Google Director of Research Peter Norvig recently answered questions about Google’s search algorithms. Norvig stated, “We test tens of thousands of hypotheses each year, and make maybe one or two actual changes to the search algorithm per day. That’s a lot of ideas, and a lot of changes. It means the Google you’re using this year is improved quite a bit from the Google of last year, and the Google you’re using now is radically different from anything you used ten years ago.” Read more

This fall Gnowsis’ project team collaboration and communications tool Refinder took second prize in Elsevier’s Apps for Science competition (see story here). Refinder has its roots in the NEPOMUK (Networked Environment for Personalized, Ontology-based Management of Unified Knowledge) social semantic desktop project that concluded as a European research project in 2008, but continues through the efforts of Sebastian Trüg who’s trying to continue additional development through donor contributions (see story here).

There’s more coming from Refinder, which lets project team members collect information from different desktop and online applications in one place (or collection, in its terminology), filter the data, find relevant information, and share their knowledge.

Read more

According to a new study, “paid posters are poisoning the internet with their untrustworthy content.” The article begins, “In China, they’re called the Internet Water Army: legions of people paid to flood online hangouts with postings and comments (primarily for marketing purposes). And according to academic researchers, they’re degrading information quality on the Web. In a research paper released this week, researchers Cheng Chen, Kui Wu, Venkatesh, Srinivasan, and Xudong Zhang explain that paid posters are hired by public relations and marketing firms to post content on Websites–usually about a social event, product, or company.” Read more

NPR is running a two-part report this week on the “digital breadcrumbs” that lead to “Big Data Gold.” The article states, “One way to understand how big data works is to think about your daily life. You write an email, call your boss, pass a security camera, maybe buy a plane ticket online. Taken alone, this is disjointed, boring information. To Elizabeth Charnock, it makes up your digital character. ‘Digital character is this idea that almost everybody these days leaves behind a giant digital breadcrumb trail,’ she says.” Read more

Ivan Herman recently posted a demonstration on the W3C blog of a new feature that he has added to the RDFa 1.1 Distiller. Herman writes, “Up to today, the possible serializations were RDF/XML, Turtle, and N Triples. Although not yet final, I decided to add a JSON-LD serialization, too, in spite of the fact that JSON-LD is not yet final either (it is under development by a W3C Community Group). However, adding this to the system it shows the potentials of this combination.” Read more

Zynx is looking for a Data Architect in Los Angeles, CA. According to the post, “The Data Architect at Zynx will apply semantic technology and algorithms and work with  modeling tools and  Component Content Management Systems (CCMS) in order to develop innovative solutions which improve cost and quality outcomes around the delivery of Clinical Decision Support content and services.” Responsibilities include: “Own the overall data models that drive the company’s products. Define the scope of enterprise and domain ontologies based on business requirements. Design and develop best practices and guidelines to develop, validate, use, maintain, and extend the ontologies. Provide expertise in designing and developing ontology-driven applications. Elucidate the value of semantic technologies and applications to alternative approaches to non-technical management.” Read more

Montreal based startup Jobbook is utilizing semantic analysis to pair job seekers with jobs rather than forcing job seekers to search endlessly for appropriate work. With over 6,000 members in less than two months, Jobbook “benefits both the potential employee and the corporation involved, which is a step forward in the human resources automation world. The service is completely free for job seekers and students who can remain completely anonymous until they actively express interest in becoming hired for a position.” Read more

Ian Davis recently sketched out an “alternate way of thinking about RDF, one that is resource-oriented rather than triple-oriented.” He writes, “The Resource Description Framework (RDF) is a framework for representing information in the Web. RDF has a simple data model that is easy for applications to process and manipulate. The data model is independent of any specific serialization syntax. RDF provides information about resources through Resource Descriptions. A Resource Description consists of: (1) A subject resource identified by a URI. (2) Zero or more relationships to other resources. (3) Zero or more properties having literal values.” Read more

A recent article reports, “As publishers, consumers and law enforcement get more sophisticated, so will the bad guys. It is doubtful fake reviews can ever be fully eradicated. The problem is that even amateur FROs realize that encouraging positive review posts about an establishment only goes so far… Those electing to go negative on competitors can be problematic.” Read more

The Stanford Digital Library Systems & Services (DLSS) department is looking for a Semantic Technology Services Engineer in Palo Alto, CA. The post states, “The incumbent will be a part of the Digital Library Infrastructure group, a team focused on realizing core components of the Stanford Unviersity Libraries’ emerging digital library architecture. The team focuses on delivering cross-cutting digital library services and infrastructure, such as metadata generation, transformation and management; service oriented library rinfrastructure; and digital asset & rights management. This group works closely with peer teams focused on other aspects of digital library functionalityin the creation of common and reusable technologies and components. The successful candidate will be responsible for the design, adoption and initial development of new technologies needed to support Stanford’s vision of the digital library of the future.” Read more