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In the emerging Internet of Things , everyday objects are becoming networked. Clothing is no exception. It's still early days for Web-enabled clothes - the best example so far is the Nike+ running shoe, which contains sensors that connect to the user's iPod. But expect to see everything from your shirt to your underwear networked in the not too distant future. In the following list of ten 'smart clothing' items, we showcase Internet pants, a proximity sensing shirt, a heart sensing bra, biosensor underwear, a "thought helmet", and more! Sponsor Motion Detecting Pants Now, we're know what you're thinking - it's already pretty easy to detect 'motion' in pants isn't it? Nevertheless, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg has developed a pair of pants "that detect movement and let a computer know your every move." These smart pants work via a loom that helps sew the wires and fabric together. Sensors embedded in the fabric measure the speed, rotation and flexibility of the pants with every movement. Wireless signals are sent from the pants to a computer to display the activity. The scientists at Virginia Polytechnic don't yet know why this activity would be useful (to a computer), but we're sure that use cases will arise. Proximity Sensing Shirt The Locked ON Proximity Sensing T-Shirt is currently available at the ThinkGeek store . It features a "radar screen" on the shirt that scans for matching shirts. If you get within a few meters of your counterpart wearing the same shirt, the radar on your shirt "locks on" and detects the other. This could be useful for love or war - the video below shows the latter scenario. Heart Sensing Bra The Numetrex heart sensing bra uses electronic modules and silver coated electrodes to pick up a person's heart rate and transmit the data to a watch worn on the wrist. Says NuMetrex Marketing Director Meg Burich, "It's a comfortable way to wear a heart rate monitor, because we knit flexible heart sensing fibers directly into the fabric of the garment. There's no hard plastic belt to strap around your chest." Smart Running Shoes Nike+ running shoes come with a sensor that tracks your run, then sends the data to your iPod. It even has its own social network and can automatically tweet and post a status report on Facebook. See ReadWriteWeb's review of the Nike+ shoes . Networked Jacket According to a report from GizmoWatch a couple of years ago, Lunar design's BLU Jacket is a futuristic concept that could make walking billboards a reality. Lunar Design used organic fabrics containing semiconductors in the BLU Jacket, in order to display your moods through signs and colors. This BLU Jacket also has a GPS module built into it. So if someone asks you directions, you could theoretically project a map onto your jacket's sleeve through it's flexible display. Or, asks GizmoWatch, "how about getting paid for displaying advertisements on your jacket?" Next Page: Neuro Headset, Thought Helmet, Biosensor Underwear, iPod Watch, Nanofibers. Neuro Headset The Emotiv EPOC neuroheadset is for gamers and is available for $299. It's described as "a high resolution, neuro-signal acquisition and processing wireless neuroheadset." The headset uses a set of sensors to "tune into electric signals produced by the brain to detect player thoughts, feelings and expressions and connects wirelessly to most PCs." According to the company , the headset can detect emotions such as anger, excitement and tension, as well as facial expressions and cognitive actions like pushing and pulling objects. Thought Helmet Let's get very futuristic for a minute. Six Revisions references an article in Time from September 2008, which claims that the U.S. Army is actively pursuing "thought helmets" for secure mind-to-mind communication between soldiers. The goal "is a system where entire military systems could be controlled by thought alone. While this kind of technology is still far off, the fact that the military has awarded a $4 million contract to a team of scientists from the University of California at Irvine, Carnegie Mellon University, and the University of Maryland means that we might be seeing prototypes of these systems within the next decade." Image: Wikimedia iPod Watch Back to the now, and there are already a range of iPod watches available from different manufacturers. These watches let you control your iPod using your wireless watch. Biosensor Underwear RSC Publishing reported recently that US scientists have developed durable biosensors that can be printed directly onto clothing, to allow continuous biomedical monitoring outside hospitals. The aim is to enable constant monitoring of blood pressure and heart rate: "Joseph Wang and colleagues at the University of California San Diego, La Jolla have developed a method for printing biosensors directly onto clothing. To form the sensors, Wang screen-printed carbon electrode arrays directly onto the elastic bands of mens' underwear. The tight contact and direct exposure to the skin allows hydrogen peroxide and the enzyme NADH, which are both associated with numerous biomedical processes, to be monitored using the sensor, explains Wang." Nanofibers To round out our list, we go a level down the clothing chain and look at next generation fabrics. Delta Farm Press reports that Cornell University's Department of Textiles and Apparel aims to develop fibers that have computing devices in them. An example use case is a shirt "made of cotton threads coated with a thin layer of semiconductor polymers and nanoparticles that conduct electric and can power your cell phone or iPod or monitor your heartbeat, brainwaves, and other functions." The University is also investigating "textiles that can act as sensors that could be used to detect the presence of hazardous bacteria, such as E. coli or anthrax." A further example is smart clothes made of fibers that can change colors - "one appropriate for daytime business environment, a different one for nighttime socializing." One thing is for sure with all ten of these examples of 'smart clothing' - at least some of the clothing that we wear in the future is likely to be networked, in one form or another! Thanks to Deane Rimerman, who provided research for this article. Discuss
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10 Smart Clothes You'll Be Wearing Soon
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Technology has been a part of archaeology from the time it shifted from treasure hunting to academic profession, from using geography to plot a grid on a dig site, mechanics to pump out a flooded tomb, statistics to map demographic changes or now, using personal technology and global positioning software to identify the previously unknown. The latter is what Professor Chris Fisher , associate professor in CSU's Department of Anthropology, and his team from Colorado State University have done. They discovered a large, ancient urban center using rugged handheld computers and GPS. Sponsor This thousand-year-old urban center stands, overgrown with scrub and soil, in the Lake Pátzcuaro Basin in the central Mexican state of Michoacán. Fisher's team used four Trimble Recon rugged handheld computers in conjunction with GeoXH and GeoXT GPS receivers, to do real-time, on-site mapping of over 1,300 architectural features, including hundreds of "house mounds," in just one acre of the site. They took 25 to 30 data points on each feature but were still able to complete the initial full-coverage mapping in a month. "The technology accelerated our ability to get meaningful data," he said. "We were able to create an architectural typology of the site right away!" The city was part of the Purépecha Empire , also known as the Tarascan Empire. The Purépecha controlled a great chunk of western Mexico with a fortified frontier. On the other side of that frontier? The much better known Aztec Empire. The technology, and the strategy Fisher developed for its use, allowed the near-immediate capture of a frieze-like picture of the urbanization of a Purépecha center that enabled empire. The city, which prior to Fisher's work, was nothing but a couple of ruins and a pin in a map, turned out to be five square kilometers. Without the hand-held, on-site tech, it would have possibly taken seasons of painstaking mapping to develop the picture. "The Lake Pátzcuaro Basin was the geopolitical core of the empire with a dense population, centralized settlement systems, engineered environment and a socially stratified society," said Fisher. Although the city was initially discovered during the 2009 season, Fisher is currently presenting his findings officially at the Society for American Archaeology meetings in St. Louis. His team will continue mapping the city this summer. Fisher specializes in climate change archaeology, plotting changes in climate and the cultural adaptation that went with it, including identifying which strategies worked and which failed. A project studying this, Legacies of Resilience , is partially funded by the National Science Foundation. "One of the great challenges for the 21st century will be creating solutions to link social and environmental change," said Fisher. "Archaeology is uniquely poised to make a significant contribution to this debate by helping to explain trajectories of socio-ecosystem evolution over long time periods." When Fisher heads back the site on April 18, he intends to make greater use of Google SketchUp , a 3D modeling program. He already used it to make in-field sketches but this season he and his team will use it extensively to create a portfolio of walkable sketches and a three-dimensional picture of the urban center and its agriculture. The same technology we use in our daily lives is helping to make that contribution possible. I'm sorry. But exactly how cool is that? Fessin' up time. I hooked Chris up with his computer system during the time I worked for its manufacturer. I did so because the project, climate change archaeology, was so cool I almost fainted when he told me about it. Discuss
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Mobile Tech Helps Uncover Mesoamerican Lost City
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Should college students consider buying an iPad to use in place of netbook or notebook computer? Since the release of the new Apple slate device a week ago, this question has weighed on the minds of students, parents, teachers and school administrators alike. On the surface, the iPad seems like it could be the ideal device for mobile computing on campus with features like its optional iWork office suite, an Internet-connected bookstore called iBooks which supports the commonly used DRM-free ePub format, the 160,000+ applications available via iTunes, many of which are educational in nature and, of course, access to the greatest research tool ever invented: the Web. However, despite the iPad's pluses, there are still some issues that students should consider before purchasing this device. Sponsor Problem #1: Wi-Fi Access (or Lack Thereof) The iPad comes in several models , each with varying storage sizes and Internet connectivity options. At the bottom of the lineup is the $499 Wi-Fi only 16 GB iPad, the model that money-strapped students can just barely afford, if they can afford an iPad at all. But without a 3G data connection, Internet access may be limited. In fact, students may not even be able to connect to their own college's Wi-Fi network. For example, George Washington University's I.T. Communications and Marketing Manager Rachel Blevins recently told a reporter at the school's independent newspaper that the university's wireless network would not work with the Apple iPad. The problem, explained Blevins, is "both a security and a support issue, because many of the small [personal digital assistants], smartphone, and pad systems use sign-in security, which is currently not compatible with our systems." What Blevins is referring to is the VPN client software currently used at the university to connect students to resources typically limited to campus use only. Although the iPad software has built-in PPTP, IPSec, Cisco VPN software many universities (and of course, businesses too, as we pointed out earlier ) use SSL VPN, a more secure solution which is not supported by the iPad. That means that students with the Wi-Fi only iPad may not be able to connect to their college's network - often the only method of Internet access available in classrooms and other on-campus hangouts. Problem #2: Writing Papers The iPad doesn't come with a keyboard. Although one is available as an optional $69 accessory , the included keyboard on the iPad is a virtual, on-screen keypad. In tests, many iPad reviewers found this keyboard was surprisingly easier to type on than they expected, especially in landscape mode, but for students writing long term papers, it may still fall short. A generation from now, after kids have grown up with touchscreen technology , that may no longer be the case. But at the moment, most college students will likely prefer hardware keyboards. Another issue: when the paper is complete, many professors still require a printout, not an electronic document. However, the iPad doesn't include a printing function. There are a few third-party applications that offer this ability ( WSJ's Walt Mossberg recommends Print Online's $5 app, for example), but none are as simple as a built-in technology would be. (Side note: printing support may be a feature added to the upcoming iPhone/iPad software Apple is announcing later today. Check back for an update). Problem #3 : iWork Doesn't Work for Students? The optional iWork applications (Pages, Sheets and Keynote) are Apple's version of Microsoft Office's Word, Excel and Powerpoint. However, some are already finding them difficult to use for their purposes. One example: in the tests documented here , creating files on the iPad went well, but the sync solution provided by iTunes caused issues for the reviewer. We also noticed some problems ourselves, documented in an early review by Frederic Lardinois: "While you can easily import and export documents (Pages and Word) by email or through iTunes , complex documents don't always survive this move intact," Lardinois explained. "Footnotes and endnotes, for example, are simply deleted, making Pages for the iPad almost useless for a lot of students and academics. Tables of content simply become part of the text, which means that they don't auto-update any more." He also noted that Pages on the iPad doesn't offer a word count, something many college students need in order to know if their paper meets a professor's requirements. Finally, Apple's document-sharing service iWork.com , while great for sharing files with other people, doesn't function as a way to sync files between devices. Problem #4: No USB Port iPad's lack of a USB port may not be an issue for some - so much of what we do now is web-based, after all. However, for college students who have become accustomed to porting their files around on keychain drives, the missing USB port requires a change in their workflow which may not fit in with their current lifestyle. Instead of being able to plug in a portable flash drive to the iPad as they could with their Mac or PC, files can only be sent to the iPad via iTunes sync, email or web download. There are some third-party applications that can help, but again, nothing is as good as a built-in solution. Conclusion: iPad's a Great "In-Between" Device, But Not a Notebook Replacement Despite these disadvantages, the iPad still has a lot to offer college students as an additional device, if not a PC replacement. For example, Blackboard's free iPad application looks quite useful. From the app, students can check grades and assignments, add discussion board comments and blog posts and email instructors and classmates. Plus, the iTunes Application Store has thousands of educational applications like advanced calculators, reference guides, dictionaries, note-taking apps, planners, utilities and much more. The iPad also plays podcasts, like those offered via iTunesU , the collection of audio and video presentations created by many universities to distribute recorded lectures, films, schedules, syllabi, notes, maps and other information to students. However, given the issues listed above, it's clear that the iPad and its software - at least in its current form - is not able to fully replace a notebook computer. Some of the problems may be addressed in time with revisions to the device's software, but for now the device remains a great "in-between" mobile gadget, not a next-gen notebook computer. Discuss
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Can the iPad Go to College?
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April may bring spring showers here in the U.S., but it's also bringing nine different conferenced scattered across the country. Drupal, the future of money and technology, the future of tech in the Midwest, social media, the cloud - pick a topic, get a ticket, and feed your brain. How do you like your events guide? You can import individual events into Google Calendar using the link beside each entry, or download the entire thing as an iCal (and Google Calendar-importable) file, or even view it as a world map . Know of something cool taking place that should appear here? Let us know in the comments below or contact us . Sponsor 4 April 2010: Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburg, Pennsylvania ConnectNow TEDx CMU is an independently organized TEDx event that will be held on April 4th, 2010 at Carnegie Mellon University and will feature a full day of talks by prominent speakers as well as recorded videos from past TEDTalks. Confirmed speakers include Jonathan Fields (author, blogger and entrepreneur), Stacey Monk (founder of Epic Change, a startup nonprofit), Chase Jarvis (photographer, director and social artist) and Nathan Martin (CEO of Deeplocal, an innovation studio in Pittsburgh). The theme of the event is "Fearless", and we are inviting speakers from cross-disciplinary backgrounds to talk about their experiences, and tell us a little about what inspires them to be fearless in the pursuit of goals. We hope to spark discussions and foster connections between participants, encouraging aspiring individuals to follow their dreams and make a difference. The event is free to attend, and the application deadline is March 21, 2010. For more information about the event, visit tedxcmu.com or email info@tedxcmu.com. You can also find TEDx CMU on Facebook or follow us on Twitter . 7 – 9 April 2010: Sydney, Australia ConnectNow ConnectNow brings together international specialists and thought leaders in social media, emerging technologies and their intersection with business. Learn how the realtime web, location based services, augmented reality, ubiquitous computing and personalised services are changing marketing and communications. Understand the importance of trust in relationship marketing and what is "social currency". For more info email info@connectnow.net.au . 13 – 15 April 2010: Dallas, Texas PubCon South PubCon , the premier search and social media conference, features the industry's biggest names and key players shaping the future of the Web. PubCon South will include cutting-edge panel sessions exploring tracks dedicated to search, social media and affiliate marketing, an intensive professional search and social media training program, and some of the world's top keynote speakers. PubCon South at Dallas will also hold a one-day, two-track slate of intensive educational training programs led by some of the industry's most respected search professionals. The event takes place at the Richardson Conference and Civic Center. Register here . 16 April 2010: Mountain View, California Under the Radar: Cloud Under the Radar: Cloud is must-attend event for dealmakers and heads of IT from large enterprises, SMBs, service providers, carriers and media companies who are responsible for helping their companies leverage new technology and innovation in the fast-evolving IT ecosystem. Join us for the 15th Under the Radar conference, featuring a hand-picked selection of the world's most innovative cloud startups among 350 top tech, media, telcom and finance executives. For ticket and more information, visit http://undertheradarblog.com . 16 – 17 April 2010: Royal Oak, Michigan FutureMidwest FutureMidwest is the region's largest technology and knowledge conference. Founded by Adrian Pittman, Jordan Wolfe and Zach Lipson, FutureMidwest is the fusion of two successful conferences held in Michigan in 2009 - the Module Midwest Digital Conference and TechNow. Both conferences highlighted how technology and digital tools have dramatically changed the way we do business and the effect this transition has had on companies. FutureMidwest kicks things up a notch with presentations, group breakout sessions, relationship-building opportunities and influencers who are taking action to redefine business in the digital age. Register here . 17 April 2010: New York City Seven on Seven Seven on Seven will pair seven leading artists with seven game-changing technologists in teams of two, and challenge them to develop something new - be it an application, social media, artwork, product, or whatever they imagine - over the course of a single day. The seven teams will unveil their ideas at a one-day event at the New Museum on April 17. Seven on Seven Participants include, on the technology side, Ayah Bdeir (artist and programmer), Jeff Hammerbacher (Accel Ventures/ Facebook), David Karp (founder of Tumblr), Andrew Kortina (of Bitly/ Venmo), Hilary Mason (of betaworks), Matt Mullenweg (founder of WordPress), and Joshua Schachter (currently at Google, formerly at Yahoo, and founder of delicious), and on the art side, Tauba Auerbach, Cao Fei, Aaron Koblin, Monica Narula, Marc Andre Robinson, Evan Roth and Ryan Trecartin. Conference attendance includes a half-day session where the seven teams will unveil their ideas, followed by a cocktail reception in the New Museum Skyroom. Find registration information here . April 19, 2010: St. Louis Missouri Social Fresh St. Louis The social media conference for marketers, Social Fresh is not about concept, but focused purely on case studies from the front lines. Learn what social media can really do for business bottom lines. Over the course of the day you'll hear from 35 speakers from companies like Ford, Best Buy, Scottrade, Hardees, CMT and many more. Register now and use coupon code RWW15 for 15% off. 19 – 21 April 2010: San Francisco, California DrupalCon DrupalCon is the premier conference focused on Drupal, the award-winning open source content management framework that is galvanizing social publishing and web development today. For a registration fee of $195, attendees get three full days of sessions led by the best and brightest Drupal experts. Drupal has been downloaded over 2 million times since its inception, and project growth has doubled annually for several years. Drupal is used to deliver a wide variety of application types including blogs, wikis, community networks, digital media portals, and web content publishing and management. 26 April 2010: San Francisco, California Future of Money and Technology Summit The Future of Money & Technology Summit will bring together the best and brightest thinkers around money, including visionaries, entrepreneurial business people, developers, press, investors, authors, solution/service providers, and organizations who work where cash and commerce collide. We meet to discuss the evolving ecosystem around money in a proactive, conducive to dealmaking environment. Featured speakers include Jolie O'Dell, formerly of ReadWriteWeb, as well as representatives from Wells Fargo Bank, Kiva, SharesPost, Jambool, Founders Fund, Outright.com, SoftTech VC, and many more. Use discount code "rww" to get 10% off registration . 7 May 2010: Mountain View, California ReadWriteWeb Mobile Summit 2010 The ReadWriteWeb Mobile Summit 2010 will be an exploration of the latest Mobile development trends - both the technology and the emerging business applications. Get ready to explore, think and create the future of Mobile with the brightest in the industry, your peers! As in our last Summit, The Real-Time Web, the ReadWriteWeb Mobile Summit is an unconference. An unconference is a participant driven conference where the agenda is created on the day, in real-time and discussions are lead by conference participants. Read about the history of unconferences . We will have two main tracks at this Summit - Development and Business - so the Summit will be of interest to managers, marketers, developers, innovators, entrepreneurs and thought leaders alike. Here's a sample of some of the topics we'll explore in both of these tracks. Geo-location services - what can you do using location as a platform ? Commerce & Marketing - as more and more consumers use smartphones, how can businesses utilize this channel? Content, Publishing & Recommendations - the technologies and best practices. Mobile Social Networking - how to tap into communities on mobile devices. Internet of Things - the emerging opportunities from sensor and RFID data. Augmented Reality - the technology and business applications of AR. Native App vs. Browser Based - Including iPhone, Android, RIM, Palm, Windows Mobile and Symbian. Click here to register now , or to become a sponsor , or to help shape the conference . 11 May 2010: San Francisco, California FinovateSpring FinovateSpring 2010 will again showcase the most cutting-edge financial and banking technology innovations to Silicon Valley and the world. With Finovate's signature mix of short, fast-paced onstage demos (no slides are allowed) from handpicked companies and intimate networking time with their executives, this conference packs a ton of unique value into a single day. Come see the cutting edge of banking and financial technology and network with hundreds of the leading financial executives, venture capitalists, press, industry analysts, bloggers and fintech entrepreneurs. Early bird registration rates are available. May 17 2010: San Francisco, California SF MusicTech Summit The SF MusicTech Summit will bring together 700-plus visionaries in the music/technology space - the best and brightest entrepreneurs, developers, investors, service providers, journalists, musicians and organizations who work with them at the convergence of culture and commerce. We meet to discuss the evolving music, business and technology ecosystem in a proactive, conducive-to-dealmaking environment. Enter the discount code "rww" to get 10% off . 18 – 19 May 2010: Santa Clara, California Social Media Strategies Social Media Strategies is a conference on social business, social marketing, advertising and optimization. Social media technologies are fundamentally changing the sales, marketing and operations process. Business are leveraging social technologies to acquire, market, and communicate with customers. This conference features cutting edge topics, keynotes, workshops and discussions that provided strategic knowledge, insights and real world examples on how to successfully plan, implement and manage your organizations social media efforts to achieve your business goals. Use the code "readwriteweb" when you register and get $100 off . 25 – 27 May 2010: Denver, Colorado Glue Glue is the only conference devoted solely to exploring the problem-sets facing architects, developers and IT professionals in a "post-cloud" world. Glue focuses on the APIs and protocols (Twitter, Facebook, Websockets, PubSubHubBub, XMPP), formats and standards (RDF/Linked Data, JSON, Microformats, HTML5), platforms and providers (Amazon, Rackspace, Google App Engine, Salesforce.com, Eucalyptus), Identity Protocols (OAuth/WRAP, SAML, OpenID, SPML) emerging NoSQL data models (Cassandra, CouchDB, MongoDB, Riak, HBase), and other mechanisms that are building the post-cloud world. ReadWriteCloud will be blogging live from Gluecon and CloudCamp, and ReadWriteWeb's Alex Williams will be moderating the "Managing Complexity in the Cloud" session. Please join us May 25-27 in Denver, Colorado. ReadWriteWeb readers can receive 10% off of registration by using the code "RWW12". 27 – 28 May 2010: Beijing, China Global Mobile Internet Conference The Global Mobile Internet Conference is designed specifically for entrepreneurs, executives and influencers to understand and capitalize on the growing opportunities in mobile internet. Though focused on opportunities in Asia, much of the conference dialogue is intended to compare and trade best practices across borders, especially between the East and West. Around 1000 industry leaders from Asia, Europe and North America are expected to attend. The conference will be in English, Chinese, Japanese and Korean. 28 May 2010: Beijing, China Global Mobile Internet Conference - Innovation Show & Startup Competition The Global Mobile Internet Conference Innovation Show intends to be a launch pad for innovative mobile internet startups from around the world. Innovation Show finalists will have the opportunity to present their company to an expected 1,000 investors, industry leaders, and press. Finalists will be judged by and receive feedback from a team of respected venture capitalists and angel investors. The judges will choose one company as the GMIC Innovation Show Winner. Startups must apply by April 4. 15 – 16 June 2010: New York City Corporate Social Media Summit The Corporate Social Media Summit is a two day conference focused exclusively on how big businesses can take advantage of social media to enhance their marketing/comms strategy. Featuring: Practical and relevant insights from peers who have already used social media successfully 20-plus corporate speakers (including PepsiCo, Whole Foods, Dell, McDonald's, General Motors, Citi, Johnson & Johnson), Best practice, benchmarks and practical next steps you can use to take advantage of social media in your business A tightly-focused agenda with 14 in-depth, practical workshops giving you knowledge on only the most critical business issues surrounding corporate use of social media Save $400 if you quote RWW400 when booking. Book here . 29 – 30 June 2010: London Cloud Computing World Forum The 2nd annual Cloud Computing World Forum is the perfect event to learn and discuss the development, integration, adoption and future of cloud computing and SaaS. Building on the success of the 2009 show, this two day conference and free-to-attend exhibition will provide a focused platform for the global cloud and SaaS industry. Show highlights include: Co-located with CloudCamp London Co-located with Green IT conference Free-to-attend exhibition with seminar and scenario theatre Free-to-attend evening awards presentation Hear from leading case studies on how they have integrated cloud computing and SaaS into their working practices Learn from the key players offering cloud and SaaS services Evening networking party for all attendees 5 October 2010: New York City FinovateFall FinovateFall will return to Manhattan on Tuesday, October 5 to showcase dozens of the biggest and most innovative new ideas in financial and banking technology from established leaders and hot young companies. The Fall event is the original and largest Finovate and features a single day packed with our special blend of short, fast-paced onstage demos (no slides are allowed) and intimate networking time with top executives from the innovative demoing companies. FinovateFall is a unique chance to see the future of finance and banking before your competition and find the edge you need in today's market. Early bird registration rates are available. Download this entire events calendar in iCal format. Discuss
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ReadWriteWeb Events Guide, 3 April 2010
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Yesterday we summarized some of the main developments in the Linked Data world over the past year. Linked Data is a W3C-backed movement that is all about connecting data sets across the Web. It can be viewed as a subset of the wider Semantic Web movement, which is about adding meaning to the Web. However, there is some confusion in the Semantic Web community about the crossover . To add to the confusion, there is a term called 'Open Data' that is being bandied around too. This commonly describes data that has been uploaded to the Web and is accessible to all, but isn't necessarily "linked" to other data sets. So what's the beef with all of these terms? In this post we seek clarity! Sponsor The Difference Between Open Data and Linked Data In the discussion over yesterday's post, a few people tweeted that the U.K. government's public data website Data.gov.uk is mostly populated with 'Open Data' and not 'Linked Data.' But what does that mean? It means that much of the data on the site is available to the public, but it doesn't link to other data sources on the Web. It could be data that has been uploaded in CSV format (i.e. spreadsheet data), which Sir Tim Berners-Lee said in an interview with me last year is a common occurrence with government departments. Or it could be data in another non-Web format. Screen from a Tim Berners-Lee presentation on Linked Data , circa 2008 Titti Cimmino put it nicely : Open Data is simply 'data on the web,' whereas Linked Data is a 'web of data.' However, the idea of Open Data is to turn it into Linked Data. As John S. Erickson pointed out , the first priority of Data.gov.uk (and its U.S. counterpart) is to publish lots of Open Data. The next step is to work towards linking it all up. This is already starting to happen. Answering a question I posed on Twitter, Kingsley Idehen confirmed that Data.gov.uk is currently a combination of Open Data and Linked Data. Linked Data and The Semantic Web So may we then suggest that the idea of Linked Data is to turn it into a Semantic Web? Or are they the same thing already? Lorna Campbell from the University of Strathclyde in Scotland tackled those and other questions in an excellent post earlier this month. She started by warning of the potential for another "holy war" about terminology. I won't delve into that in this post, however this excerpt from Campbell's post gives you a flavor of the terminology angst: "Some argue that RDF is integral to Linked Data, other suggest that while it may be desirable, use of RDF is optional rather than mandatory. Some reserve the capitalized term Linked Data for data that is based on RDF and SPARQL, preferring lower case "linked data", or "linkable data", for data that uses other technologies." Even Wikipedia can't define Semantic Web... Campbell quotes from a number of other articles, in trying to come to a conclusion about how Linked Data and the Semantic Web relate. Perhaps the best definition she found was this one by Paul Walk : data can be open , while not being linked data can be linked , while not being open data which is both open and linked is increasingly viable the Semantic Web can only function with data which is both open and linked " Why This Matters So there you have it, Linked Data is NOT the same as the Semantic Web. It's also not necessarily open, in other words accessible to developers. Whatever the definitions, the key points about all of Open Data, Linked Data and the Semantic Web, are: data is being uploaded to the Web that wasn't online before (e.g. much of the data on Data.gov.uk). structure is being added to the data using Linked Data and/or Semantic Web technologies. The bottom line is that the more data we have on the Web that is linked and has defined meaning, the smarter our web applications will be. This is why these activities are so exciting, despite the terminology confusion! Image credit: Semantic Web Rubik's Cube, dullhunk Discuss
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It's All Semantics: Open Data, Linked Data & The Semantic Web
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