Berners-Lee Pushes Linked Data In MIT Course

ErMKutz writes "WWW inventor Tim Berners-Lee is championing linked data — the idea of assigning web addresses to individual pieces of data to enable more intelligent information searches — much like he did now-ubiquitous Internet standards such as HTML and HTTP. But the ethic hasn't quite taken off yet, so he and a group of Boston tech and entrepreneurial all-stars are launching an MIT class to teach students linked data mechanics and fast-track the technology to market. They're combining engineering and entrepreneurial education in the hopes of launching viable linked data businesses or open source code at the conclusion of the course." I hope this shows up on OpenCourseWare.

Comments

Linked Data #1

[OzPeter]

So how do they connect

Re:Linked Data #1

[chromas]

Score: 5, [404 Not Found. The score modifier you have requested could not be located by the server. Additionally, a 404 error was encountered while attempting to process the error template.]

Linked data #2

[OzPeter]

Chunks of data that are

Linked data #3

[OzPeter]

apparently related?

Re:Linked data #3

[fregaham]

_:x rdf:first http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1688594&cid=32595536 .
_:x rdf:rest _:y .
_:y rdf:first http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1688594&cid=32595554 .
_:y rdf:rest _:z .
_:z rdf:first http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1688594&cid=32595572 .
_:z rdf:rest rdf:nil .

Re:something like deep linking?

[bsDaemon]

It sounds like it's more related to this TED talk, rather than skipping over a "content provider's" "branding" to "steal" their "content". The model would likely require a more active sense of purpose towards participation and making the data available, rather than having stuff online and some random person linking to it without "permission"

Dangers of linking

[Anonymous Coward]

There are inherent dangers of this level of linkage. One week,
person clicks link X: "We are at war with eurasia",
next week, clicks the same link "We were never at war with eurasia".

No one else see this? Archiving all information on the internet is one thing, but singularly cataloging and tagging every piece of information so that it can be accessed so easily is....well, dangerous.
While the irony of posting this on the internet is not lost on me, where all the collective information of mankind is at my fingertips, it just chills me to the bone to think that one day, phrases like "due process" and "freedom of speech" could be changed so easily.

Grumble.

[goodmanj]

As a college professor, I believe that the primary goal of a class should not be to advance your personal agenda. Feel free to share your opinions with your students, but your primary purpose is to inform and inspire, not to brainwash.

I'm clearly in the minority on this one.

Re:I just don't see...

[newcastlejon]

This latest effort strikes me as a less ambitious version of the semantic web, and we may have seen a glimpse of it in Wolfram Alpha. Wolfram's ego aside Alpha does have merit and if the state of the art can advance as far as finding context in the written word then it's a damned good start; recognising faces and locales appears comparitively simple.

Call me a cynic if you want, but I strongly doubt that people in general will manually tag and classify their photos, movies, songs etc. This doubt seems ever more justified as the rate at which we accumulate personal data increases.