TechAddress

Reuters Leading the Semantic Web Charge

Wed, 24 Sep 2008 18:40:13 +0000

The ever popular HOT or NOT has unleashed several new features with the hope of adding more spice to their service with a greater focus on celebrity photos and gossip. All of the traditional meat market features like rating member photos are still there, they just added a whole bunch of new things to rank and rate.

HOT or NOT Gossip does exactly that, it covers all of the latest hot and juicy celebrity gossip. Not only that, members can now vote on the “hotness” or “notness” of celebrities.

Another fun new item is the Celebrity Look-A-Likes feature which lets you view celebrities that resemble each other such as the example below of Sarah Palin and Tina Fey.

The nice thing about Look-a-likes is that it isn’t relegated to just comparing celebrities. Other things are examined such as this eerily similar Ad campaign.

HOT or NOT Polls is a new feature that will let members rate candidates from popular shows and current events on a 1-10 “hot scale.” For example, athletes from the 2008 Olympics would have been featured in this area. Obviously, political figures will see a great deal of action in the coming weeks. The results of the polls will be updated on a daily basis.

The HOTLIST feature seems to be the best and most useful new addition to the service. It lets you share your interests with the HOT or NOT community by rating and sharing what you think is hot in pop culture (Celebrities, Products, Gadgets, Food, etc.). It’s a visual collection of all the things you like most, which reveals a lot about people.

You can show off your interests on your profile and even add them to your favorite sites (MySpace, Bebo, Xanga, etc.) via embeddable widgets.

Overall, HOT or NOT has added some fun and even useful features this time around and even changed their logo. Of course, many of their best features aren’t accessible in the free account version. If you want to contact any of these hotties then you’ll need to pony up a few bucks to upgrade to one of their premium accounts. Otherwise, the service is still a fun place to visit for a few laughs.

Source:Mashable!

With all of the information coming from Reuters the past two days, it has become obvious that Reuters is leading the Semantic Web charge. Gasp! Reuters is an “old media” company, right? We also hear today that they have decided to monetize it as well! Obviously, they do not understand how this Web 2.0 thing works, and maybe that is a good thing. They have announced commercial options for the Calais service in order to support the demands of enterprises and major publishers. The various options of Calais break down as follows:

- OpenCalais - the free Calais Web service that has an open API. Users of the service can request 40,000 content transactions per day and a limit of 4 per second. Information and resources can be found at OpenCalais.com

- Calais Professional - is the same service as OpenCalais, but provides more transactions and 24×7 monitoring. The daily transaction count is increased to a maximum of 100,000 and a limit of 20 per second. Additional transactions can also be purchased.

- Calais Professional for Publishers - is the professional option for large scale publishers. It also has an option to purchase the service as an annual contract.

- Calais Enterprise - is the “enterprise software” version of Calais. Enterprises can install a customized version of Calais within the enterprise’s IT infrastructure. In addition to the functionality provided by the above options, enterprise users can create their own entities and relations in order to add information to the metadata that is generated by Calais.

Of course, this news is right on the heels of the public launch of SemanticProxy.com. What Reuters has done is converted Semantic Web concepts into enterprise ready software. Given the struggles that semantic Web companies have in gaining user adoption, an old media company may be forcibly mainstreaming the technology. Paul Miller of ZDNet gives a good idea of what SemanticProxy can do as well as highlights the future in Linked Data:

“A tool like SemanticProxy makes it straightforward to generate structured metadata from pages on the open Web. Furthermore, it respects the Linked Data community’s ‘rules‘, and Tague stressed that;

‘SemanticProxy will return dereferenceable Linked Data URIs by the end of this quarter.”

Reuters knows that they have not solved the problem, but they are hoping to start a trend:

“SemanticProxy is our attempt to jumpstart the semantic consumer end of the equation. We have all the standards we need. What we’re missing is a critical mass of semantically enhanced content.

SemanticProxy doesn’t solve that problem, but it can act as a catalyst.”

This is something that the semantic Web has sorely been missing, a catalyst. As much work as the semantic Web companies have been putting into concepts like Linked Data, there has not been the type of adoption they have hoped for. Reuters has shown that they know media is changing. With the OpenCalais project and the new release of Semantic Proxy, they have shown that they plan on leading the way. And for those people complaining about Web services not knowing how to monetize, Reuters has a plan for that too.

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Place Your Bets: Reuters Joins HubDub’s Prediction Market

Fri, 19 Sep 2008 14:30:24 +0000

Source:TechCrunch

Yahoo India announced that it has launched yet another social network for the 16-24 age bracket in an attempt to capture the growing market in India. And although scant details are available, it sounds interesting.

Dubbed SpotM, the new social network will bring college-aged and those close to going to college together in one space. There’s no word on how Yahoo will be able to ensure everyone using the service is really as old as they claim, but Yahoo believes it can manage that problem.

SpotM attempts to differentiate itself by offering two features: the idea of a secret friend and SMS integration with anonymous chat. According to Yahoo, SpotM will allow users to make friends with other users and if they choose, make those friends private so other users don’t know about the relationship. SMS integration with anonymous chat will let users correspond via SMS without revealing their phone number.Source:TechCrunch

International news service Reuters has set up shop on HubDub, a prediction market on topics ranging from politics to technology. The new partner section of the site will feature standard HubDub surveys, as well as a selection of top Reuters stories and widgets. You can access the Reuters portal here.

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Who Will Google Buy Or Clone In 2008?

Mon, 17 Dec 2007 05:30:15 +0000

Source:Techcrunch
People who don’t follow Loren Feldman are usually surprised when he takes aim at their startup and lets loose. He combines valid points with a highly confrontational approach (he once called me a “pompous elitist asshole” and I still consider him a friend). The results are usually entertaining and combustive. Quite often they also cross […]Source:Techcrunch
The second in command of Al-Qaeda has asked for questions to be submitted to the terrorist network which he’ll then answer in an online interview next month.
Ayman al-Zawahri made the offer as part during a video release online where he mocks the British withdrawal of troops from Southern Iraq, claiming that the withdrawal shows that […]Source:Techcrunch
Predicting what Google may do in 2008 is about as accurate as predicting the future using a Magic 8 ball; you can make educated guesses but it’s nothing more than that. There are two certainties however; Google will acquire many companies and they will also launch a range of new products and upgrades to existing […]

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Who Will Google Buy Or Emulate In 2008?

Mon, 17 Dec 2007 03:30:06 +0000

Source:Techcrunch
Predicting what Google may do in 2008 is about as accurate as predicting the future using a crystal ball; you can make educated guesses but it’s nothing more than that. There are two certainties however; Google will acquire many companies and they will also launch a range of new products and upgrades to existing products. […]

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Media: Did Reuters steal an Engadget photo?

Wed, 03 Oct 2007 22:59:22 +0000

Source:Valleywag

3Com’s buyout by Bain Capital could get hung up in Congress because of Chinese telecom-equipment maker Huawei’s involvement. The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States could review the deal, examing the national-security implications of Huawei getting “shareholder voting rights, seats on the board or access to technology.” [AP]

Source:Valleywag

Gadget blogs like Engadget and Gizmodo pride themselves on getting photos of new cell phones and MP3 players before anyone else — even the lightning-fast wire services. And to protect their scoops, they’ve taken to watermarking their photos. A wise practice. Reuters has apparently run, uncredited, a composite image, above, incorporating three watermarked photos from a post that ran last week on Engadget detailing Verizon Wireless’s new holiday line. Product photos are generally seen as fair game by gadget bloggers, of course — but for Reuters to carry Engadget’s watermark but not acknowledge the blog in any fashion seems not just ungracious but clueless. (Photos by Engadget, not Reuters)

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AT&T to invest $750 mln in Internet business

TechAddressBlog — Tue, 13 Mar 2007 14:07:11 +0000

NEW YORK (Reuters) - AT&T Inc. said on Tuesday it will invest more than $750 million in 2007 to accelerate the delivery of global Internet Protocol services and solutions to businesses and multinational companies in key markets worldwide.

With this global investment — one component of the telecommunications company’s multi-billion-dollar enterprise capital program and part of its previously issued companywide capital outlook — AT&T said it plans to execute more than 200 initiatives.

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Game over for China’s net addicts

TechAddressBlog — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 02:16:28 +0000

BEIJING (Reuters) - Combining sympathy with discipline, a military-style boot camp near Beijing is at the front-line of China’s battle against Internet addiction, a disorder afflicting millions of the nation’s youth. The Internet Addiction Treatment Center (IATC) in Daxing county uses a blend of therapy and military drills to treat the children of China’s nouveau riche addicted to online games, Internet pornography, cybersex and chats. "I gradually became obsessed," said Li Yanlin, a university student whose grades plunged after he became addicted to Internet games. But after several weeks at the Daxing facility, the 18-year-old said he "recognized the falseness of online gaming."

Concerned by a number of high-profile Internet-related deaths and juvenile crime, the government is now taking steps to stem Internet addictions by banning new Internet cafes and mulling restrictions on violent computer games. The government-funded Daxing center, run by an army colonel under the Beijing Military Hospital, is one of a handful of clinics treating patients with Internet addictions in China.

Patients, overwhelmingly male and aged 14 to 19, wake up in common dormitories at 6.15 a.m. to do morning calisthenics and march on the cracked concrete grounds wearing khaki fatigues. Drill sergeants bark orders at them when they are not attending group and one-on-one counseling sessions. Therapy includes patients simulating war games with laser guns. The IATC’s tough love approach to breaking Internet addiction is unique to China, but necessary in a country with over two million teenage Internet addicts, according to facility staff. "Many of the Internet addicts here have rarely considered other peoples’ feelings. The military training allows them to feel what it’s like to be a part of a team," said Xu Leiting, a psychologist at the hospital. "It also helps their bodies recover and makes them stronger."

The IATC has treated 1,500 patients in this way since opening in 2004, and boasts a 70 percent success rate at breaking addictions. The fees cost about 10,000 yuan ($1,290) a month, nearly a year’s average disposable income in China. But the center takes on pro bono cases for poor families, said Tao Ran, its director. "There is no trend for Internet addiction as far as social or economic status, or geography, are concerned. So long as they can get access to a computer, there will be addiction," Tao said.

INTERNET VIOLENCE

At the end of 2006, China had 137 million Internet users, an increase of 23.4 percent from the previous year. Of users under 18, an estimated 13 percent — or 2.3 million — are Internet addicts, according to a 2006 study by the China National Children’s Center. Internet addiction rates posted in Western studies vary wildly, with little consensus as to what constitutes addiction and whether the concept exists.

A Stanford University of Medicine report in 2006 found one in eight adults find it hard to be away from the Internet for several days, but the report was inconclusive as to whether excessive use could be defined as an addiction. China’s health authorities, however, have few illusions about placing Internet addiction on a par with alcoholism, drug-taking and gambling. "The effects are the same," Tao said. "Some addicts drop out of school, some mug people for money, steal and sell their families’ things to keep playing games. Some end up killing themselves because they feel life has no point."

The social consequences of addiction had caught the government off guard — as had the Internet’s explosive growth. "Suddenly, from a handful of users in 1997, China now has over 130 million. People can get online in the most remote places. The legal system did not have time to develop," Tao said. Addiction to the Internet is blamed for most juvenile crime in China, a number of suicides, and deaths from exhaustion by players unable to tear themselves away from marathon game sessions. In 2005, a Shanghai court handed a life sentence to an online game player who stabbed a competitor to death for stealing his cyber-sword — a virtual prize earned during game-play.

PARENTAL PRESSURE

The rising tide of Internet-addicted youth has prompted the government to ban new Internet cafes in 2007, which are seen in China as breeding grounds for social delinquency. Delegates at the National People’s Congress, China’s annual session of parliament, have proposed stricter criminal punishments for Internet cafe operators who admit minors, and have flagged restrictions on violent games. "Even President Hu Jintao talked of developing a scientific and civilized Internet environment recently," Tao said. But China’s Internet addiction is not merely a product of an imperfect regulatory system, Xu Leiting said. "The main cause of Internet addiction is that parents’ expectations for their children are too high," said Xu.

With education perceived by many parents as the only means of advancement in an ultra-competitive society of 1.3 billion people, some lock their children up to study and ask teachers to assign them extra homework. The pressure can be too much for some children, Xu said, especially if they fail. "Then they escape to the virtual world to seek achievements, importance and satisfaction, or a sense of belonging."

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