years.
[edit] Examples
[edit] Comments (attributed)
"I have a dream for the Web [in which computers] become capable of analyzing all the data on the Web – the content, links, and transactions between people and computers. A ‘Semantic Web’, which should make this possible, has yet to emerge, but when it does, the day-to-day mechanisms of trade, bureaucracy and our daily lives will be handled by machines talking to machines. The ‘intelligent agents’ people have touted for ages will finally materialize," says Tim Berners-Lee, Director of the World Wide Web Consortium and Senior Researcher at MIT's CSAIL.
[edit] Organisations
[edit] Documents & research papers
[edit] Experts (academic, practitioner)
Dr. Eric Neumann is one of the leaders in the effort to apply Semantic Web technology to the life sciences and pharmaceutical industry
Jim Hendler professor at the University of Maryland and the author of the original semantic web paper
