The Semantic Web: It's for Real

transcript

Tetherless World Constellation

The Semantic Web:It’s for Real

Jim HendlerTetherless World Professor of Computer and Cognitive Science

Assistant Dean of Information Technology and Web ScienceRensselaer Polytechnic Institute

http://www.cs.rpi.edu/~hendler@jahendler (twitter)

My Web page

http://www.cs.rpi.edu/~hendler

My embedded metadata

My talk today

From Researchto Web

Notional Schedule

2001: We will change the world!

On the Web -- links are critical!

Web page Any Web Resource

URI URI

RDF is like the web!

<mind:Person rdf:id=“Hendler”> <mind:title jobs:Professor> <jobs:placeOfWork http://www.cs.rpi.edu></mind:Person>

HendlerDOC1 Mind:title

Jobs:placeOfWork Web Pagehttp://www…

ProfessorJobs:Mind:

Links in the data

<mind:Person rdf:id=“Hendler”> owl:sameAs<http://dbpedia.org/page/James_Hendler>

Hendler

Mind:title

Jobs:placeOfWork Web Pagehttp://www…

Jobs:Professor

Asserting Links in the data

Dbpedia:Hendler

Owl:sameAs

Dbpedia:ComputerScientist

Dbpedia:occupation

Linking Web Resources

Sindice.com

Linked Data is entering many sectors

Linkeddata.org 37 billion links

Linked Data + Semantics

• "Linked Data" approach finds its use cases in Web Applications (at Web scales)– A lot of data, a

little semantics– Finding anything

in the mess can be a win!

http://www.cs.rpi.edu/~hendler/LittleSemanticsWeb.html

Semantic Web

• What is different now?– Semantic Search

• Advertising drives Web market

– Some Visible successes• Watson, Siri, Evi…

– “Buzz” around data on the Web• Esp open govt data

– Enterprise Technology Maturity• Market demand pushing tech maturation• (BUT - business models still not mature)

Semantic Web

•What is driving the change?–Maturation of RDF technologies

•SPARQL endpoints•Embedded markup

–Schema.org & RDFa

•Lightweight Knowledge–A little semantics goes a long way

Maturation of the “bottom” of the Semantic Web

• What isseeing the mostuse??

Facebook’s Open Graph Protocol

April 2010Today

Because they need the links!

2012: Extending the Social Graph

Creates a platform for SW-powered apps

Schema.org (6/2011)

Schema.org

Video results show above regular results because of the embedded schemas - Google isn’t “guessing” on these

Rumors of bigger Google play coming soon

July 2010 Feb 2012

Semantic Web in the Enterprise

Aug 2010cf. Oracle 2012

Enterprise Semantic Web

DoD RFI – 12/2011

Watson and Semantic Web

Agents coming

Agent Technology is here

With more to come

Agent Technology is here(and more to come…)

Semantic Search

IEEE Computer, Jan 2010; IEEE Computing Now, Feb 2010 (free)

Semantic Search 2009-2010

Emerging search engines, new functionality

Semantic Search 2011-12

Integrated into search engines, continuing improvement

Linked Data (RDF, SPARQL)

Semantic Web (RDFS, owl)

Web 3.0

Web 2.0

Web 3.0 extends current Web applications using Semantic Web, esp semantic and real-time search, technologies and

graph-based, open data.

“Web 3.0”

Web (REST API)

Example:Trialx.com

Unclear business model

Which may be a feature

• Significant and growing commercial interest…– Web: Google, Amazon, Travelocity…– Web 2.0: Facebook, Wikipedia,

YouTube, Twitter…– Web 3.0: ??

Summary

• The Semantic Web is real– People asking “how,” not why

• So far the commercial driver has been “weak semantics”– Very Simple “ontologies” – Lots of linking– Metadata agreements, not ontology alignments

• Web 3.0 adds semantics as a value add to regular Web functionality– Data mashup– Semantic search– Semantic match

• Investor excitement: The big one is still out there

Your Questions Were

• Requested Session Focus• My internal contacts here at Nuance have requested a basic

introduction on semantic web, with the discussion biased toward two use cases:– Question answering by machine

• “When does home depot close?”• “Who has tylenol on sale?”• “Where is the nearest shoe store that carries Rockport?”(See Semantic Search)

– Automated agents• “Buy two tickets to the Patriots Jets game.”• “Reorder Bond Street English Breakfast from Upton Tea.”• “Find the lowest price on a Canon 70 to 200 f4 IS lens and email me the

link.”(Discuss Siri)