Language Technology News for 2009

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Twingly: a new microblog search application
2009/01/20

http://webworkerdaily.com/2009/01/20/twingly-a-new-microblog-search-ap(...)
I wrote about Whostalkin, a beta search engine that focuses on finding content on social media sites and blogs. It seems that the whole notion of expanding searches to social sites is gaining momentum. I’ve been experimenting with Twingly, from a Swedish company that bills it as “the first federated microblog search” engine. According to the Twingly blog, which includes an unusual collection of word choices (such as “we keeped it”), Twingly is designed to search Twitter, Identi.ca and many other microblogging services. These include some European and Scandinavian services. It even searches Pownce, which has closed, but the folks behind Twingly kept an index of its content. You can do Twingly searches from the application’s home page, or you can install a widget on a blog or web site. I found the application to deliver a lot of targeted Twitter tweets very quickly, but the most useful aspects of it are the natural language-based search features. If you’ve used the equivalents in Google, you’ll quickly come up to speed with these.

The Voice Search Wars
2009/01/20

http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/?ndmViewId=news_view&ne(...)
The PC and its Web browser user interface continue to evolve, but only incrementally since they are well-established and there isn’t much debate on which companies will determine that evolution. On mobile phones -- which are rapidly becoming much more than phones -- both the form of the user interface and the companies that will dominate that form are up in the air -- and at war. “Mobile phones are not just phones and not just small PCs,” noted Bill Meisel, the editor of Speech Strategy News, an industry newsletter. “The uses of mobile phones are different than of PCs. One certainly wouldn’t work on a spreadsheet on a mobile phone. Searching is a central function, for both location-based information and other data such as news. The company and user interface paradigm that drive search are likely to become central to the mobile user experience.”

Making money from mining cyber chatter
2009/01/20

http://digital.asiaone.com/Digital/News/Story/A1Story20090120-116002.h(...)
On Nov 24 2008, a day after news broke about his plans to run for the presidency if he garnered enough support, 'Tan Kin Lian' was mentioned 144 times on local forums and blogs. Two days before, his name had come up only about 20 times. In the subsequent few days, netizens' sentiments of Mr Tan turned positive from the low regard they had of him earlier in the month. The reason: People wanted some contest for the presidency. Earlier, some netizens had criticised the ex-CEO of insurer NTUC Income while he was in that role, while others had questioned his real motives behind the sudden role he took on as the voice of the common man. These online sentiments were recorded and analysed by local technology start-up Brandtology. Its clients were three banks which wanted to track 'Tan Kin Lian'. He had created quite a stir in the last three months of 2008, protesting against local banks at the Speakers' Corner on behalf of investors who had lost money in financial products linked to collapsed and troubled United States banks. Understandably, his blog postings and other related cyber chatter became of interest to the institutions he was accusing. The three banks, whose identities Brandtology declined to disclose, wanted to gauge the public's attitudes so that they could better plan a course of action to appease angry investors. That organisations are using technology to quarry opinions on social networks like blogs and forums is a first here.

The Semantic Web in Action
2009/01/19

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=semantic-web-in-actio
Six years ago in this magazine, Tim Berners-Lee, James Hendler and Ora Lassila unveiled a nascent vision of the Semantic Web: a highly interconnected network of data that could be easily accessed and understood by any desktop or handheld machine. They painted a future of intelligent software agents that would head out on the World Wide Web and automatically book flights and hotels for our trips, update our medical records and give us a single, customized answer to a particular question without our having to search for information or pore through results. They also presented the young technologies that would make this vision come true: a common language for representing data that could be understood by all kinds of software agents; ontologies—sets of statements—that translate information from disparate databases into common terms; and rules that allow software agents to reason about the information described in those terms. The data format, ontologies and reasoning software would operate like one big application on the World Wide Web, analyzing all the raw data stored in online databases as well as all the data about the text, images, video and communications the Web contained. Like the Web itself, the Semantic Web would grow in a grassroots fashion, only this time aided by working groups within the World Wide Web Consortium, which helps to advance the global medium.

EC Wants IE Browser Ripped Out of Windows
2009/01/18

http://java.sys-con.com/node/812617
The European Commission has sent Microsoft another Statement of Objections (SO) this time accusing the company of the antitrust crime of tying the Internet Explorer browser to its Windows operating system. The Microsoft-obsessed regulator says the tie is abuse of Windows’ dominance. It’s given Microsoft eight weeks to answer the SO, remarking rather offhandedly – like it’s going to make any difference – that the company has “the right to be heard in an oral hearing should it wish to do so” and warning that – if Microsoft loses – well, then “the Commission may impose a fine on Microsoft, require Microsoft to cease the abuse and impose a remedy that would restore genuine consumer choice and enable competition on the merits.” The Commission has already leveled over $2 billion in fines on Microsoft, more than any other company, treating it like its personal sugar daddy.

Loquendo sponsors Speech Technology courses at the University of Trento
2009/01/16

http://www.tmcnet.com/channels/speech-recognition/articles/48840-loque(...)
In a bid to help further the development of research and advancement in speech technologies, as well as to provide support for students studying in the field, speech technologies provider Loquendo has announced it is sponsoring an international master’s degree in Human Language Technology and Interfaces (HLTI) at the University of Trento. Not only is Loquendo providing students and staff with access to the latest speech technologies as part of the sponsorship, but the company will also offer hands-on training and experience through work placement at Loquendo. Other projects will also be conducted at research and industry labs to help students learn basic techniques, theories and applications for speech technologies.

Nuance Buys IBM Assets
2009/01/16

http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2234178/ibm-nuance-team-speech
IBM and Nuance have signed a join licensing and technical services agreement to help enhance and expand speech technology. As part of the partnership, specialists from both companies will work together to incorporate IBM technology into Nuance's speech software, with the first products expected to be available within two years. Under the terms of the agreement, Nuance will buy speech-related patents from IBM, but the latter will continue to serve its own customers in this regard."IBM and Nuance share a vision to proliferate advanced speech capabilities across a broad range of devices and environments," said Dr John Kelly, senior vice president and director of IBM Research.(...)Although speech recognition software has been around for many years, it has often been marginalised as inefficient, inaccurate and resource heavy.

MetaDolce announces NLP-based semantic search application
2009/01/15

http://www.metadolce.com/NewsItems/OmniSearchPressRelease.20090115.pdf(...)
MetaDolce Technologies, Inc., a key provider of Semantic and Natural Language Search technologies and products, announced the introduction of MetaDolce OmniSearch, a full featured, robust, Natural Language Platform for Semantic Website Search. MetaDolce’s OmniSearch enables Web properties to accept and respond to Natural Language queries from website visitors via an embedded search bar. The site visitor’s search experience is greatly enhanced compared to the traditional keyword search tools embedded in most websites. The MetaDolce OmniSearch website search experience is enhanced by offering a Natural Language interface that allows site visitors to obtain real answers to Natural Language questions--eliminating and replacing thousands of irrelevant search results.

Calais 4.0 released: Linked Data meets commercial Web
2009/01/14

http://www.opencalais.com/news/calais-40-has-arrived
On the one year anniversary of our debut, we are extremely pleased to announce the debut of Calais 4.0. With more than 9,000 of you processing 1+million documents per day, it was time to take Calais to the next level. Effective, Calais 4.0 goes beyond metatagging to help you automatically integrate your content with Linked Data assets from Wikipedia, DBpedia, GeoNames, the Internet Movie Database (IMDB), Shopping.com and more. It also introduces a global metadata transport layer that makes it easy for you to share rich semantic metadata with such content consumers as search engines, news aggregators, 'related stories' recommendation services, etc. to reach downstream readers.

.eu domain passes the 3 million mark
2009/01/14

http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/09/48&forma(...)
By reaching the third million domain, .eu has well consolidated its place among the ten largest top-level domains in the world, such as .com, .net. and .org. Registrations for .eu domains have been steadily growing since its introduction in 2006. In addition, .eu domains enjoy a good reputation: a recent survey carried out for EURid, the registry for .eu, shows that users not only perceive .eu as the genuine European internet identity, but also believe that .eu domains are innovative and modern. Most .eu domains have been registered in EU countries with the largest populations and highest internet penetration. Germany continues to lead with 30%, followed by the Netherlands (14%), the United Kingdom (12%), France (8%) and Poland (6%).

Singaporean NLP scientist wins Nokia award
2009/01/13

http://www.scandasia.com/viewNews.php?coun_code=fi&news_id=5145
Dr Li Haizhou who specialises in improving the way people and computers communicate with each other has been picked by the Nokia Foundation to work and lecture in Finland, one of only two scientists selected this year by the mobile phone giant. In addition the doctor, who heads the Institute for Infocomm Research's (I2R) human language technology department, will receive a grant of 10,000 Euros (about $20,000) from the Nokia Foundation. Dr Li, a Singaporean in his 40s who has been with I2R since 1996, is one of the architects behind the robotic butlers which made an appearance at the official opening of Fusionopolis recently. The selection came after he was nominated for the award by Finnish peers, said a statement from Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*Star) announcing his appointment as a Nokia Visiting Professor. I2R is a unit of the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*Star).

Add Semantic Richness To Your Markup With (RDF) Ease
2009/01/13

http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2009/01/13/add-semantic-richness-to-you(...)
While everyone agrees that semantics are useful, and are becoming more so all the time, few people agree on how to develop and use them. John Allsopp’s recent article on Semantics in HTML 5 pragmatically highlights a number of problems inherent to the limitations of HTML, and the lack of an extensible mechanism for future semantics is chief among them. Another question that John’s article raised relates to the mechanism for encoding semantics on the Web itself. Recently, a new mechanism for adding semantics to (X)HTML pages called RDF-EASE (short for RDF Extracted Attributes from Styled Elements) has been getting some attention. Although it’s very early yet, RDF-EASE, which can be mixed with CSS, has some intriguing characteristics that may give us a glimpse into the future of semantic Web technologies.

Language Weaver's commercial revenue grew 70% in 2008
2009/01/13

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28636581/
Human communications solution provider Language Weaver announced a 70 percent increase in commercial revenues and over 25 new site deployments across commercial and government sectors for its automated language translation software during 2008. Language Weaver's revenue growth supported the company's strategy of offering the industry's leading human communication solutions -- focused on automated translation -- in the digital content space. Despite today's global economic challenges, Language Weaver anticipates continued growth in the market in 2009 for automated language translation.

The future of the Web is contextual
2009/01/12

http://www.techleader.co.za/deechetty/2009/01/12/the-future-of-the-web(...)
We have seen the internet grow up quite quickly and the technology used to power websites has become so amazingly powerful that the internet is no longer made up of glorified business cards, but highly programmable interfaces for a global community. Web 2.0, as we know it, has definitely been the age for social platforms to emerge and set the foundations for a socially intertwined semantic web. Seamlessly integrating the world’s people and their social lives into a mashable platform now known as social networks. Phase two has seen Google Maps and Google Earth grow up so rapidly that streetview really blew our minds the first time we saw it. GPS devices have become a dime a dozen and A-GPS enabled mobile phones are fast becoming mainstream paired with the rapid release of location based services on mobile platforms. The emergence of a contextual web is not a dream; it’s becoming real. Profile driven location based applications have the potential to change the way we interact with technology, with each other and with the world.

Speech Technology among the Big Five of IBM predictions
2009/01/12

http://www.ntra-net.com/2008/12/01/ibm-predictions-for-2009-2014/
IBM has released the list of the five technological advances that could become reality in the next five years. These are inventions or technologies that would change our lives, and are part of the “IBM Next Five by Five”. The first of the predictions is related to solar energy. According to IBM, this type of solar panels will be integrated into the asphalt, walls and windows of buildings, in addition to joining in gadgets, mobile phones, netbooks, music players and laptops. It is also anticipated that the garments come equipped with solar cells. The second of the predictions is related to our health. According to IBM, will have a map of our DNA, in which we can see what our health risks presented. In third place is the Internet. IBM expected that the emergence of speech technology will revolutionize the way we communicate across the network. According to IBM, we will talk with the Web site and we will reply.