Kiosks are back - with semantics (in Germany)

The idea is that their system can be used for quick and precise interaction with any rich semantic content. Real-world settings might include heavily trafficked places like airports or train stations, where they envision their kiosk ending up in the future. (They don't actually like the word "kiosk" -- they prefer "shared interaction space.")

From CNN.

A pair of German researchers have created an experimental kiosk that lets you easily use semantic Web capabilities - even if you have no idea what they are. All that is needed is an iPhone and a finger with which to drag icons around on the kiosk's touch screen.

From the Advanced Tangible Interface lab.

Predictive Texts: the future of information management

Prediction number 2: the battle of the identifiers or the age of pointing at things

In the world of the Semantic Web, until you have named something you cannot do much useful with it.

‘We will not be able to work with concepts until we have pointed at each new thing (and like Adam in the Bible I guess) give it a unique identity. This is an age of naming, it is an age of pointing at things.’
Tom Coates

From: How the Semantic Web Will Change Information Management: Three Predictions by Silver Oliver.

The Semantic Web, Well Explained for Journalists

"In the semantic web, it is not just people who are connected together in some meaningful way, but documents, events, places, hobbies, pictures, you name it! And it is the commercial applications that exploit these connections that are now becoming interesting," John Breslin, the founder of the SIOC project, told Journalism.co.uk.

From Journalism.co.uk. Part One.

For example, some publishers are feeding their entire historical archive of material through Calais to be tagged which means it can be filtered and searched more easily. Although these tools aren't of immediate use to most journalists, the scale of this project reveals how many content providers are turning to this technology to make sure their content can be found in the new semantic world.

Part Two on the detail.

Welcome to web science

This new discipline will model the Web’s structure, articulate the architectural principles that have fueled its phenomenal growth, and discover how online human interactions are driven by and can change social conventions. It will elucidate the principles that can ensure that the network continues to grow productively and settle complex issues such as privacy protection and intellectual-property rights. To achieve these ends, Web science will draw on mathematics, physics, computer science, psychology, ecology, sociology, law, political science, economics, and more.

From Scientific American.

Esthesis 3 - gender and the semantic web

Corinna Bath is currently research fellow at the "Institute for Advanced Studies on Science, Technology and Society" in Graz, Austria.

She investigates gender and technology in the context of the semantic web.

In my thesis I propose methodological concepts to evoke a de-gendering of IT on the basis of a close analysis of gendering processes. My research identifies practices in technology design, which often lead to “gendered” artefacts. One of these mechanisms is the so-called “I-methodology”, i.e. the implicit assumption made by computer scientists and software developers that users of the technologies they design would share their own interests, preferences, competencies and abilities.

More at Read Write Web

Such as:

There are no shortage of ways to describe documents, events, people or concepts. The roster of people who will participate in the creation of a standard way to describe them will become increasingly important as machine learning becomes more important in our every day lives. Failing to take this seriously, Bath argues, could lead to the silencing of "minority views, quieter voices, and allows the dominant voice to speak for everyone, which seems highly problematic".