29 results for open calais python

Open Calais - a new and smart API from Reuters - finally does what critics say to be the greatest obstacle to the Semantic Web: Taking the metadata burden from the end-user by providing an automatic meta-tagging tool. The principle behind Open Calais is easy: Put in some unstructured text and get in return nicely structured RDF-data. Backed by powerful Text Mining and machine learning techniques the API automatically detects entities like persons, events, countries and other facts.

Open Calais takes account of the fact that the added value of content is hidden in its structure. Uncovering that structure and representing it in a interoperable format makes existing resources more programmable and reusable.

But what is in for Reuters? Nothing less than the biggest structured content repository on the web. Should not we talk about this little fact as well?

11 months ago I posted a short entry that posed the question of whether the world needed a metadata extraction service. I stated that the service could quickly become the largest repository of metadata (in the form of named entites and facts) on the Web if it stored the resulting metadata from each request. Open Calais seems to me to be the "metadata extraction service" I had in mind; it's is a Web service that allows you to automatically annotate content and extract information like facts and named entities (people, places, and organizations, and much more) from unstructured text. If that weren't enough of a good thing, Open Calais returns the metadata in RDF.

Although the question of whether we need it still hasn't been answered, I believe this service could be a catalyst for change towards Semantic Web standards if it is integrated into (or used to create plugins for) the multitudes of open source blogs and other CMS software. Open Calais opens the door to the possibility of lowering the barrier enough for everyday users to publish semantic content.

The Calais Initiative is almost one month old, and they've already received a large and welcoming response from the development community (1,113 early adopters)! When they weren't busy doing interviews or answering hundreds of emails and forum posts, they were coming up with ways to help spread the technology. They will soon be releasing a Wordpress plugin, followed by plugins for Drupal, Plone and other content management systems. They also express that Calais is not only good for named entity extraction, but can extract other facts from documents. An example they give is "what technologies are associated with what company in a document?" Good luck, Calais team!

Today finally I logged in to Twine the first time. I was reading yesterday about some shortcomings of the system, so I was keen on trying out the system by myself to get my own impression.

It's true that the system isn't as easy to understand as del.icio.us or other bookmarking tools. It takes a while until you get used to all those additional ways you can navigate through the system. Remember: "Twine looks at content and parses it automatically for the names of people, places, organizations and other subject tags. Users are then able to navigate between related content, view recommended content and connect with recommended people with related interests."

Continue reading My First Experiences with Twine

Freebase stores millions of entities and assertions about nearly every topic one can ponder (thanks are owed to their seed dataset – Wikipedia – and their amazing community). The amount of information that Freebase stores is incredible, and is a testament to what can be accomplished with the help of a dedicated community and a little (or a lot) of clever software engineering.

Continue reading Can Graphd Scale to Meet Semantic Web Demands?

Many visitors to blogs are turning to feed readers for consuming their favorite content. Are we looking at a change in how we should judge the traffic of a Website? We are already seeing advertisements appear in feeds which helps solve the issue of monetizing feeds, which is especially beneficial to bloggers who prefer to give full feeds.

Continue reading Is feed-only consumption an issue for bloggers?

I like to consider myself fair and balanced when speaking about most topics. To educate the uneducated and to balance things out a bit I have compiled a list of 5 problems we will likely run into when we reach the Semantic Web. Each problem is a side-effect of advances in technology, rushes to fill new niches, or the previous two plus the desire to make a quick dollar.

Continue reading 5 Problems of the Semantic Web

The most pertinent issue surrounding the Semantic Web is why it has not yet gained strong traction from the development community. First, when I say grassroots I'm referring to the initiative of people like you and I to create the Semantic Web from the bottom-up. The ivory towers is the W3C and their initiative to create the Semantic Web. Both groups are pivotal to the acceptance and adoption of new standards and technologies. Without grassroots initiatives we would not have adoption and without the W3C we would not have standards (which we all have learned the Web most certainly requires).

Continue reading Moving Towards the Semantic Web: Grassroots vs. Ivory Towers

The Semantic Web Company in Vienna, Austria is giving away a full conference pass worth $1,095 for the LinkedData Planet Conference! LinkedData Planet 2008 will be taking place on June 17-18, 2008 in New York with confirmed keynote speakers Sir Tim Berners-Lee, Kingsley Idehen and Ian Davis.

Continue reading Win a Full Conference Pass for LinkedData Planet 2008

This may just be my own personal way of quantifying and categorizing everything, but I see myself as part of a growing group of people who are working towards creating the Semantic Web. The Semantic Web movement is still relatively small in comparison to other movements ("camps") seen on the Web and that may contribute to my feelings of us vs. them.

Continue reading Camp Semantic Web vs. Camp Web 2.0