IT and meaning: Who do you think you are?

The idea of the semantic web in Gertrude's head was now remarkably in the shape of Reginald Jeeves - well informed, perceptive, sensitive to needs, quick, personal, relevant and perhaps even manipulative.

Part of what was now happening all around, she thought as she sat pondering on her sprained ankle, was that everything needed to have a meaning and be relevant to anybody who used the internet.

How does a group of alphabets be understood meaningfully by an illiterate computer? Apparently by structuring. So they (you know, them, some one, that's who) create lists and lists of endless things in computers that might look something like this.

Composers: Muthuswami Dikshitar, Sebastian Bach, Tan Dun, Ali Farka Toure

Types of Music: Classical, Folk, Film, Western, African,

Century: 18, 19, 20, 21

These lists have to be kept in a structure that some people have agreed on and follow some rules and grammar that those people have agreed. Some of these rules are called RDF and OWL. RDF is Resource Description Format and Web Ontology Language has been mysteriously abbreviated to OWL, leaving no suspicion that we might be talking about a nocturnal hunting bird.

Gertrude doesn't know where to look for a list. She read about DBpedia having vacuumed information from Wikipedia and done clever things to them. They probably stacked up and organised and split up and sliced and reorganised and classified and chopped and referenced and cross linked all the facts from Wikipedia in some databases.

Gertrude plans to use a language called SPARQL. To start with, this language is - sparkle - grossly misspelt. It is also one of those extra-ordinary acronyms that self reference and contain another one within it, just to make her feel like a complete idiot. Would anyone have guessed that it is an acronym of Sparql Protocol and RDF Query Language? How much reading for an ordinary mortal to comprehend a mere six letter word. They'd better not use this one in the Sunday newspaper word jumble.

The plan is to use SPARQL to ask questions of this massive data store in DBpedia. Gertrude is considering learning this language when she is a bit old. Would it have evolved better or got extinct by then?

So she could know which musicians in Asia composed or performed South Indian classical music after the eighteenth century. She might know the kinds of architecture during the time of King Bruce of Scotland. However, if she learnt it a bit early, she could have her own wolfram alpha like site. May be she could get her friends Draak and Spencer to help, she muses. They are a sharp lot, she nods to herself.

As a mild distraction, Gertrude's quick fingers spell out her name on a website that declares that from her name alone, it could find her digital footprint and suggest subjects of interest to her, people who are her peers, and a provide her a personalised newsfeed. Intriguing. The results seem compelling. Very true. Like a surveillance camera on the internet, all her deeds and thoughts are concentrated into an image of word pockets. She goes back and repeats with names of various web personalities. She spells out various names, names of software rockstars, political personalities. Then she tries out less eminent personalities like her school geography teacher. Not so clever now, eh!

IT and Nature: Cloud Computing

When she first started to hear of cloud computing and its definitions (computing is moved to a 'cloud') appeared rather self referential to Gertrude. It amused her in mild amounts. At school, she had often chuckled while learning that sulphuric acid was an ingredient in the manufacture of sulphuric acid.

Cloud computing seemed to make more sense than the manufacture of an irrelevant acid. For a company online Gertrude concluded, that it meant less worrying about an important computer suddenly malfunctioning. Less worry, because their online existence would be sustained by the combined effort of a vast number of computers. So, it would be as easy as opening up a tap to full-volume if they wanted to pile on more hardware for storage or processing power. This would be on a need-basis as the website yo-yo-ed between unknown and popular. And for the company, it would be pay-by-meter for how much they kept the tap open.

So, actually, a cloud had to be something tangible (someone had to know where it was or own it, right?) like servers and so on. Stacked in some place (may be, called a cloud) for consumers to subscribe to it. The subscribers didn't have to worry about not getting connected if there was heavy traffic to the site. They didn't even have to install anything to be able to access the software they wanted. Like installing Flash to watch movies or play games. If they had an internet connection, all their data and information processing would happen wherever they were.

For some people, Gertrude found eventually, the concept of cloud computing was dé ja vu. And some even said it was to reduce the IT industry's carbon foot print. All very very incredible.

Do I know of applications that use Cloud computing, Gertrude wondered. Facebook, Youtube and Google documents seemed compelling examples. And Sliderocket, an online slide creation tool, which you-know-who would love.

She wanted to find out if there was also the possibility of collaborative multi-platform visualisation tools such dabbledb being on a cloud?


Gertrude suddenly wondered if the cloud meant something to her personally. If Gertrude didn't have to to teach her mum over phone how to install Skype or Picasa and then find it in Program Files it would be much relief! But again, her mum wouldn't approve of storing personal finances with Google. Surely not! Some people had thought of these things already and said it was a trap!

Gertrude remembered her last flight which had been quite bumpy and not very reassuring. A lovely co-passenger had offered her company and conversation and asked her to imagine a fluffy white cloud, where every security she wanted was inside the cloud. She did. It worked. As soon as the flight ended, Gertrude had let go of the cloud.

A New Verb?

Gertrude imagines that Bing stands for bing is not google; another one of those clever recursive acronyms in the IT world where one thing is trying not to be another thing. Gertrude was excited about Cuil when it came out - supposed to be the biggest search engine a while ago. Does anybody use it, she wonders. Stephen Wolfram's got everyone talking about the new mathematical computational engine and some worrying about how much to trust the data. Anyone know Worio, a discovery engine? And there's even dogpile. Nothing derogatory. It is a collection all the most famous search engines put together.

There's all sorts of search utilities - Gertrude herself knows of the existence of image matching tools and media search tools. She is in silent awe of those awkward algorithms, locked inside a tiny chip somewhere chugging away like elves and trying to find your baby picture from a massive cupboard and even match the tune playing in your head. Personally, Gertrude wishes there were more fun tools like wordsmith and word waldo.

Back to the new thing. Bing. If this decision engine of Microsoft turns out as earth-shattering, Gertrude will mentally prepare herself to use sentences like: I've spent hours googling binging Or something like I have forgotton the lyrics of the song Top of the World, so I am going to have to google bing it for you.