by James Hendler

It has now become official, as of January 1, 2007 (or thereabouts) I will be leaving Maryland and taking a position at RPI where I will be creating a new research center dedicated to a “web science” agenda (Stay tuned, Tim Berners-Lee, Wendy Hall, Nigel Shadbolt, Danny Weitzner and I have had a “perspectives” accepted in Science titled “Web Science” - coming in August or Sept.)   RPI has put out this press release which describes the new position.

Althought I will be starting at RPI officially in January 2007,  the MINDSWAP project at Maryland will keep going through summer 07 (I’ll be splitting my time between the campuses).
Of course, like most releases they chose a couple of quotes from more material, and thus there are a number of quotes that went astray, or don’t show the plans for what I’m doing.  Here’s the more detailed answers that I provided.

Q: How would you describe your research to the layperson?

A: Despite the incredible importance of the World Wide Web to people all around the globe, and its increasingly important role in society and politics, the Web has not received as much interest within the traditional computer science research world as it deserves.  My research focuses on what might be called “Web Science,” understanding the Web in its full richness, exploring the underlying technologies that make it work and the social and policy implications of the Web, and developing new technologies to keep the Web growing ever more useful as it reaches further and further into our lives.  This includes both exploring positive uses of the Web, for example the ability for scientists to work together across disciplinary bounds, as well as understanding the policy implications of “negative” aspects, such as how to better protect individual privacy as the Web makes more and more personal information available to the world.

Q: What are the advantages of the semantic web over the current www? Can you share an example?

The Semantic Web is an extension to the current WWW that brings many new kinds of information resources to the Web.  It can be used for bringing databases to the Web in more searchable and usable ways, integrating different kinds of information in new ways, and making it easier to bring together your personal information space (emails, papers, files, etc.) and the Web.  There are many examples in domains ranging from the Life Sciences to e-business, but for a simple one, consider being able to search the Web for “the scene where the guy throws his hat at a statue and its head falls off” and finding just the right clip from “Goldfinger” for downloading to your video iPod.

Q: How would you define the focus of the new Tetherless World constellation at Rensselaer?

The constellation, which might be better called the “Tetherless Web” is going to focus on being able to access the information you need, when you need it, wherever you may be, and in an appropriate form (without being “tethered” to a specific computer).  How often have you wished you had a phone number that was sitting on your computer at home, or that you could find interesting activities in the city you’re visiting without lugging your laptop along, or could know if you had important email waiting without having to check your blackberry every time it buzzed. The “digital convergence” of laptop, cell phone, PDA, camera, iPod and more is both an exciting opportunity and a daunting challenge to us as we interact with information, and with each other, in the increasingly “web”ized world.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 14th, 2006 at 10:13 pm and is filed under Personal Ramblings, Semantic Web, MINDSWAP news. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.