It’s already been quite a year on the semantic web front. Clearly RDFa is a big winner. And just when we thought we were getting a handle on the standards and protocols now we have RIF to learn.
When you see facebook adopting a version of RDFa then you can assume you are onto something. And now we’ve seen this.
Excellent piece by James Hendler
. Would be difficult to argue with: ‘the Web continues to increase in its importance to society and to science, and we now realize that the Web is a critical infrastructure on which we as a society, and a world, fundamentally rely’.
On the downside mentions some negatives e.g.’ to radically redefine individual privacy, and to expose our children to unprecedented levels of violence and pornography – disincentives to innovation’.
Have to say as someone who grew up in a time of far less surveillance this does worry me a lot for the kids of today. Many’s the stupid things that we did when we were growing up – which were better not being video’d and posted to the world. To be honest the prevalence of digital cameras and similar devices are probably more of the problem than the web itself. But I’m not sure hor w this will work itself out – potentially a nightmare version of Orwell’s 1984 is playing itself out – where Big Brother is now a combination of ‘citizens’ snooping on people and the web as Big Brother processing and forwarding the data.
Just read ‘Glimmer – how design can transform your business, your life, and maybe even the world’ – by Warren Berger.
Main focus of the book seems to be Bruce Mau and his approach to Design – of his philosophy re Design and its place in the world.
The ‘Glimmer Principles’ are:
Ask Stupid Questions, Jump Fences, make hope visible, Go deep, Work the metaphor, Design what you do. Face consequences. Embrace constraints, Design for emergence and BEGIN ANYWHERE.
The book and the examples are built around these principles.
There are basic entry level introductions to a number of frameworks and concepts e.g. Doblin Inc.’s five phases of a consumer experience: attraction, entry, engagement, exit, extension (pp 134-137).
As someone who has been involved in BPR for many years now I could certainly relate to the principles referenced. Asking Stupid Questions and Going Deep are critical to any effort. I think current focus on lean processes in start ups also echoes many of the ket principles, in particular Make Hope Visible and Face Consequences – in the context of maximising learning/ experimentation with the potential users of the solution.
In summary, I found the book more to be an interesting introduction to Mau and a number of other Designers rather than a ‘how to’ type book. In this sense I found the title a little misleading and the book a little disappointing. On the positive side the book is a call to action for everyone to put on their Designer Hat – that design is not something limited to a small few creative types.
Interesting to read Palisano’s (head of IBM) comments:
“We are amassing an unimaginable amount of data in the world. In just three years, [internet] traffic is expected to total more than half a zettabyte. That’s a trillion gigabytes – or a one followed by 21 zeroes,” he tells industry, academic and political leaders.
“Where we once inferred, we now know. Where we once interpolated and extrapolated, we can now determine. The historical is giving way to the real-time and it’s not just about volume and velocity. The nature of the data we are collecting and analysing is changing, too.
“All this data is far more real-time than ever before. Most of us today, as leaders and as individuals, make decisions based on information that is backward-looking and limited in scope. That’s the best we had, but that is quickly changing.”
This just reinforces my previous blog of June 2009: here.
And this week we had the official launch in the UK of its government linked open data site.
We’ve seen the debate – back and forth – about linked open data. We’ve seen the debate about top down v. bottom up approaches to semantics. We’ve seen the arguments about the merits of RDF as against other frameworks. But the volumes of data continue to increase – as does participation in social networks.
On a daily basis we see announcement about new products. Nova Spivack tells us that the days of ‘Search’ are running out – we need ‘Help’ not ‘Search’. We eagerly await his Twine 2.0. We have seen significant product advancements announced this month in products such as Open Calais and Open Amplify. One other product which caught my eye last week is Kngine.
Products such as Amplify aim to deal with the ‘tricky’ content – e.g. the ‘opinions’ implicit in content of social networks. And this is a key element of what we are looking for: context for the content. I am more interested in information on a particular subject when I understand the context, the perspective of the provider of the information. I also want the richness of analysis possible through the combination of wider sources of data – including data compiled by government agencies which should be available to me. Linked open data initiatives are required in all countries. For Ireland – the sooner the better, if we consider ourselves a smart economy or a knowledge society.
Dr Diarmuid O’Brien, executive director of the SFI-funded Crann CSET, makes the case in The Irish Times for the continued ongoing investment in R&D, coordinated between Irish Universities and Irish and multinational industry.
Dr O’Brien rightly distinguishes between the concrete benefits in terms of successful projects and the benefit of encouraging the more generic culture of research and entrepreneurship.
Article includes several interesting examples of recent initiatives.
Read a great deal more newspapers (hard copy) over the Christmas holiday period than I would tend to on a day to day basis. This week was back into reading them online – using the facilities of the relevant websites, browser software and various plugins to focus on what was of direct relevance.
I have commented previously on the social dimension of reading a physical newspaper in, say, family surrounds as against sitting at a laptop reading whatever. I’m struck more than ever by the difference. Don’t get me wrong – online reading makes it so easy to forward anything of interest to another online contact or to add it to your library (I use zotero). But, in the immediate community, it seems a lot less interesting and a lot less sociable.
I have also notice that the various online versions of the newspapers have been designed to be efficient, searchable, referenceable – but perhaps in striving for this have lost the feel/ charm of a newspaper.
Wonder how others feel.