W3C Web Semantics & Internet2

I have linked the title of this blog to Ivan Herman's personal web site. Ivan is the Semantic Web Activity lead at the World Wide Web Consortium and This is fascinating work that is taking place on the web. In fact, I did not understand most of the terminology but understand now the concept. RDF (Resource Description Framework) is part of the language used in the W3C to create searches that are less work on part of the search and the machine thinking like that of the searcher. Let me clear that up. The RDF 'Triple' which means the search is going to look at the (S)ubject, and then it is predicated upon something (P)redicate, and then finally that returns a third piece of information, the (O)bject. Allow me to try and explain a little more. In Ivan's PPT presentation at the 2009 Semantic Technology Conference his topic was entitled: T1 Introduction to the Semantic Web. In his presentation he gives a simple example of someone wanting to go on vacation to Budapest, Hungary. Instead of having to look up airlines, hotels, pictures, write-ups etc. Why not have the web link all of those searches together. For instance, the Subject is a vacation to Budapest, and the Predicate is that there will be a need for airlines and hotels, and the resulting Object will be the sites to all of those predicates associated with the subject. I hope I got this kind of correct. This is the kind of information I want to learn more about and think about when re-entering the workforce.

On the subject of Internet2 I believe that this is a completely new set of internet networks for people in education and research. I looked at a couple of example handout pieces of literature on their website that explain more in depth as to what the Internet2 project can do. Here is the link to the Information Kits http://www.internet2.edu/info/#informationsheets Here you will see examples of students at a mid-western college wanting to take a screenwriting course, but do not have access to the agents, writers, producers that the California State University at Los Angeles do. Now Bradley College in Peoria, Illinois has access to the screenwriting classes at CSLA and is able to benefit from the industry lecturers through using the internet for virtual classroom time. This is all great stuff and the network is using top of the line equipment that should not need any upgrading for at least the next 3-5 years.