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)

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My Web page

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

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My embedded metadata

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My talk today

From Researchto Web

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DAML

Notional Schedule

Now

Later

2001: We will change the world!

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On the Web -- links are critical!

<a href= URI>

HTML

Web page Any Web Resource

<a href=“http://…”>

RDF

URI URI

URI

RDF is like the web!

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

DOC1

HendlerDOC1 Mind:title

Jobs:placeOfWork Web Pagehttp://www…

ProfessorJobs:Mind:

Jobs:

Links in the data

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

DOC2

Hendler

Mind:title

Jobs:placeOfWork Web Pagehttp://www…

Jobs:Professor

Asserting Links in the data

Dbpedia:Hendler

Owl:sameAs

Dbpedia:ComputerScientist

Dbpedia:occupation

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Linking Web Resources

Sindice.com

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Linked Data is entering many sectors

Linkeddata.org 37 billion links

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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

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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)

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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

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Maturation of the “bottom” of the Semantic Web

• What isseeing the mostuse??

RDFa

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Facebook’s Open Graph Protocol

April 2010Today

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Because they need the links!

2012: Extending the Social Graph

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Creates a platform for SW-powered apps

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Schema.org (6/2011)

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Schema.org

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

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Rumors of bigger Google play coming soon

July 2010 Feb 2012

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Semantic Web in the Enterprise

Aug 2010cf. Oracle 2012

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Enterprise Semantic Web

DoD RFI – 12/2011

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Watson and Semantic Web

IBM

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Watson and Semantic Web

IBM

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Agents coming

Agent Technology is here

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With more to come

Agent Technology is here(and more to come…)

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Semantic Search

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

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Semantic Search 2009-2010

Emerging search engines, new functionality

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Semantic Search 2011-12

Integrated into search engines, continuing improvement

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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)

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Example:Trialx.com

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Unclear business model

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Which may be a feature

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

YouTube, Twitter…– Web 3.0: ??

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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

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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)