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Toward a Web of Data and Programs (June 2005)

Steve Bratt, Chief Operating Officer
World Wide Web Consortium

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Toward a Web of Data and Programs

Steve Bratt

W3C

Leading the Web to its Full Potential ...

http://www.w3.org/

Speaking at the
IEEE-CS International Symposium
Global Data Interoperability - Challenges and Technologies
Sardinia, Italy
23 June 2005

Slides: http://www.w3.org/2005/Talks/0623-sb-IEEEStorConf/
Paper: http://www.w3.org/2005/04/06-sb-IEEWebServData.pdf

Summary

W3C's Mission: Leading the Web to its Full Potential

Founded by Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee in 1994:

Graph of Globe
  • From a Web of Documents ...
  • ... toward a Web of data and programs that is:
    • Meaning-ful
    • on Everything
    • for Everyone
  • ... and Interoperable, Safe, Evolvable

(Flyer: US, A4 / History)

W3C Technologies

Over 80 Standards (Recommendations) have been released (List/ SVG-by-yr/ Translations)

W3C technology stack

(Organization of work: SVG-from-RDF, PNG)

Web of Meaning

People and communities have data stores and applications to share

Key Web technologies:

What Dogs Understand

Analogy:

What We Say to Dogs

What Dogs Understand

What Computers Understand on Current Web

Sad computer cartoon " ... blah blah blah <a href=http://www.xwz.com/foo.html> link</a> blah blah blah . . . ."*

Toward Processable Search Semantics

Google:

Google page ranking approximation

What if Web pages had more machine processable semantics?

(See Article by Bijan Parsia)

Ways to Enable Machine Processing

Smarter Machines


Smarter Data

Semantic Web Standards

Semantic Web standards stack Machine-processable, global Web standards:
  • Assigning unambiguous names (URI)
  • Expressing data, including metadata (RDF)
  • Capturing ontologies (OWL)
  • Query, rules, logic, proofs, trust (in progress)

Accessible wherever you want it to be ...

... on the Web.

Uniform Resource Identifiers (URI)

Resource Description Framework (RDF)

RDF as circles and arrows

RDF: Flexible Representation

Linking table and tree data ...

RDF can represent table and tree data (circles and arrows)

Web Ontology Language (OWL) +

Standards En Route

Current Web

Old Web = Linking resources

Semantic Web - Enhancement of Current Web

Semantic Web = Undertstandable relationships between undertandable resources

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[ellipses = resources; ellipse/line color = one data source; x: = one ontology]

Semantic Web Applications

Enterprise Integration Today

Enterprise intergration pre-RDF

Enterprise Integration on the "RDF Bus"

Enterprise intergration using RDF

Clients on the "RDF Bus"

New data applications can be built on top of RDF bus, for example:

Clients on the RDF bus

Adapting SQL/RDBMS Databases

Keep your existing systems running, and add RDF interfaces:

RDF integration of relational database management systems

_

Examples of DBMS interfaces: 1. life sciences, 2. conference information

See Semantic Web interface concepts for other types of data sources (Tim Berners-Lee)

Applications Connected by Concepts

drawing demonstrating how Sem Web connects applications via concepts

Real World: Vodafone

Vodafone Live mobile portal interface
  • Vodafone Live Mobile Portal
  • RDF-based integration of products
    • simple descriptive metadata scheme
    • easy integration of multiple, diverse vendors
    • flexible maintenance and extension
  • Search results (e.g. ringtones, games, pictures, etc.)
    • improvement: page views per download decreased 50%
    • increased revenue: for ringtones, up 20% in 2 months*
      • Ringtones market will surpass $500 million in retail sales in 2005!

Real World: IBM

IBM automated ontology mapping
  • Multiple effort in Semantics
  • Developing user-centered tools
    • Exploit power of Semantic Web technologies, but hide the underlying complexity
    • Extraction, storage, query, editing, annotation, visualization
  • Focus on Life Sciences - Potential for transforming the scientific research process
    • Common representation (RDF), unique identifiers (LSID), provenance, collaboration

Real World: Oracle

Oracle 10g w/RDF and XML
  • Oracle 10.2 will include an RDF data model to store RDF statements
  • Java Ntriple2NDM converter for loading existing RDF data
  • An RDF_MATCH function which can be used in SQL to find graph patterns in RDF (similar to SPARQL)
  • Interest in supporting life sciences, and other, requirements

... from S. Stephens, Oracle, June 2005

Challenges Ahead

Bottom-Up Evolution for SemWeb Global Data Interoperability

Thank You

We are happy to help ...

W3C

_

Acknowledgements: Tim Berners-Lee, David Booth, Eric Miller

Resource slides follow (W3C, Web Services and Semantic Web tools and applications)

International Web Standards Organization

W3C's expanding international basis of operations (map)

W3C's Members Power Our Work

~ 370 Members (png, map history)

Values of W3C Membership

W3C Brings the World Together to Engineer the Web

Developing Standards at W3C

Views of the Process: Life of Working Group, Recommendation Track

W3C Technologies

Over 80 Standards (Recommendations) have been released (List/ SVG-by-yr/ Translations)

W3C technology stack

(Organization of work: SVG-from-RDF, PNG)

Some Web Services and Semantic Web References

Standards, specifications, profiles:


Integration of Web Services and Semantic Web

Semantic Web Research and Development Groups

Some Web Services Tools

* Most products not yet using new W3C standard versions of SOAP (1.2), WSDL (2.0), etc., but they will in the future.

Some Semantic Web Tools

RDF Environments (interpreters, etc)

SemWeb Graphical Editors

Some Web Service & Semantic Web Applications

Rapid growth of both ...

Challenge of Global Data Interoperability

Different scientific jobs
  • Increasingly specialized communities...
    • ... yet, important problems require multi-disciplinary and multi-organizational approach
  • Massive quantities of data ...
    • ... yet, not readily understandable nor accessible outside of community
  • Already using the Web ...
    • ... yet, mainly as a Web of documents, not as a Web of machine-processable data

Today's Web: Searching

Current Situation:

Issue:

Today's Web : Sharing and Aggregating

Current Situation: Earthquake Monitoring:

Issues:

What Is the Semantic Web?

"The Semantic Web is an

... extension of the current web in which

... information is given well-definedmeaning,

... better enabling computers and people to work in cooperation."

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The Semantic Web
Tim Berners-Lee, James Hendler and Ora Lassila
Scientific American
, May 2001