The Hasso Plattner Institute is offering a free course in English introducing the Semantic Web. The article states, “The conventional Internet search reaches the limits of its power when the computer is expected to correctly interpret the meaning of information and not simply a character string. How the information expressed in natural language is extended in the so-called Semantic Web to enable a machine-readable interpretation of its meaning (semantics) is shown in the new open online course starting February 4^th at http://www.openhpi.de. Registration for this free Hasso Plattner Institute (HPI) course is now open. This third course in the new Internet educational platform, launched in September 2012, lasts six weeks and is being held in English. Those who successfully complete the course will receive a certificate from the HPI.” Read more

Mike Bergman recently gave a talk in which he discussed how “the pragmatic contributions of semantic technologies reside more in mindsets, information models and architectures than in ‘linked data’ as currently practiced.” He writes, “No matter how expressed, the idea behind all of these various [Semantic Web related] terms has in essence been to make meaningful connections, to provide the frameworks for interoperability. Interoperability means getting disparate sources of data to relate to each other, as a means of moving from data to information. Interoperability requires that source and receiver share a vocabulary about what things mean, as well as shared understandings about the associations or degree of relationship between the items being linked.” Read more

A recent article directed at SEO (search engine optimization) professionals gives insight into some emerging terms that are coinciding with the development of Web 3.0. According to the article, “A cornucopia of recent changes all over the web (Google included) are directed at making the internet a more Web 3.0 (semantic) friendly place cluttered with less spam.” Knowledge of the discussed terms should help SEO professionals stay up-to-date with Web 3.0 and out of trouble with Google. Read more

Last year we reported on semantic technology’s future in national intelligence. A new article points to semantic web technology as the future key to finding and eliminating new terror threats. Brooke Aker, author of the article, comments, “As a former intelligence analyst, I know the frustration of lacking both complete information and computer systems capable of aiding the analysis process. Almost a decade after 9/11 and untold dollars later, the nation still struggles with effective intelligence sharing.” Aker argues that semantic technology finds its optimum use in aiding national intelligence. Read more

In part I of this two-part series, Dean Allemang & Scott Henninger draw on years of teaching TopQuadrant’s introduction course on the Semantic Web to make some observations on teaching Semantic Web concepts to a wide variety of students.

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Semantic Web Technology Platform Enables Data Collaboration via the Web

San Jose, CA – June 16, 2009 – Zepheira™, a leading global provider of semantic web technology services for accelerating the integration and understanding of complex information, today announced the availability of Freemix™ [http://freemix.it] for invitational beta. Freemix is a new and innovative platform that allows users to slice, show and share data via the Web. The announcement was made at the Semantic Technology 2009 Conference [http://www.semantic-conference.com], the industry’s largest conference on semantic technologies.

Freemix [http://www.freemix.it] is a free social networking site for wrapping, exposing and sharing data. The invitational beta of Freemix allows you to rapidly upload data, visualize and share it on the Web, providing quantum leaps in speed, efficiencies and cost reduction in comparison to traditional data management strategies. Over the past year, there has been increasing attention to the critical need for easy ways to quickly wrap and expose both local content and an increasing amount of open data. The ability to rapidly add, visualize and share data is driving the next generation of successful organizations delivering products and services online.

Freemix is a platform to assist people in sharing information which is the foundation of online communities. Provided on demand, as a software-as-a-service offering, Freemix provides easy access to a suite of Web 3.0 tools and a highly-customizable user interface for improved visualization and analysis.

David Wood [http://zepheira.com/team/dave/], Partner and co-founder of Zepheira [http://zepheira.com], stated “this new service lowers the barriers for sharing data on the Web and will enable the widespread use of semantic web technologies. With Freemix, you can now you can point at data, perform powerful transformations, create metadata and in minutes create a compelling Web-based user interface.” An entrepreneur and multidisciplinary engineer, Dr. Wood has been involved with the development of Semantic Web standards, tools, products and services since 1999.