‘THE NEXT 5000 DAYS OF THE WEB’ by Kevin Kelly. Parts three and four.

Kevin Kelly says, in these two parts of his whole speach ‘THE NEXT 5000 DAYS OF THE WEB’ that three important things arre going to happen to the web in the next 5000 days.
the FIRST ONE: the web is going to embody, which means that is going to take the shape of someting we can touch.
the SECOND ONE is the restructuration of the web itself. this means that every part of the web will be wirelessly conected, and all this will be very simple: you will be able to work with a computer and have access to all its complements at the same time: the microphones, the cameras, the cards.. all this things will be conected to the web.
the THIRD ONE is the idea to which the author gives more importance: he says that the web is going to suck up everything that is around it: we’re referring to mobile phones, television.. this way, people will be more and more dependent on it, and it will finally become something necessary in our daily lifes.

SPI (System for Palaeographic Inspections)

Palaeographic edition does not reproduce a text as an image, but tries to build it up accurately, giving information about the way it is written. This kind of editions have been done by hand until now that SPI (System for Palaeographic Inspections) has been given birth.

SPI makes easier and faster the palaeographic process. First of all we need to scan the original manuscript we will work on, and then we will have to separate the different writing items, the smallest signs into which the text is divided. We will then introduce some different examples of the same sign, found across the text, bacause the writing varies depending on some factors, it is not always the same, even if the person who writes wants to obtain the same results.

When we have saved some examples of the different signs found in the text, SPI will create a pattern of each sign, by comparing the examples we have given. This pattern will used by the program from now on to work on the text, and a kind of alphabet will be created.

SPI does now “know” the text we are working on, so we can use it if we need help. For example, if we are trying to translate the manuscript to a modern language and we are not able to understand a fragment, we only have to introduce it into the computer, and SPI, by comparing the patterns in its memory to the signs in the text, will show us percentages of similarity between both.

This image shows the working proccess of SPI:

REFERENCES

• Edition. (2009, December 11). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 17:03, December 17, 2009, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Edition&oldid=331097458
• A case study on the System for Paleographic Inspections (SPI): challenges and new developments (2009). Retrieved 16:44, December 17, 2009, from http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1659277
• SPI: A System for Paleographic Inspections (2009). In Universia. Retrieved 16:33, December 17, 2009, from http://biblioteca.universia.net/ficha.do?id=42069124

RSS

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is a family of web feed formats used to publish frequently updated works—such as blog entries, news headlines, audio, and video—in a standardized format. An RSS document  is called a “feed”, “web feed”, or “channel”, and it usually includes full or summarized text, plus metadata such as publishing dates and authorship.

Web feeds benefit both publishers and readers: publishers show their updates automatically, and the readers is always informed and can subscribe to timely updates.

RSS feeds can be read using software called an “RSS reader”, “feed reader”, or “aggregator“, which can be

-Web-based: is accessed via a web browser over a network such as the Internet or an intranet.

-Desktop-based: should be contrasted with system software (infrastructure) or middleware (computer services/ processes integrators), which is involved in integrating a computer’s various capabilities.

-Mobile-device-based: accesed by using a mobile phone with internet conexion; i does not need any kind of computer.

REFERENCES

• RSS. (2009, November 14). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 20:31, November 26, 20o9, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=RSS&oldid=336357652
• Web application. (2009, November 24). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 20:42, November 26, 2009, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Web_application&oldid=340531690
• Application software. (2009, November 25). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 20:46, November 26, 2009, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Application_software&oldid=340645127

National Library of Australia and Pandora

         The National Library of Australia is the most important one in the country. It provides all kind of documents and information on australian material and on non-australian as well. This library is cooperating with some other platforms that share the same goal, so as to provide more information.

        The origins of the National Library of Australia go back to the 1901, when the Commonwealth Parliamentary Library served both Federal Parliament and the nation. In 1927 it was moved from Melbourne to Canberra, where it’s located now. In 1960 the National Library as we know it nowadays was born, since it was separated from the Parliamentary Library, and a new building was constructed for it.

        It’s web page is very complete and useful, as it offers different ways of helping the user:

• Chatting live with a librarian, from Monday to Friday, at 10.00 am – 7.00 pm.
• Making a reference enquiry: enquiries can be sent online or by post, and they’ll be reponsed within one week.
• Phoning +61 (02) 62621266. The phoning service is available from Monday to Saturday (9.00am to 5.00pm)

        Apart from all this services, in its web page we can access to different cultural manifestations. It contains a link to Music Australia, Australia Dancing, Picture Australia, etc. And its calendar can direct us to exhibitions and other conventions that are taking place in the National Library.

The National Library of Australia is strongly conected with PANDORA (Preserving and Accessing Networked Documentary Resources of Australia), which collects selected australian web resources, preserves them, and makes them available to everybody, through Pandora web site. 

        Pandora was created by the National Lybrary of Australia in 1996, and it colaborates now with some other state libraries and cultural collecting organisations.

 REFERENCES

• National Library of Australia. (2009, October 25). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 13:30, November 3, 2009, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=National_Library_of_Australia&oldid=321976063
• National Library Of Australia (oficial web page. 2009). Retrieved 14:35, November 3, 2009, from http://www.nla.gov.au/
• PANDORA. Australia’s web archive (2009). Retrieved 14:37, November 3, 2009, from http://pandora.nla.gov.au/
• National Library of Australia (2009) in Recbib. Retrieved 14:40, November 3, 2009, from http://www.recbib.es/book/national-library-australia

Markup Language (ML)

According to Wikipedia, <<a Markup Language is a system for annotating a text in a way which is syntactically distinguishable from that text>>. Markup texts contain specifications on the text with regards to the  code for formatting; the way the content is presented, and not only the information itself.

A kind of Markup languages has been used long before computers were created: the “markup men” or “copy markers” used to add handwritten anotations in the text with a blue pencil so as to make clear how it had to be written. This short indications referred to the typeface, style and size that had to be applied to each part of the text.

The best-known example of Markup language is Hypertext (HTML= HyperTextMarkup Language), which is the predominant markup language for web pages.

In the image, an example of markup text.

Markup language has been proved to offer lots of utilities in different fields. For example, in music: it can be used to “describe” music in a digital language. Music Markup Language (MML) can show its notation and also how it should be performed (as in the normal text ML indicates how it should be written).

REFERENCES

• Markup language. (2009, October 20). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 17:26, October 24, 2009, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Markup_language&oldid=339363012
• Markup language (2007, June 26). In Webopedia. Retrieved 17:33, October 24, 2009, from http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/m/markup_language.html
• HTML. (2009, October 23). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 17:27, October 24, 2009, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=HTML&oldid=340497943
• Music Markup Language (2000). Retrieved 18:24, October 24, 2009, from http://www.musicmarkup.info/

eBook

        The term eBook can lead to confusion as when using it we can refer to two different things:

1. The term eBook to name thegadget digital used to support and read digital information, such as books, brochures, etc. Ex. Kindle eBook.

2. The term eBook used when refering to the pieces of information and works themselves. Ex. Romeo and Juliet eBook would be Romeo and Juliet play digitalised.

        When referring to eBooks we’ll make reference to the first sense of the word. Lots of gadgets can be used as an electronic book (computer, PDA, laptop, mobile phone…) they only have to own a screen and a memory. But eBooks (devices which only function was supporting digital books) first appeared in the XXI century.

        Their most eye-catching characteristic is that their design tries to emulate the one of traditional books. As a consecuence of that, eBook screens have to be big enough so as to show traditional documents, an must also have to count on a lot of contrast so as the writings can be seen in the daylight. Apart from the screen features, the whole gadget must be similar in shape to the traditional book so as to hold it comfortably. A long-life battery is important too.

        Some examples of eBooks that are being comercialized now:  iLiad (made by iRex; its the first gadget comercialized in Spain since 2006), Reader from Sony, HanLin V3, STAReBOOK STK-101, Bookeen Cybook and now Kindle, by Amazon.

        There are a lot of different opinions on the utility of this device, compared to the traditional book. Jose Antonio Millán has created a blog article in his page web, where he analizes all the supposed properties of the eBook. In his conclusion, he expresses his disconcert: ‘what exactly do e-books sell? capacity and portability? inmediate access to impulsive buying? saving for people who read a lot? interaction between user groups?…‘

        On the contrary, Mike Elgan in computerworld seems to be optimistic about digital books (works) but not so about eBook devices themselves: ‘I believe that cell phones will quickly outpace the dedicated e-book readers, including the Kindle, as the platform of choice for e-book readers. Leading the pack? The iPhone, ironically’.

 

REFERENCES

• E-book. (2009, October 11). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 14:50, October 13, 2009, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=E-book&oldid=319241552
• ‘El polimorfo libro electrónico’ (2008, June 15). By Jose Antonio Millán. Retrieved 20:46, October 8, 2009, from http://jamillan.com/librosybitios/polimorfo.htm#arriba
• ‘Here comes the e-book revolution’ (2009, February 7). By Mike Elgan. Retrieved 21:01, October 8, 2009, from http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9127538/Elgan_Here_comes_the_e_book_revolution

Rafael Sánchez Ferlosio

        Rafael Sánchez Ferlosio (Rome, 4th December, 1927) is a spanish writer and essayist, considered one of the bests authors of the spanish narrative in the 50′s. He has been a member of the Círculo Lingüístico de Madrid and has won a Cervantes Prize. He is centred in the realistic and fantastic literature. 

        His first work was ‘Industrias y andanzas de Alfanhuí‘ (1951). This fantastic novel is about a child who creates an unintelligible alphabet and imagines his own reality. This new world is far different from the real one, and rules and punishment don’t exist inside it.

        ‘El Jarama‘(1955)  is one of the most important novels on the postwar period, and could be considered his most important work. In it, he develops his realistic facet, confronted with the fantastic view given in  ’Industrias y andanzas de Alfanhuí’. In ‘El Jarama‘, Sánchez Ferlosio narrates sixteen hours of a group of friends life. At the end of the day, something unexpected breaks the routine that dominated the plot: one of the girls in the group drowns in the river Jarama. This incident puts an end to the monotony of the novel up to this moment, and it makes the reader think of how unstable and fragile life is, and how easily life can break our schemes and interrupt our calm.

        Apart from this very important novels, Ferlosio has also written some tales, such as ‘Y el corazón caliente’ (1961) and ‘Dientes, pólvora, febrero’ (1961). He abandoned the novelistic genre for a while, so as to concentrate on his essays. His first one was ’Personas y animales en una fiesta de bautizo’ (1966).

        Later on, his come back to the novel was testified by ‘El testimonio de Yarfoz‘ (1986).

 

        Rafael Sánchez Ferlosio is against the intellectual property. He defends that a good author, when writing, is deciding when he wants to work, where, and on which subject, and he is paid for that. To him, the aim of a good writer is to expand his knowledge and opinion as far as possible and not to collect as much money as he can. He does not agree with the CEDRO cooperative, as to him it is only seeking economical benefits.

 

REFERENCES

• ‘El autor y la autoría en el mundo digital’ (2009, February, 15). Retrieved 17:33, October 1, 2009 from http://artesadigital.blogspot.com/2009/02/el-autor-y-la-autoria-en-el-mundo.html
• Rafael Sánchez Ferlosio (2009, September, 21) in Wikipedia, The free enciclopedia. Retrieved 17:23, October 5, 2009 from http://es.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rafael_S%C3%A1nchez_Ferlosio&oldid=29913979.
  http://es.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Especial:Citar&page=Rafael_S%C3%A1nchez_Ferlosio&id=29913979
• Rafael Sánchez Ferlosio. Retrieved 17:32, October 5, 2009 from http://www.epdlp.com/escritor.php?id=2265
• Rafael Sánchez Ferlosio on Ediciones Destino. Retrieved 18:03, October 5, 2009 from  http://www.edestino.es/FichaAutor.aspx?IdPack=3&IdPildora=EXT32

18th century and the French Encyclopedia

In the 18th century the middle class started to grow. People who belonged to this new class used to be wealthy and to spend their free time (most of it) on leisure activities.

Reading was a common way of spending the time, and quickly, the literature science became important in the society of the times. Middle class people used to spent their money on buying books or on protecting the authors so as they could keep on with their works.

The French Encyclopedia was created in these times, so as to make people aware of the concepts and ideas that the Enlightment had brought. It was created by Denis Diderot and Jean Le Rond d’Alambert, and made up of 17 volumes.

Apart of the encyclopedia and the books of the times, in the 18th century some periodicals were born: The Tatler and The Spectator were the most important.

________________________________________________________

En el siglo 18 la clase burguesa comenzó a crecer, convirtiéndose en la clase más influyente del momento. La gente perteneciente a la burguesía era rica y poderosa, y dedicaba su tiempo libre (la mayor parte) a actividades de ocio.

Leer era una de las actividades de ocio más comunes, y rápidamente la literatura se convirtió en el fenómeno cultural más importante del siglo. Los burgueses utilizaban su riqueza para adquirir volúmenes y proteger a los autores de modo que pudieran progeguir con sus trabajos (mecenazgo).

La Enciclopedia Francesa fue creada en éste siglo, para permitir a la gente empaparse de los conceptos e ideas que la Ilustración había traído. Sus autores fueron Denis Diderot y Jean Le Rond d’Alambert, y estaba formada por 17 volúmenes.

Aparte de las publicaciones mencionadas, el s.18 fue también el marco de las primeras publicaciones periódicas.  ‘The Tatler’ y ‘The Spectator’ son los ejemplos más importantes.

QUESTION ANSWERING (Q3)

        Question Answering (QA) system is a way of information retrieval by means of computing. It requires more complex natural language processing (NLP) techniques than other types of information retrieval such as information extraction.

        In the 1960s the first two QA systems were developped: LUNAR (it answered questions about the geological analysis of rocks returned by the Apollo moon missions) and BASEBALL (it answered questions about the US baseball league).

        A posed question in natural language (easily understandable) is answered by a machine. It retrieves the information in two different ways:

- By looking it up in a pre-structured database that lies inside it or a collection of articles that are also inside the system.

- By searching in a very open web, like the world wide web.

        The posed questions can belong to an open-domain (can refer to nearly everything) or to a closed-domain (refer to a specific subject, such as medicine or flowers, for example). The system looks for the answer by analysing the words of the question (key-word based techniques); but in some cases this way of finding the correct answer is not enough, and here different and complicated methods will be used: These techniques might include named-entity recognition, relation detection, coreference resolution, syntactic alternations, word sense disambiguation, logic form transformation, logical inferences (abduction) and commonsense reasoning, temporal or spatial reasoning…

          Ryan McCabe (University of Massachusetts, Amherst) and M. Chase Smith (Amherst College) have created a Question Answer web page, that explains the techniques used, its history, and  so much interesting information about QA.

       Some interesting QA systems are the ones that follow:

• Answers.com : it is a well-known open-domain QA system
• Ask.com: when a question is posed, this QA system redirects you to several pages that contain some of the items you asked on, so it works as a searcher more than as an advanced QA page.
• Semote: it also redirects the answerer to some different issues found on the internet when a question is posed, but the results are very accurated.
• Qualim: works the same way as Semote.
• Anna (in IKEA): it is a closed-domain QA that brings the answerer to the correct section, where what he/she needs can be found.

 

REFERENCES

- Question answering. (2009, June 13). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 19:00, June 21, 2009, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Question_answering&oldid=296213100

- Question Answering. By Ryan McCabe (University of Massachusetts, Amherst) and M. Chase Smith (Amherst College). Retrieved 19:11, June 21, 2009, from http://ciir.cs.umass.edu/REU/2000/REUpres/QAFinal_files/frame.htm

- Learning surface text patterns for a Question Answering system (2001). Written by Deepak Ravichandran (University of Southern California, Marina del Rey, CA) and Eduard Hovy (University of Southern California, Marina del Rey, CA. Retrieved 20:22, June 21, 2009, from http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1073092

- The TREC-8 question answering track report. By Ellen M. Voorhees (National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg). Retrieved 20:36, June 21, 209, from http://66.102.1.104/scholar?hl=es&lr=&q=cache:eGBdGvbpDh4J:citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download%3Fdoi%3D10.1.1.38.6392%26rep%3Drep1%26type%3Dpdf+question+answering

MACHINE-AIDED HUMAN TRANSLATION AND MACHINE TRANSLATION (Q2 and Q3)

       In the 17 th century and thanks to René Descartes, who thought about connecting two words in different languages to a unique symbol, and later in the 20 th century with the development of the Georgetown experiment; the translation issue was born.

        Machine Translation (MT) is used to translate texts from one language to another. This process is put into practise by means of a machine, there is no human translation, only in the creation of the machine: the translator will be ‘taught’ the connection existent between a universal symbol and its transcription in different languages. This task is complicated due to the ambiguity of human languages.

        Some important examples of machine translation are: Lucy, Systran, ProMT, OpenTrad, Google translate, Yahoo! Babel fish…

       If  Machine Translation is carried out by a machine, altough some human aid does exist in the programming of the translator and in the preediting and postediting, Machine-Aided Human Translation (MAHT)  is the opposite way. In MAHT, also called Computer-Aided Translation(CAT), a human performs the translation, with the support offered by computer tools.

        Three types of MAHT do exist, according to the different type of users:

• Specific Software Environments designed for Professional Translators Working In Teams: it is the case of competent translators working in teams and connected with a local network. They count on workstations which offer them tools (integrated in the text processor)to access a bilingual terminology and a translation memory and to submit parts ot the text to an MT server. These tools the professional translators use are: Trados (MultiTerm), IBM (Translation Manager),  SITE-EuroLang (EuroLang Optimizer).
• Environments for Independent Professional Translators: translators are freelance and they are asked to present the translate text in the same format of the source documents. They use tools such as: Mercury/Termex  by LinguaTech, a resident program for PCs, and WinTool.
• Tools for Occasional Translators: they are helped by dictionaries, conjugators, style checkers… they don’t work with translation memory. Tools: SISKEP, Ambassador by Language Engineering.

 

REFERENCES

- Machine translation. (2009, May 16). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 17:20, May 19, 2009, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Machine_translation&oldid=295950237

- ‘Machine-aided Human Translation’  by Christian Boitet, Université Joseph Fourier, Grenoble, France. Retrieved 17: 34, May 19, 2009, from http://cslu.cse.ogi.edu/HLTsurvey/ch8node6.html

-  ‘Machine Translation: The Disappointing Past and Present’ by Martin Kay, Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, Palo Alto, California, USA. Retrieved 17:37,May19,2009,from  http://cslu.cse.ogi.edu/HLTsurvey/ch8node4.html#SECTION82

- Computer-assisted translation. (2009, May 1). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 17:39, May 19, 2009, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Computer-assisted_translation&oldid=294759999