LinkLog: Numerati, Semantics in Spreadsheets and the Future of Web Apps

InfoMinder Alerts on 21st Oct 08:

Steven Baker’s Numerati

A captivating look at how a global math elite is predicting and altering our behavior — at work, at the mall, and in bed

In this tour de force of original reporting and analysis, journalist Stephen Baker provides us with a fascinating guide to the world we’re all entering — and to the people controlling that world. The Numerati have infiltrated every realm of human affairs, profiling us as workers, shoppers, patients, voters, potential terrorists — and lovers. The implications are vast.

How Semantics Can Revolutionize Spreadsheets

Last fall, senior enterprise architect Brand Niemann of the Environmental Protection Agency issued a challenge to the semantic web industry: Who will step forward and show how to take the reams of government data currently locked away in spreadsheets to the semantic web? This spring, at the Semantic Technology Conference, May 18-22 in San Jose, Calif., Niemann and Lee Feigenbaum, VP technology and standards at Cambridge Semantics Inc., will demo the solution to that question.

What makes the spreadsheet such an important application to semantify? Put it down to a couple of things. The first is that lots of government data is stored in spreadsheets, inaccessible to the Google crawlers of the world. …This technology means they can continue using and working in the application they love, but develop semantic web applications at the same time.

Videos from the Future of Web Apps Conference

I just started watching  them.  Kathy Sierra’s is really good.