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<HTML>
<HEAD>
  <TITLE>Smart XML for the Semantic Web</TITLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY>
<H1>
  Seeds of the Semantic Web
</H1>
<P>
<A HREF="../../../People/Connolly/">Dan Connolly</A>,
<A HREF="../../../">W3C</A>
<P>
<A HREF="http://www.ala.org/events/mw2000/">ALA Midwinter Meeting
2000</A><BR>
January 2000, San Antonio, TX
<H1>
  Overview
</H1>
<UL>
  <LI>
    Where we are: on the verge of another revolution
  <LI>
    Where we came from: history and motivation
  <LI>
    Where we're going: opportunities and challenges
</UL>
<H1>
  The Revolutions
</H1>
<UL>
  <LI>
    The HTML Revolution: shared information space
  <LI>
    The XML Revolution: culture of open exchange
  <LI>
    The RDF Revolution: rise of the Semantic Web
</UL>
<H1>
  The HTML Revolution: Hypertext Goes Global
</H1>
<UL>
  <LI>
    1945: Bush imagines the ultimate research tool
  <LI>
    1970s: NLS, KMS, ... amazing research prototypes failed to 'cross the chasm'
    of deployment
  <LI>
    1990: TimBL develops a minimal hypertext system for the Internet
    <UL>
      <LI>
	Web explodes out of a critical mass of content, connectivity
      <LI>
	No more need to "imagine a world of connected information..."
    </UL>
</UL>
<H1>
  The XML Revolution: Plans
</H1>
<P>
Shared costs:
<UL>
  <LI>
    Development, Debugging
    <UL>
      <LI>
	no "bit tweezers"; helps the "desperate perl hacker"
      <LI>
	Structured Text: the critical features of SGML at a fraction of the cost
      <LI>
	Internationalized text
    </UL>
  <LI>
    Education, Training
  <LI>
    Basis for higher-level agreements
</UL>
<H1>
  The XML Revolution: Plans (cont.)
</H1>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
  XML is the ASCII of the future.
  <ADDRESS>
    --Tim Bray<BR>
    <A href="http://www.gca.org/memonly/xmlfiles/issue10/ice.htm">XML Files,
    Oct 1998</A>
  </ADDRESS>
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<P>
XML is a simple data format that balances the needs of people to read/write
data with needs of machine to read/write data.
<H1>
  The XML Revolution: Hopes
</H1>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
  I want my data back.
  <ADDRESS>
    --Jon Bosak
  </ADDRESS>
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<UL>
  <LI>
    Self describing: DTDs, Schemas, Namespaces
  <LI>
    Decentralize from HTML to community markup
  <LI>
    Culture of Open Exchange
</UL>
<H1>
  Stepping Back...
</H1>
<H1>
  Origin and Goals of the Web
</H1>
<OL>
  <LI>
    Human communication thru shared knowledge<BR>
    Working together: Social efficiency, understanding and scaling
  <LI>
    Exploitation of computing power in real life
</OL>
<H1>
  Why W3C?
</H1>
<P>
Leading the Web to its Full Potential
<UL>
  <LI>
    Foster Evolution
  <LI>
    Preserve Interoperability
</UL>
<H1>
  About W3C
</H1>
<UL>
  <LI>
    Founded Fall '94
  <LI>
    350+ Members
  <LI>
    Director, staff
  <LI>
    One International Consortium, 3 Hosts:
    <UL>
      <LI>
	MIT in Cambridge, MA
      <LI>
	INRIA in Sophia-Antipolis, France
      <LI>
	Keio in Tokyo, Japan
    </UL>
</UL>
<H1>
  W3C Activities: What We Do
</H1>
<UL>
  <LI>
    User Interface Domain<BR>
    HTML, Stylesheets, Internationalization, ...
  <LI>
    Technology and Society<BR>
    PICS, Metadata, Security, E-Commerce, ...
  <LI>
    Architecture<BR>
    HTTP, HTTP-NG, XML, SMIL, ...
  <LI>
    Web Accessability Initiative (WAI) Guidelines, Outreach, Technical review,
    ...
</UL>
<H1>
  W3C Process: How We Work
</H1>
<UL>
  <LI>
    Advisory Committee
  <LI>
    Working Groups
  <LI>
    Specification Development:<BR>
    Note, Working Draft, Proposed Recommendation, Recommendation
  <LI>
    Submissions
  <LI>
    Workshops, Symposia
</UL>
<P>
See also: <A href="http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Process/">W3C Process</A>
<H1>
  Looking Ahead...
</H1>
<H1>
  XML in a Nutshell
</H1>
<P>
XML balances the needs of people to read/write data with needs of machine
to read/write data.
<PRE>&lt;elementName attributeName="value"&gt;<BR> &lt;empty /&gt;
&lt;/elementName&gt;
</PRE>
<H1>
  Stupid Data
</H1>
<PRE>&lt;product&gt;
 &lt;description&gt;Blue Widget&lt;/description&gt;
 &lt;price&gt;1.25&lt;/price&gt;
 &lt;size&gt;4&lt;/size&gt;
&lt;/product&gt;
</PRE>
<P>
What's wrong with this picture?
<H1>
  Why Stupid Data Hurts
</H1>
<UL>
  <LI>
    Price: 1.25 what? Dollars? Pesos?<BR>
    similarly for size
  <LI>
    Unclear relation to commerce, contracts and law:
    <UL>
      <LI>
	obligation to honor that price? for how long?
      <LI>
	liability for accuracy of description?
    </UL>
</UL>
<H1>
  Grounding Terms in the Web
</H1>
<PRE>&lt;product
   xmlns:w="http://www.acme.com/2000/specs"
   xmlns="http://www.ali.org/1992/commercial-code"&gt; &lt;!--*--&gt;
 &lt;description&gt;Blue Widget&lt;/description&gt;
 &lt;price currency="USD"&gt;1.25&lt;/price&gt;
 &lt;w:size&gt;4&lt;/w:size&gt;
&lt;/product&gt;
</PRE>
<P>
* The American Law Institute hasn't published the Uniform Commercial Code
on the web, but the
<A HREF="http://www.law.cornell.edu/ucc/ucc.table.html">Cornell Legal Information
Institute</A> published a
<A HREF="http://www.law.cornell.edu/ucc/ucc.table.html">hypertext version</A>.
<H1>
  Stupid Database Exchange: Travel
</H1>
<UL>
  <LI>
    Airline sends me email from their database
  <LI>
    I copy/paste each of the data into my PDA
</UL>
<P>
What's wrong with this picture?
<H1>
  Really Smart Data: RDF
</H1>
<PRE>&lt;color&gt;blue&lt;/color&gt;

&lt;specific-gravity&gt;4.5&lt;/specific-gravity&gt;
</PRE>
<P>
you know what that means... sort of.
<H1>
  RDF: Knowledge Primitives
</H1>
<PRE>&lt;substance&gt;<BR>  &lt;atomic-number&gt;54&lt;/atomic-number&gt;<BR>  &lt;specific-gravity&gt;4.5&lt;/specific-gravity&gt;<BR>&lt;/substance&gt;
</PRE>
<UL>
  <LI>
    Some resource is of type substance.
  <LI>
    That resource has atomic-number 54.
  <LI>
    That resource has specific gravity 4.5.
  <LI>
    A substance has atomic number 54, and has specific gravity 4.5.
</UL>
<H1>
  RDF: Graph Merging
</H1>
<PRE>&lt;PDA:event&gt;<BR>  &lt;dc:coverage&gt;2000-01-15&lt;/dc:coverage&gt;<BR>  &lt;pda:import href="http://movies.yahoo.com/showtimes?show=23ou209"/&gt;
&lt;/PDA:event&gt;

&lt;movie about="http://movies.yahoo.com/showtimes?show=23ou209"&gt;
 &lt;dc:coverage&gt;2000-01-15T2300Z&lt;/dc:coverage&gt;
 &lt;dc:title&gt;Life is Beautiful&lt;/dc:title&gt;<BR> &lt;ucc:price currency="USD"&gt;7.50&lt;/ucc:price&gt;
&lt;/movie&gt;
</PRE>
<H1>
  Knowledge of Communities Large and Small
</H1>
<P>
I want my machine to understand about...
<UL>
  <LI>
    Internet Standards
  <LI>
    International trade agreements
  <LI>
    Credit Card agreements
  <LI>
    Local cinema schedules
  <LI>
    Little league schedules
  <LI>
    my plans for the day
</UL>
<P>
<A HREF="notes.html">notes</A>
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