The Semantic Web

The new CSV on the Web Working Group is an important step in that direction, following on the heels of efforts such as R2RML. It’s about providing metadata about CSV files, such as column headings, data types, and annotations, and, with it, making it easily possible to convert CSV into RDF (or other formats), easing data integration

In SMW 1.6.0, stores are required to accept updates and queries that do not specify a graph but it is planned to remove this limitation in the future.

The first line tells SMW to use the SPARQL store implementation to store data (instead of the SMWSQLStore2 that is the default). The remaining lines provide the relevant service locations, where the last line can be omitted if not applicable. By default, SMW will use a generic SPARQL connector that is based on recent SPARQL documents. Some RDF databases might not be fully compatible with this or might need special tweaks to make use of advanced, non-standard features. For this purpose, it is possible to change the SPARQL connector that SMW uses by setting the variable $smwgSparqlDatabase. In SMW 1.6.0, there is only one special connector:

$smwgSparqlDatabase = 'SMWSparqlDatabase4Store';

A transcript of a speech given by the Prime Minister on Building Britain’s Digital Future in London on 22 March 2010.

Underpinning the digital transformation that we are likely to see over the coming decade is the creation of the next generation of the web - what is called the semantic web, or the web of linked data. This next generation web is a simple concept, but I believe it has the potential to be just as revolutionary - just as disruptive to existing business and organisational models - as the web was itself, moving us from a web of managing documents and files to a web of managing data and information - and thus opening up the possibility of by-passing current digital bottlenecks and getting direct answers to direct requests for data and information. It will change fundamentally the way we conduct business - with new enterprises by-passing traditional media communications and governmental organisations: new enterprises spun off from the new data, information and knowledge that flows more freely. And in both the content and delivery of public services the next stage of the web will transform the ability of citizens to tailor the services they need to their requirements, to feedback constantly on their success, to interact with the professionals who deliver them and to put the citizen not the public servant in control. Today I can announce the first funding for the next stage of this research - £30m to support the creation of a new institute, the institute of web science - based here in Britain and working with government and British business to realise the social and economic benefits of advances in the web. It will assemble the best of world scientists and researchers and be headed by Sir Tim Berners Lee, the British inventor of the world wide web - and the leading web science expert Professor Nigel Shadbolt. This will help place the UK at the cutting edge of research on the semantic web and other emerging web and internet technologies, and ensure that government is taking the right funding decisions to position the UK as a world leader. And we will invite universities and private sector web developers and companies to join this collaborative project.

also looking at how the new technologies can open the door to a reinvention of the core policy-making processes and towards a renewal of politics itself.