Industry News - semanticweb.com

Learning about WikiData at #SemTechBiz Berlin

Angela Guess — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 18:00:02 +0000

Richard Wallis is reporting from SemTechBiz in Berlin this week. He recently wrote, “One of the more eagerly awaited presentations at the Semantic Tech & Business Conference in Berlin today was a late addition to the program from Denny Vrandecic. With the prominence of Dbpedia in the Linked Open Data Cloud, anything new from Wikipedia with data in it was bound to attract attention, and we were not disappointed.” continued…

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Wolfram Alpha Goes ‘Pro,’ Democratizes Data

Angela Guess — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 13:00:46 +0000

Deiter Bohn reports that Wolfram Alpha is now offering a “Pro” version of their data analysis services for just $4.99 a month: “The new services includes the ability to use images, files, and even your own data as inputs instead of simple text entry. The ‘reports’ that Wolfram Alpha kicks out as a result of these (or any) query are also beefed up for Pro users, some will actually become interactive charts and all of them can be more easily exported in a variety of formats. [The Verge] sat down with Stephen Wolfram himself to get a tour of the new features and to discuss what they mean for his goal of ‘making the world’s knowledge computable.’” continued…

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OFT to Review Experian’s Acquisition of Garlik

Angela Guess — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 04:00:47 +0000

A new article reports that the Office for Fair Trading (OFT) will review Experians’ recent acquisition of Garlik: “The private equity firm of the late Nottingham Forest owner Nigel Doughty, who died at the weekend, sold its stake in Garlik as part of the deal. The Nottingham-based information services company acquired Garlik in December with the aim of extending its presence in the identity protection field. The watchdog revealed last week that is reviewing the deal and has issued an invitation to comment.” continued…

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#SemTechBiz Berlin – Day 2

Richard Wallis — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 17:41:35 +0000

After a great day yesterday I was eager to to discover what today’s program had to offer. Unfortunately I had to set off for the airport, where I am now writing this, before the end. However I caught most of the day and here are my few thoughts and recollections.

Today’s Keynote was in the form of a panel discussing Semantics in the Automotive Industry with Martin [GoodRelations] Hepp, John Kendall Streit of Tribal DDB, William Greenly of AQKA, and François-Paul Servant from Renault. They discussed their experiences in pioneering the use of Linked Data / Semantic Web technologies and approaches in the automotive domain.
continued…

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Big Data & the Semantic Web

Angela Guess — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 13:00:29 +0000

Chris Talbot recently argued that the semantic web is and will be instrumental to the effective analysis of Big Data. He writes, “As big data stores continue to grow and require additional management, enterprises are faced with the task of managing their explosive data growth while also trying to find the best way to analyze that data. According to the recent InformationWeek ‘Database Discontent’ report, a top item on IT departments’ 2012 to-do list is handling big data in a way that allows for change over time.” continued…

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Starting the Semantic Web: An Interview with Ora Lassila

Angela Guess — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 11:00:52 +0000

A recent interview by Kim Chandler McDonald with Ora Lassila takes a look at the current state and future prospects of the semantic web. The article notes, “A large part of Ora’s career has been focused on the Semantic Web as it applies to mobile and ubiquitous computing at the Nokia Research Center (NRC), where he, among many things, authored ‘Wilbur’, the NRC’s Semantic Web toolkit… Ora is one of the originators of the Semantic Web, having been working within the domain since 1996. He is the co-author (with Tim Berners-Lee and James Hendler) of the most cited paper in the field, The Semantic Web.” continued…

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Text Analytics v. Semantic Content Enrichment

Angela Guess — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 13:00:20 +0000

Seth Grimes recently set the record straight regarding the terms “text analytics” and “semantic content enrichment.” Grimes starts with a few definitions of text analytics: “Text analytics is a set of software and transformational steps that discover business value in ‘unstructured’ text. (Analytics in general is a process, not just algorithms and software.) The aim is to improve automated text processing, whether for search, classification, data and opinion extraction, business intelligence or other purposes.” He adds, “Text analytics draws on data mining and visualization and also on natural-language processing (NLP). Supplement NLP with technologies that recognize patterns and extract information from images, audio, video and composites and you have content analytics.” continued…

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New RDFa Last Call Working Drafts

Angela Guess — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 11:00:30 +0000

The W3C RDF Web Applications Working Group has published three new last call working drafts: RDFa Core 1.1, RDFa Lite 1.1 and XHTML+RDFa 1.1. Ivan Herman reports, “Together, these documents outline the vision for RDFa in a variety of XML and HTML-based Web markup languages. RDFa Core 1.1 specifies the core syntax and processing rules for RDFa 1.1 and how the language is intended to be used in XML documents or in HTML. RDFa Lite 1.1 provides a simple subset of RDFa for novice Web authors. XHTML+RDFa 1.1 specifies the usage of RDFa in the XHTML markup language.” continued…

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The Right Data at the Right Time

Angela Guess — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 18:00:52 +0000

Jeff Stamen of Cambridge Semantics has questioned whether Big Data is worth the hype or if the tech headlines should actually be touting Right Data. Stamen writes, “One look at all the IT headlines these days would suggest that Big Data is the most important data issue today. After all, with lots of computing power and better database storage techniques it is now practical to analyze petabytes of data. However, is that really the most compelling need that end users have? I don’t think so. Instead, I would claim that the issue most end users have is getting together the right data to help them do their jobs better, not analyzing billions of individual transactions.” continued…

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Semantics, the BBC, & the Summer Olympics

Angela Guess — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 13:00:06 +0000

Cait O’Riordan recently explained the many changes to the BBC Sport Website. O’Riordan writes, “This redesign is the first major launch of many this year as we get ready to cover the Olympic Games this summer. We are working on some really exciting developments, which will be showcased on the new BBC Sport website. This redesign has concentrated on doing four main things: (1) Creating a fresh website that better showcases the range of content we offer. (2) Prominent promotion of our fantastic live coverage from across the BBC. (3) Making it easier for our users to talk about our sport coverage. (4) Making it faster for our users to find our great content. We have tried to do this in a way that makes the site easier to use for the millions of people from across the UK and around the world who use the site every week and are confident it will. But we know that, initially at least, the site will take a bit of getting used to.” continued…

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JWS Special Issue: Reasoning with Context in the Semantic Web

Angela Guess — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 18:00:31 +0000

The Journal of Web Semantics has another new publication this week, a special issue on reasoning with context in the Semantic Web. This issue was edited by Los Lehmann, Ivan Jose Varzinczak and Alan Bundy: “Its ten articles shed direct or indirect light on the role of context in Semantic Web theories and applications. Preprints of the papers are now available on the Journal of Web Semantics preprint server.”

Some of the articles currently available online include the following: “ Representing and Querying Validity Time in RDF and OWL: A Logic-Based Approach by Boris Motik continued…

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PureDiscovery Introduces Focus, Semantic Search Visualization

Angela Guess — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 14:30:49 +0000

PureDiscovery has announced a new version of PureDiscovery Legal Suite which includes ‘Focus,’ a semantic search visualization tool. According to the article, “The release includes significant changes to the products workflow through a more intuitive user interface and the addition of several compelling product features suggested by the rapidly growing PureDiscovery user community. The most frequently suggested and significant upgrade to PDLS is the addition of a visual search capability the company calls ‘Focus’.” continued…

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OKF Software Chosen to Power Open Data Portal

Angela Guess — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 13:00:47 +0000

The Open Knowledge Foundation’s CKAN software has been chosen to power the European Commission’s new open data portal. The article reports, “The European Commission (EC) has awarded a contract to create an open data portal website, where data produced by European Commission services will be freely available. Belgian company TenForce will lead the project to deliver the portal, supported by Leipzig University’s Institute for Applied Computer Science (InfAI), and UK-based non-profit the Open Knowledge Foundation. Users will be able to search for information in a flexible range of ways, for example by subject area, country, and region, and to visualise the data or download it for re-use in research, campaigns or commercial applications. The EC and the contracted partners will run workshops and other outreach activities, to raise awareness of and interest in the data among companies, researchers, journalists and policy groups.” continued…

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SWJ Call for Surveys on Semantic Technologies

Angela Guess — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 18:00:33 +0000

The Semantic Web journal has issued a special call for surveys on application areas of semantic technologies. According to the article, “Semantic Web technologies are currently in a transition from research to practice. The amount of progress made in different application areas, however, differs significantly, as do the challenges which lie ahead. The Semantic Web journal calls for survey papers on the state of the art in research, development, and deployment of Semantic Web technologies in specific application areas and domains. Surveys should focus on one specific application area and discuss in a comprehensive way (1) its importance, (2) the particular (past, present, and future) challenges faced in applying Semantic technologies in this area, and (3) the state of the art in developing foundational principles and practical solutions related to this area.” continued…

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Cambridge Semantics Ups Staff by 30%, Moves to Boston

Angela Guess — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 14:30:39 +0000

Cambridge Semantics is flourishing. The company recently announced “that due to demand for its enterprise semantic data management offering, the company has increased headcount by 30 percent and has relocated to new office space on the Boston Common. In the heart of downtown Boston, the new 5,500 square foot office will provide the organization with room to grow as they focus on R&D and marketing activities for the company’s flagship Anzo software suite.” continued…

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