While the concept of Web3.0 is gaining voices, the actor Metaweb, one of the pioneers in the field of organizing the Web in a more semantic sort of way has just joined Google.
This is quite thrilling news, for Metaweb goes beyond simple tagging and the ever growing problem of how tags are related to the thing they are describing. To get a clear idea, simply watch this very simple and clear movie:
If you are interested, you can join the freebase community that is part of Metaweb. Through Freebase users can add content to the open database, creating entities. Although I signed up as a member, the registering process had a glitch in Firefox at first, I could access it through Internet Explorer. When I tried a bit later, Firefox was working ok as well for accessing Freebase.
There is not much on education yet, so I made myself part of that group and started looking around. If Metaweb keeps growing, Google might be nearing the semantic web, very curious on how it will work out. At the moment it is very USA oriented, but it might catch on globally as Google has encapsulated them. Anyway it is an interesting idea.
Friday, 30 July 2010
Wednesday, 28 July 2010
Free book on the Future of Reputation on the Web and the importance of Understanding Privacy
Daniel Solove has written a new book on the Internet and Privacy, it is called: "Understanding privacy" (yes, not a catchy, but indeed a very clear title). This book is not for free, but the one mentioned below is.
In this world where privacy is challenged by every imaginable company (and government), the tendency is that privacy should no longer matter for everything is out in the open anyway. However I feel that privacy is very important and needs to be safeguarded, yet at the same time I love the open and sharing principle of the current knowledge age.
To me privacy has two main faces: one the personal bio-data that is increasingly gathered everywhere and two: the increased sharing of digital content. In both cases you can buy a book about it :-) or simply discuss it.
Personal data privacy
Just recently Europe agreed that all the fingerprints, DNA and license plate numbers will be shared across all the European countries from 2011 onwards (I caught this from the Fantastic Karin Spaink - a Dutch activist that has done amazing work on both gender and privacy issues, she wrote a piece (in Dutch) on 'Oh Brave New World'). An excerpt of the European legislation concerning privacy and personal data can be read in Scribd here, you must scroll down one page, the first page is blanco.
When I went to USA last month, I also needed to give my fingerprints (all of them), the iris of my eye got recorded... and it simply does not feel right. It does not feel right because all these facts scream 'no freedom'. Just imagine Hitler would have had access to a complete personal data base? It would have been so easy to filter out all the homosexuals, the Jews, the Roma... and none of these groups would have done anything wrong... in short, I would have been deported for sure.
Well, anyway, I have ordered the above mentioned book, for I have read Daniel Solove before and I want to know more, and get a better understanding of the overall effects this shift in privacy has on this so called 'open and social age'.
Digital content privacy
The book mentioned underneath is still available for free and very relevant for the Internet age.
Digital content creation is of course really great! But what with the trail of information that is left by each and everyone of us?
Surf to The Future of Reputation by Daniel Solove published by Yale University Press in October 2007 and get into the dark side of the Web...
Although the book was written three years ago (before the big social media boom), it is increasingly valuable. Or to boldly state what Amazon wrote about the book: Teeming with chatrooms, online discussion groups, and blogs, the Internet offers previously unimagined opportunities for personal expression and communication. But there’s a dark side to the story. A trail of information fragments about us is forever preserved on the Internet, instantly available in a Google search. A permanent chronicle of our private lives—often of dubious reliability and sometimes totally false—will follow us wherever we go, accessible to friends, strangers, dates, employers, neighbors, relatives, and anyone else who cares to look. This engrossing book, brimming with amazing examples of gossip, slander, and rumor on the Internet, explores the profound implications of the online collision between free speech and privacy.
Daniel Solove, an authority on information privacy law, offers a fascinating account of how the Internet is transforming gossip, the way we shame others, and our ability to protect our own reputations. Focusing on blogs, Internet communities, cybermobs, and other current trends, he shows that, ironically, the unconstrained flow of information on the Internet may impede opportunities for self-development and freedom. Long-standing notions of privacy need review, the author contends: unless we establish a balance between privacy and free speech, we may discover that the freedom of the Internet makes us less free.
This is a great book to (re)read as some governments and schools are still not taking into account the full scope of digital content distribution and use. Privacy is no longer something we can guarantee, not for ourselves, not for our friends, not for young people. And although many of us applaud using social media to distribute content and share or discuss with others, there is always a possibility that the content that is published is used for the wrong purposes. That is okay, as long as you - as a person - knows where to put yourself and the information you share in this global knowledge world.
In this world where privacy is challenged by every imaginable company (and government), the tendency is that privacy should no longer matter for everything is out in the open anyway. However I feel that privacy is very important and needs to be safeguarded, yet at the same time I love the open and sharing principle of the current knowledge age.
To me privacy has two main faces: one the personal bio-data that is increasingly gathered everywhere and two: the increased sharing of digital content. In both cases you can buy a book about it :-) or simply discuss it.
Personal data privacy
Just recently Europe agreed that all the fingerprints, DNA and license plate numbers will be shared across all the European countries from 2011 onwards (I caught this from the Fantastic Karin Spaink - a Dutch activist that has done amazing work on both gender and privacy issues, she wrote a piece (in Dutch) on 'Oh Brave New World'). An excerpt of the European legislation concerning privacy and personal data can be read in Scribd here, you must scroll down one page, the first page is blanco.
When I went to USA last month, I also needed to give my fingerprints (all of them), the iris of my eye got recorded... and it simply does not feel right. It does not feel right because all these facts scream 'no freedom'. Just imagine Hitler would have had access to a complete personal data base? It would have been so easy to filter out all the homosexuals, the Jews, the Roma... and none of these groups would have done anything wrong... in short, I would have been deported for sure.
Well, anyway, I have ordered the above mentioned book, for I have read Daniel Solove before and I want to know more, and get a better understanding of the overall effects this shift in privacy has on this so called 'open and social age'.
Digital content privacy
The book mentioned underneath is still available for free and very relevant for the Internet age.
Digital content creation is of course really great! But what with the trail of information that is left by each and everyone of us?
Surf to The Future of Reputation by Daniel Solove published by Yale University Press in October 2007 and get into the dark side of the Web...
Although the book was written three years ago (before the big social media boom), it is increasingly valuable. Or to boldly state what Amazon wrote about the book: Teeming with chatrooms, online discussion groups, and blogs, the Internet offers previously unimagined opportunities for personal expression and communication. But there’s a dark side to the story. A trail of information fragments about us is forever preserved on the Internet, instantly available in a Google search. A permanent chronicle of our private lives—often of dubious reliability and sometimes totally false—will follow us wherever we go, accessible to friends, strangers, dates, employers, neighbors, relatives, and anyone else who cares to look. This engrossing book, brimming with amazing examples of gossip, slander, and rumor on the Internet, explores the profound implications of the online collision between free speech and privacy.
Daniel Solove, an authority on information privacy law, offers a fascinating account of how the Internet is transforming gossip, the way we shame others, and our ability to protect our own reputations. Focusing on blogs, Internet communities, cybermobs, and other current trends, he shows that, ironically, the unconstrained flow of information on the Internet may impede opportunities for self-development and freedom. Long-standing notions of privacy need review, the author contends: unless we establish a balance between privacy and free speech, we may discover that the freedom of the Internet makes us less free.
This is a great book to (re)read as some governments and schools are still not taking into account the full scope of digital content distribution and use. Privacy is no longer something we can guarantee, not for ourselves, not for our friends, not for young people. And although many of us applaud using social media to distribute content and share or discuss with others, there is always a possibility that the content that is published is used for the wrong purposes. That is okay, as long as you - as a person - knows where to put yourself and the information you share in this global knowledge world.
Tuesday, 27 July 2010
Wonder wheel from google for learning
Back from an invigorating and wonderful vacation (while writing papers), aaaaahhhh super.
To start of my blogposts, I thought I would keep it simple. When writing for the Master course I am following (master in distance education), I started to use Google's wonder wheel, and what a wonderful search option this is.
Wonder wheel works easy, some quick steps:
- you type in a concept word ('eLearning', 'constructivist'...) in Google search engine;
- you click on the 'wonder wheel' option in the left menu bar;
- and the window gets a new look, with a wonder wheel that indicates related concepts on the left side of the screen and the traditional google text search results on the right side.
- when you click on one of the options in the wonder wheel, another wheel pops-up with again the concepts related to the link you have chosen. Additionally the search options also change in the traditional search text on the right side of the screen.
Why do I like it? It is a bit more semantic, it works with more visually organized links, simple and neat. If you have not tried it, give it a go.