Daily Bits

Twine : A Semantic Web Application

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Much has been said about the Semantic Web and how it would make possible a whole new generation of applications that can provide utilities based on the connections between data. Twine, developed by Radar Networks based in San Francisco, is a new service that puts to work technologies that delve into the content that a user is interested, providing suggestions and also aiding in organizing this information.

An excerpt from Technology Review:

Twine uses artificial intelligence–machine learning and natural language processing–to parse the contents of Web pages and extract key concepts, such as people, places, and organizations, from the pages that a user saves. The site then uses these concepts to link information and users. For example, creating a twine–a bundle of bookmarks related to a particular topic–devoted to a specialized technique in computer game design quickly led to the discovery of twines (created by other users) devoted to other areas of game design and to twines devoted to a popular game that uses the technique. It also led to other users interested in the subject. Twine is also meant to automatically generate tags, descriptions, and summaries of bookmarked Web pages.

All the real hard technologies are working in the background. The caveat here is that users have to collaborate to let the system learn about the categorization for topics.

Technology Does Help in Mental Development

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How much of technology forms part of your daily routine ? Research at UCLA points to increased brain activity from technology – in this case using search engines.

An excerpt from TechNewsWorld:

Web search novices also showed increased activity, but to a lesser extent than their more technologically savvy counterparts.

“The other part of the study we are analyzing the data on now is that when we took the computer naive people and gave them a chance to practice searching the Internet, within a week their brains started looking like the people who had done it for years,” Small explained.

Locating the relevant piece of information from the barrage of results returned by a search engine can be an intensive mental activity. This is owing to the fact that results returned by search engines seldom the most desired and a lot more tweaking, query refining and browsing is required to locate the exact information.

It would take many more years before a conclusive research can be done on the effect of technology on mental development. But it would suffice to say that a small dose of technology could do a lot of good.

Microsoft and Sony Announce Virtual World on Consoles

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At the Tokyo Game Show, Microsoft and Sony announced that later this year they would be each unveiling virtual worlds accessible via gaming consoles. While the Sony Playstation 3 would have a “Home”, Microsoft would have a “Xbox Experience” that would let users interact virtually.

Virtual worlds have been growing in prominence the few years. They have been more popular in the gaming community where group tasks and competing among fellow players has been popular ever since network gaming came into picture. Linden Labs took the concept forward to have a virtual environment with even its separate currency.

Virtual worlds logically fit well into the progression of content online. From text, video and audio, the next iteration is to put the very user online. Its an interesting twist on the concept of advertising as well. Now the Avatars themselves will ‘ad-property’.

Microsoft’s and Sony’s move in this direction could well be to expand beyond making the consoles just about games to make the devices a solution for complete entertainment. Google also had entered this space a few months back with the announcement of ‘Lively’. Since then there has not been much news on it but the search giant does have an eye on the advertising market around gaming.

Virtual Worlds also have lot of potential in the business domain. Benefits include cost savings in transportation and also the much desired bliss of working from home but virtually in office. Of course there are all the applications that virtual worlds can be put to in medicine, engineering etc but the real killer one is yet to take the world by storm.

NComputing Offers Alternative to OLPC XO Laptops

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The OLPC project was a grand vision. Making computers accessible to the young generations provides them a portal to information that should go a long way in reducing the knowledge divide. But at $188, the project is still a tad costly on a per child basis. Enter Virtualization. A concept that makes one physical computer system host several virtual systems with resources allocated to them.

California based NComputing is using virtualization to provide an alternative to governments looking to provide affordable computing resources in their learning centers. The software from NComputing turns a PC into a number of virtual PCs which can be accessed by maximum 30 people, each with their dedicated mouse, monitor and keyboard.

An excerpt from PC World:

NComputing’s virtualization software runs on a desktop PC, said Stephen Dukker, chairman and CEO of NComputing. That PC is connected through an access terminal with the “virtual” PCs, which consist of a monitor, keyboard and mice, also known as “thin clients.”

The thin client does not have any storage. All of the computing is done on the main PC. NComputing software works with Microsoft’s Windows and Linux operating systems.

A single PC has more than enough processing power to be shared by several users, Dukker said. A typical person running productivity, multimedia, e-mail and Web browsing applications uses on average just 1 to 2 percent of the capacity of standalone PCs, with occasional peaks using 10 to 20 percent of a computer’s processing power, he added.

While the XO laptop provides a personalized all time available computing resource, it is pertinent question whether laptops are the solution for the same, if at all portable computing is as much a necessity. NComputing’s virtualized solution does provide a better priced alternative to the OLPC.

AI Inches Closer to Mimicking Intelligence

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Artificial Intelligence has long been a core research interest in Computer Science. Machines making sense of information and reacting the same way as humans have just not been that easy to develop. At the University of Reading (UK), five chat programs competed to lay claim to passing the Turing Test, a simple test to determine whether machines are capable of thought.

An excerpt from Associated Press:

Typing away at split-screen terminals Sunday, a dozen volunteers carried out two conversations at once: one with a chat program, the other with a human. After five minutes, they were asked to say which was which. Some were not sure who — or what — they were talking to.

At the end of the day, human intelligence still reigned with the chatbots not being able to confuse all 12 of the judges. The bronze award was won by Elbot, a chatbot designed by Fred Roberts.

Though it might be too extreme to assume that a chatbot able to deceive a human judges should pass for true intelligence, it could well be a start. Language does possess one of those skills that takes a life time to master.

Web Applications Customized to Cell Phones

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Recent developments in the mobile space may well be the sign of the way web based services will be made available across cell phones. There is stiff competition brewing between the handset makers. Now, it seems that the same is happening on the web applications side as well with FaceBook and MySpace trying to get the better of each other with integration deals with several telecommunication companies.

The articles in BusinessWeek give details on how Hutchison Whampoa is planning to make available a $50 handset from INQ supporting integration with FaceBook. Integration would imply ease of use. There are a whole number of web applications available but only the very popular ones would be in a position to support such integration.

One could argue that availability of services integrated with mobile devices makes the phone device as such less important. Could the mobile applications do to the mobile devices what the browser is doing to the Operating System on the desktop. As long as I can access my social networks, my favorite search engine, email account and a decent feed reader, how much more does the hardware matter?