Semantic Tech & Business Conference - Berlin

Join us for Semantic Tech & Business Conference - Berlin on February 6-7 for presentations, panels, case studies, and conversations on the future of Semantic Web. At the event, you'll connect with other business and technology executives and learn how to take advantage of semantic technologies in your enterprise and web-based systems. Register now!

Mike Bergman recently asked the deceptively simple question, what do things mean on the semantic web? He explains, “The crowning achievement of the semantic Web is the simple use of URIs to identify data. Further, if the URI identifier can resolve to a representation of that data, it now becomes an integral part of the HTTP access protocol of the Web while providing a unique identifier for the data. These innovations provide the basis for distributed data at global scale, all accessible via Web devices such as browsers and smartphones that are now a ubiquitous part of our daily lives.” Read more

CACI is looking for a PeopleSoft Database Administrator in Fairfax, VA. This position is described thus: “Lead and Support Data Conversion and integration Team. Support RDF Schema development. Map legacy data to ERP data. Create ETL code with PeopleTools.” Qualifications for the position include: “Typically requires bachelor’s degree or equivalent, and 10 to 12 years of related experience. Five years Oracle DBA experience. Three years PeopleSoft HRMS applications experience. Oracle 10g database support. Experience in STAT objects migration.” Read more

The Open Knowledge Foundation is currently accepting submissions for the Panton Fellowship. According to the fellowship website, “The Panton Fellowships, funded by Open Society Foundations and coordinated by the Open Knowledge Foundation, will be awarded to scientists who actively promote open data in science. We believe that ‘open data means better science’. Panton Fellows will explore and support this concept. They will endorse the Panton Principles for making scientific data open, and will promote the value of open data in all areas of science.” Read more

Steve Hamby proclaims that 2012 is the year of the Semantic Web. He starts by quoting Sir Tim Berners-Lee’s vision of the semantic web back in 1996: “If the interaction between person and hypertext could be so intuitive that the machine-readable information space gave an accurate representation of the state of people’s thoughts, interactions, and work patterns, then machine analysis could become a very powerful management tool, seeing patterns in our work and facilitating our working together through the typical problems which beset the management of large organizations.” Read more

Christopher Dawson has commented on Google’s recent changes to their privacy policy. Dawson writes, “I live, eat, breathe, work, and play Google and there aren’t many people more aware of Google’s business model and the amount of data it collects than I. So is it just sheer stupidity and naiveté that has me utterly embracing the Google ecosystem and relatively unconcerned about newly announced privacy policies that have caused so much consternation this week? Before you jump down to the talkbacks to tell me how stupid I really am, read on for another couple paragraphs.” Read more

Northrop Grumman is looking for an Ontology Technical Lead in Annapolis, MD. The responsibilities of the position include: “Maintain and Update the Ontology model to adapt to changing site designs.  Ensure the ontology expresses all the required Confirguration Items and relationship and is properly instantiated for each site in Service Manager 7.  Coordinate ontology plans and activities with other related/dependent measurement and monitoring projects.  Provide technical leadership and management oversight ot the ontology team.” Read more

What makes a business ripe to adopt semantic web technologies? Those engaged in cross-enterprise business processes, in particular where models based on web technologies drive greater collaboration and increased dynamism, are on the list, says Professor Adrian Paschke,  Corporate Semantic Web chair at the institute of computer science at the Freie Universität Berlin and head of the InnoProfile project Corporate Semantic Web.

“That is motivation to apply semantic web technologies because you no longer are working in closed walls where you build your own schema and database model, but you need a flexible semantic model that easily integrates with others,” says Paschke.

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Anwen Robinson has written a new article regarding the value of linked data and the route to taking data from “linked” to “open.” Robinson states, “We live in a connected society, where devices and data are being pulled together to profoundly change business, our personal lives, society and even nations. In this introduction to this PublicTechnology.net Agenda, I want to try to outline, in non-technical terms, some of the benefits to the sector (and ultimately the taxpayer) of extracting and linking data. I say ‘some of the benefits’ because, like Twitter, Facebook and the internet itself, this technology will provide visibility and intelligence that will profoundly change the world in unpredictable ways.” Read more

A new whitepaper is available for free via Refinder. The paper entitled Semantic Technologies Tap Unrealized Potentials of Social Business Platforms was written by Franz Jachim, Leo Sauermann and Bernhard Schandl. The abstract states, “Social technologies and collaboration tools start to find broad acceptance in the enterprise domain. As well, semantic technologies have been around for a while, offering a range of benefits in the handling of information, including the pervasive linking of content, fostering new forms of content discovery and navigation, and improving content metadata and information retrieval.” Read more