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Recently, several GlobalSpec engineers attended a forum at Rensselaer
Polytechnic Institute (RPI) called "Washington, Wikipedia, and Web
3:0: What is the Future of the Web?" Held at the RPI Biotechnology and
Interdisciplinary Studies Auditorium, the forum featured a keynote presentation
by Tim Berners-Lee and a panel discussion. Part 1 of this two-part series ran
yesterday, and described the remarks of Tim Berners-Lee. Today, Part 2 provides
information from the other panelists, which included James Handler, Deborah
McGuiness, Wendy Hall, Nova Spivack, and Nigel Shadbolt.
James Handler and Deborah McGuiness are professors in RPI's
Constellation program, an initiative which President Shirley Jackson compared to
planets orbiting the sun in our solar system. Professor McGuiness encouraged
the audience to participate in social networking surrounding the event by
posting questions. She introduced an interactive discussion that included a
live blogger.
Wendy Hall is from the U.K., and a technical adviser to
the world's largest society of computer science professionals – ACM. She
discussed the role of governments across the globe and their role as the
Semantic Web continues to develop. Hall also explained how the Internet in the
People's Republic of China
(PRC) is not the same web as seen in the U.S.,
U.K.,
and other similar countries. Finally, she cited some important statistics. Approximately
5-billion Chinese-language Web sites now exist, and 220 million of the PRC's
citizens are currently on-line. This represents only 16% of China's total population, a major
driver for developing a Semantic Web.
The panelists also included Nova Spivack and Nigel Shadbolt.
Spivack, an entrepreneur whose new "Twine" product incorporates ideas from the
Semantic Web, was also responsible for the popular "Earthweb" project.
Shadbolt, a global artificial intelligence (AI) expert from the U.K.,
spoke to the idea of small-scale introduction of AI across the web.
The bulk of panel discussions centered on the Semantic Web.
There was some skepticism from the panelists, on both cultural and technical
fronts, with regard to implementation. According to these panelists, what is
required is a massive undertaking requiring a large user-group, "Wikipedia-style"
collaboration (crowd approach), and possibly artificial intelligence (AI)
tools. Many researchers are working to implement the Semantic Web are from the
AI field.
Editor's Note: Click here for Part 1. Click here to watch the video of the forum.
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