August 15, 2006
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Nature (05/26/06) Butler, Declan
In a recent interview, Nigel Shadbolt, chair of the panel 'The Next Wave of the Web' at the recent WWW2006 conference, discussed the current and future states of the Web. The dominant theme at the conference was the emergence of wireless broadband for mobile devices, which will bring the concept of ubiquitous computing closer to reality than ever. The emergence of pervasive mobile computing will bring the Web to millions of people around the world who cannot afford computers or live in areas with no network infrastructure. The conference also focused on Web 2.0 in the context of solving problems through the broad participation of many users. Shadbolt noted computer users' growing willingness to share data on the Web, pointing to the mash-up phenomenon as evidence of the potential of the open-data movement. Microsoft's Tony Hey gave a presentation on e-science, or the trend of scientists using massive, distributed datasets to conduct research. Shadbolt, whose background is in artificial intelligence, believes that the Web will be the environment where the discipline will finally realize its potential, noting that the Bayesian statistical methods that enable machines to make decisions already pervade the Web, such as the open-source Bayesian spam blocker, SpamBayes. Shadbolt is also optimistic that the Semantic Web could finally begin living up to its expectations. Even simple descriptions about the meaning of data, such as RDF, could greatly improve the functionality of the Semantic Web, Shadbolt says, noting that a basic RDF tag can describe key data classes and relationships. Shadbolt believes that the next major developments will be in displays, with flexible screens and laser projection fast becoming commercially viable.
For the complete article, see http://www.nature.com/news/2006/060522/full/060522-21.html (Subscription required)
Posted by rab5 at 09:48 PM
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