calais

Semantic technology gains publishing foothold

OpenCalais, a Thomson Reuters project to improve electronic publishing by adding computer-readable labels to content, has attracted the attention of several media publishing organizations, including CNET.

The OpenCalais product, available in a free or a more sophisticated paid form, adds labels to content through a technology called semantic analysis. By adding descriptive labels, computers at least theoretically can understand what they're processing beyond just the raw text in a news story or photo caption, for example by recognizing addresses or names.

CNET, publisher of CNET News, is using OpenCalais' service to augment its product reviews and news, the companies … Read more

Understanding OpenCalais...through Twitter

The power of Twitter arises from spontaneous, ad-hoc, and asynchronous communication. It can be very useful when you have a general question and have no idea to whom you should direct it.

Take, for example, a question I had about the OpenCalais project, which I wrote about last year but which I have struggled to understand. Yesterday I asked for feedback on what OpenCalais actually does, given that Reuters just announced the 4.0 version of the project, but I never really came to grips with OpenCalais 1.0, 2.0, or 3.0.

Throwing out the question - "… Read more

Radar Networks readies new release of Twine

In March, Radar Networks launched Twine, an application that organizes information and connects people, places, companies, products, Web pages, videos, and photos. Along with Metaweb's Freebase, Powerset (sold to Microsoft), Hakia, Reuters' Calias, AdaptiveBlue and a few other start-ups, Radar Networks is trying to crack the code on building a piece of the semantic Web.

In a Times Online article, Web creator Tim Berners-Lee gave an example of how the semantic Web would work:

"Imagine if two completely separate things--your bank statements and your calendar--spoke the same language and could share information with one another. You could drag … Read more

Reuters opens up, but what does its OpenCalais service do?

Not everyone's "got the 'open' memo" just yet, but Reuters apparently has.

The global news and information company this week has opened up the API to its OpenCalais project, which enables content creators/aggregators to enrich their content services. What does this mean in English?

That's hard to say, because after reading through the FAQ and the project site, I'm still awash in a muddle of buzzwords and Silicon Valley speak. But what it appears to mean is that it's a Web service that allows someone (even me) to send content (this specific blog, your recipe, a weather report, whatever) to the service to have it (in under a second) attach metadata.

Huh? And? Well...… Read more