Semantic desktop

The Semantic Desktop is a concept of computer science. This idea of the Semantic Web are picked up and transferred to all programs on your computer. This mainly concerns changes in the interfaces between the programs, as well as changes to the user interface. This shall be ensured by the introduction of RDF as a universal data format.

The main difference between the semantic web and the semantic desktop is that the data in the semantic web are publicly available, while the information is given for the Semantic Desktop for personal use.

Problem

The problem with not semantic information architecture is that data are stored in special, independent file formats. For example, e-mails to e -mail files contact contact files, appointments in appointment files, etc. are stored (or an e -mail database ) Additionally, the file formats between the various manufacturers differ, making an interpretation or even a combination of the data only with special software is possible. In many applications, however, it is absolutely necessary information from various programs, such as an address book and a calendar of events to bring together.

As an example, offers an e -mail application, which offers when you click on an email address, the ability to compose an e -mail to this address. In another place, such as in a list view with received e -mails, this functionality does not have to offer, because the e -mail address could be serialized to a string. Although it is for the user to the same address, this is once handled by the program as email object while the program offers only a string with reduced functionality in the list view.

For an application that follows the idea of the semantic desktop, there are no such problems. In semantic applications all the information as far as possible in a uniform data format (such as RDF) to be made available. Due to the use of ontologies, which are provided in addition, the computer can also derive conclusions on how the data are to be treated and how they can be linked to other data. On the other hand, all objects are treated uniformly, thus, the same methods are available at each location where the user is presented with an object of a given type available.