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KMi Seminars
The Wolfram|Alpha approach to knowledge
This event took place on Wednesday 25 November 2009 at 11:30

 
Jon McLoone Wolfram Research

In May, a new computational knowledge engine, Wolfram|Alpha, was launched. By layering computational knowledge on large sets of curated, semantically marked up data, it attempts to provide direct bespoke answers to users queries. This talk will present Wolfram|Alpha and discuss issues related to semantic interpretation and disambiguation, collation and presentation of information and the encoding of knowledge. The speaker, Jon McLoone, is a developer from Wolfram Research, the makers of Wolfram|Alpha and the technical computing system, Mathematica.

 
KMi Seminars
 

Social Software is...


Social Software
Social Software can be thought of as "software which extends, or derives added value from, human social behaviour - message boards, musical taste-sharing, photo-sharing, instant messaging, mailing lists, social networking."

Interacting with other people not only forms the core of human social and psychological experience, but also lies at the centre of what makes the internet such a rich, powerful and exciting collection of knowledge media. We are especially interested in what happens when such interactions take place on a very large scale -- not only because we work regularly with tens of thousands of distance learners at the Open University, but also because it is evident that being part of a crowd in real life possesses a certain 'buzz' of its own, and poses a natural challenge. Different nuances emerge in different user contexts, so we choose to investigate the contexts of work, learning and play to better understand the trade-offs involved in designing effective large-scale social software for multiple purposes.