Vom Wandel der informatischen Bildung - Kolloquium zum 25 jährigen Bestehen der Zeitschrift LOG IN

Am 30.03.07 fand in Jena an der Friedrich-Schiller-Universität ein Kolloquium anläßlich des 25-jährigen Bestehens der Zeitschrift LOG IN statt, zu dem ich eingeladen war. Die Zeitschrift LOG IN beschäftigt sich mit der Informatikausbildung in der Schule und daher stand das Kolloquium unter dem Titel "Vom Wandel der informatischen Bildung".

Aber leider scheinen die Veranstalter selbst noch nicht richtig in unserer heutigen Zeit angekommen zu sein. Warum? Nun, es ist eine Sache, sich darüber zu verbreiten, dass der Informatikausbildung in der Schule zu wenig Raum eingeräumt wird, dass der Lehrplan der allgemein bildenden Schulen Themen in Thüringen wie z.B. 'Die Atmung der Insekten' oder 'Die Ernährung der Hohltiere' durchaus beinhaltet, während andere, heute naheliegende Themen wie 'Wie funktioniert das Internet' oder 'Wie arbeitet ein Computer' nicht darin enthalten sind. Andererseits hätte ich mich natürlich auch über eine Web-Seite zur Veranstaltung, in der die Vortragenden und deren Themen Erwähnung finden, gefreut (bzw. hätte ich dies eigentlich erwartet). Aber weder auf der Web-Seite der Zeitschrift LOG IN (zumindest gibt es eine...) noch auf den Web-Seiten des Veranstalters fand ich hilfreiche Informationen.... (interessanterweise liegt die Einladung zwar auf dem Web-Server, ist aber anscheinend nicht verlinkt....wohl aber im Google-Cache). BTW, das Kolloquium fand im Senatssaal der FSU Jena statt, der neben einem Jugenstilgemälde, das die 9 Musen darstellt (...und von dem es kein Bild weder bei Google noch bei Flickr gibt), auch noch mit einer echte Rodin-Skulptur (Büste der Minerva, Geschenk an die FSU Jena anläßlich der Verleihung der Ehrendoktorwürde an den französischen Bildhauer Auguste Rodin) aufwarten kann.

Natürlich habe ich mich über die Einladung selbst sehr gefreut. Besonders interessant für mich war der Vortrag von Prof. Klaus Brunnstein (Präsident der IFIP) über die "frühen Jahre der Schulinformatik" (1972-1982), in dem er auch über die Zeit der Einführung von Informatik als Studienfach an deutschen Hochschulen referierte (natürlich einschließlich interessanter Annekdoten). Zentral war natürlich auch die Frage danach, welchen Zweck die Informatikausbildung in der Schule dienen solle. Immer wieder kamen die Referenten dabei auf die 'informatische Grundbildung' zu sprechen. Alleine die Schüler in die Lage zu versetzen, die Technik zu nutzen ist nicht ausreichend. Vielmehr geht es darum, ein Verständnis von der Funktionsweise der Technik zu entwickeln, um deren Verhalten auch in Extrem- und Gefahrsituationen richtig einschätzen zu können, d.h. neben der Fähigkeit der Nutzung stehen Fragen der 'Beherrschbarkeit', der Risikoabschätzung und möglichst auch der Grenzen der Technik.
Auch der folgende Vortrag, ausgerichtet von den beiden Herren der LOG IN Redaktion (Bernhard Koerber und Ingo-Rüdiger Peters) war sehr unterhaltsam, da Einblicke in die Entstehungs- und Entwicklungsgeschichte der Zeitschrift gewährt wurden, die jetzt über 25 Jahre lang ehrenamtlich (!) von den beiden herausgegeben wird.
Am Nachmittag berichteten Dr. Wolfgang Pohl über die Geschichte des Bundeswettbewerbs Informatik und Prof. Steffen Friedrich über die Königsteiner Gespräche (zu denen ich leider auch keine Web-Seite finden konnte...).

Abgerundet wurde die Veranstaltung durch eine Podiumsdiskussion zum Thema "Welche Bildung braucht die Informationsgesellschaft", in denen Prof. Winkler (FSU Jena) auch den eingangs zitierten Vergleich des aktuellen thüringer Lehrplans auf den Plan brachte. Interessant auch sein Rückgriff auf die Geschichte der Einführung der naturwissenschaftlichen Fächer in den Schulunterricht. Erst gegen Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts fanden Fächer wie Physik und Chemie tatsächlich Einzug in die Curricula der Gymnasien. Aber nicht durch eine entsprechende Erweiterung des damals humanistischen Fächerkanons, sondern durch die Neugründung der mathematisch-naturwissenschaftlichen Gymnasien....
Um also der Informatischen Bildung Raum im Lehrplan der allgemeinbildenden Schulen zu verschaffen, bedarf es weniger einer Evolution als vielmehr einer Revolution....

The State of the Semantic Web

In the DERI blog I have found a rather interesting presentation from Ivan Herman, (W3C) Semantic Web Activity Leader, about the current state of the semantic web, given at the International Conference on Semantic Web & Digital Libraries in Bangalore, India.

He also gives some insight in what has been achieved concerning language standardization (RDF, OWL, SPARQL, etc.), already existing vocabularies, current implementations and available knowledge databases (ontologies).

Besides all the achievments of the recent years, Ivan also points out where the deficiencies are:

• how to bind to different communities (e.g., the “digital library world”)


• how (and where from) to get RDF data


• several stil missing functionalitiessuch as rules, “light” ontologies, fuzzy reasoning, necessity to review RDF and OWL,…


• different misconceptions, existing messaging problems
• 
  
• and of course the need for more applications, more deployment, and also acceptance

To get more working applications the porting of alreay existing knowledge resources (as already existing classification schemes, lexicons, htesauri, etc.) into the context of the semantic web is mandatory. SKOS (Simple Knowledge Organization System) is one of the W3C activities that has exactely this purpose. SKOS is built on top of RDF and serves as a formal language for representing structured well defined vocabularies.

Online Umfrage zum IT Gipfel 2006 ....

Mein lieber Kollege Justus Bross möchte eine online Umfrage bzgl. der Einrichtung eines Blog zum IT Gipfel der Bundesregierung (hier auch ein Video-Podcast zum Thema) im vergangenen Jahr vornehmen. Ziel ist dabei die Einrichtung eines 'Gipfelblogs', das -- da unter der Flagge der Bundesregierung -- spezielle Vorkehrungen in Sachen Moderation und redaktionelle Kontrolle beinhalten soll (und über die wir derzeit noch diskutieren).

Daher also hier der Aufruf, sich kurz 10 Minuten Zeit zu nehmen und schnell über den Fragebogen zu gehen. Ihr würdet uns damit sehr helfen.

Hier der Link zum online-Fragebogen
....und für eine Weiterverbreitung wären wir natürlich ebenso sehr dankbar.

...und so geht unser Dank bereits an

• MissM@rple's Blog: IT-Gipfel Nachwehen


• media-ocean: Braucht der IT-Gipfel ein Blog?


• text & blog: Fragebogen zum Gipfelblog


• bamblog: IT-Gipfelblog Umfrage

ACHTUNG: Besten Dank an alle Teilnehmer und Teilnhmerinnen!!
Wir haben knapp 200 ausgefüllte Fragebögen zurückerhalten und die Aktion beendet.
Sobald die Auswertung abgeschlossen ist, werden wir eine erste Bilanz ziehen.

From iRack to iRan.....

I guess apple never thought (but maybe dreamed) of extending their iProduct line into domestic appliances or even sports ... :)


Link: sevenload.com

Alexandre Dumas - Die drei Musketiere (The three Musketeers)

For sure you will think 'hey, why is he reading that old children's book again?', but no, you're wrong. I've read this masterpiece of Alexandre Dumas for the very first time. Of course, everybody knows the story. We all have seen so many movies and remakes of movies, and the musketeers have become a cliché even long ago. But, I had the chance to get a rather old copy. It's an almost 100 years old german translation (of course in old german typesetting). And one thing about the book is, it's language is remarkable and so different compared to today's german. But before I'll go into details, let me rather briefely recapitulate the story (in german....):

Wir schreiben das Jahr 1625. D'Artagnan, der arme Sohn eines Landadeligen aus der Gascogne will sein Glück als Musketier in der Garde des Herrn von Treville - also der Leibgarde des Königs Ludwig XIII. - versuchen. Ausgestattet mit einem Empfehlungsschreiben seines Vaters, einem altgedienten Musketier gerät er, der sich wie alle Gasconier (so Dumas) leicht in seiner Ehre gekränkt sieht, in eine Auseinandersetzung mit einem mysteriösen Gardisten des Kardinals Richelieu. Bevor es aber zu einem Duell kommt, wird er vom Küchenpersonal der Landschenke, in der er Rast macht, niedergeschlagen und seines Empfehlungsschreibens beraubt.
In Paris angekommen versucht er sich dennoch um eine Audienz bei Herrn von Treville und verstrickt sich im Laufe des Tages - natürlich bedingt durch sein aufbrausendes Temperament ebenso wie durch seine eigene Tollpatschigkeit - in sage und schreibe drei Duelle mit drei Musketieren des Königs, namentlich mit den drei Freunden Athos, Aramis und Portos. Verabredet im Park von Saint Germaine werden alle vier überrascht von einer Patrouille des Kardinals. D'Artagnan bietet den drei Freunden seine Hilfe beim bevorstehenden Degengefecht an, aus dem die Musketiere siegreich hervorgehen.....und das ist der Beginn einer Reihe äußerst spannend zu lesender Abenteuer.....
Die eigentliche Handlung ist ja aus diversen Filmen bekannt, allerding ist die Charakterzeichnung Dumas sprachlich natürlich noch wesentlich reizvoller als deren filmische Umsetzung. Für mich wird wohl immer die Verfilmung aus den 70er Jahren mit Michael York als D'Artagnan, Oliver Reed als Athos und Richard Chamberlain als Aramis (wer den Portos gespielt hat fällt mir nicht ein....war aber jemand, den ich sonst nicht weiter kannte) DIE VERFILMUNG überhaupt bleiben. Besonders schön - neben einem beeindruckenden Oliver Reed und unberechenbaren Charlton Heston als Kardinal Richelieu - war wohl die Tatsache, dass sich anscheinend keine der Romanfiguren (außer den Bösewichtern) in dieser Verfilmung wirklich ernst nimmt. Ach und natürlich Racquel Welch als wohlgefomte und unwiderstehliche Constanze, Geraldine Chaplin als porzellanfarbene, zerbrechliche Königin und Faye Dunaway als durchtrieben böse verführerische Mylady deWinter. Der Film (d.h. die Verfilmung des kompletten Romans) kam damals ja in zwei Teilen in die Kinos und es braucht seine Zeit, die über 700 Seiten des Romans in Szene zu setzen. Ach, fast hätte ich den Erzbösewicht Rouchford vergessen, den Mann mit der Narbe, hinter dem D'Artagnan den ganzen Roman über her ist. Der wird in besagter Verfilmung von Christopher Lee (unser aller 60er/70er Jahre Dracula) gespielt.
Daneben gabe es zahlreiche weitere Verfilmungen an die ich mich erinnern kann. Angefangen von einer UFA Verfilmung aus den 30er Jahren über einen ersten Farbfilm mit Gene Kelly in der Hauptrolle [to be continued.....] und dann natürlich auch noch diverse Verfilmungen aus den 80er Jahren. Die letzte bemerkenswerte Verfilmung des Musketierstoffes betrifft einen späteren Roman Dumas, nämlich 'Den Mann mit der eisernen Maske' (auch unter dem Titel '10 Jahre danach' oder 'Der Vicomte von Bragelonne' erschienen), der vorallem mit seiner Besetzungsliste der bereits etwas gealterten Haudegen brillierte (Gerard Depardieu, Jeremy Irons, John Malkovich....).

Mein Fazit: Der Roman hat es in sich! Kein Wunder, das er sich über 150 Jahre internationaler Beliebtheit erfreuen kann. Natürlich darf man keine allzu tiefgründigen Charakterstudien und innere Monologe erwarten, aber Dumas gelingt es, seine Figuren nicht nur in haarsträubend flott erzählte Abenteuer zu verwickeln, sondern ihnen auch noch ziemlich viel Persönlichkeit mit auf den Weg zu geben. Besonders deutlich wird das an der unberechenbaren Gestalt der Lady deWinter und D'artagnans ambiguen Gefühlsaufwallungen ihr gegenüber. So liebt er sie auf der einen Seite (oder ist zumindest immens verliebt..) wie er sie auf der anderen Seite als Geschöpf des Kardinals zutiefst hasst.
Also, LESEN! und am besten nicht die aktuellen Übersetzungen, sondern eine ältere (vor 1930), um sich an der mitunter barocken Sprachgewalt zu erfreuen.......

A short note on Semantic Search Engines

Lars featured an article on Hakia, a 'semantic search engine' in his blog today.
Contrarywise to Google, Hakia uses natural language processing (NLP) to 'understand' search queries given in natural language (and not as plain keywords). Ok, this is now new.
Just remember AskJeeves, a.k.a. Ask.com. But, in difference to that search engine, Hakia claims to perform a 'semantic search' (and not a keyword based search). If you read a little bit further in their technical description at Hakia labs you will find thet they are using a parser called 'OntoSem', which as they claim is able to perform a 'deep semantic analysis' of sentences. This parser is used for query string analysis and also for the generation of the search index. But, their search index is different to that we are used from 'traditional' search engines.
Just remember, traditional keyword based search engines extract so called 'descriptors' from web pages that are used to describe the content of those pages. These descriptors are managed within an inverted index. Thus, by accessing the inverted index with a descriptor (=keyword in query string), a list of web pages will be returned together with some weights indicating the relevance of the descriptor for the page.
So, how does the index work in Hakia? They clain, that their parser is analyzing all web pages to be indexed sentence by sentence. In effect, all possible questions that can be posed for each sentence are generated, forming what they call the 'QDEX data'. All possible questions for all sentences in all pages have to be stored in an index-like data structure (simply for fast and efficient access). If now a query string contains a question, this question is mapped against the index, resulting in a large number of 'relevant' (questions, sentences and in the end...) web pages. Now they apply a 'smart' algorithm called 'Semantic Rank' which orders the resulting list of documents according to their relevance wrt. the question given in the query string. More details about the technique is not published (at least not to my knowledge).

Thus, the only way to find out about the quality of their approach is to try out their search engine. A nice feature is that they have included small example applications where you may try out OntoSem or QDEX interactively by yourself. I have only tried OntoSem (because for QDEX you have to sign up a request) and the result was not really different from any standard NLP-Parser (and thus not really convincing. I will sign up and give QDEX a try..and of course I will post the result).

If I compare their approach to Google's, the problem is that Google is also claiming to incorporate semantic technology altogether. So, again I can only compare the results of my queries. I have tried several queries and have come to the following results:

• in general the results from hakia do look very promising!


• in comparison to Google results, they are not really that different this may come because of my 'queries' and thus, my results are probably not really objective).
  Let me give you an example: I was asking both (Google and Hakia) the question 'When did the Semantic Web start?'. Ok, it's not so easy to understand at all. First, it didn't really start (as an being implementation), but the topic itself startet several years ago...and so I was curious about the results:
  
  
  
  • Hakias result list presented an ecrim article (being co-authored by Tim Berners-Lee) entitled 'The semantic web lifts off' as top result.
  
  
  • Google's result list on the other hand presented (as second result) an artice entitled 'When did the Semantic Web enter our lexicons?', which at least answered one part of my original question.
  
  

Ok, as stated before, this is not representative at all, but I will keep an eye on Hakia anyway. As soon as I have more representative experiences (and hopefully some comments or other interesting comparisons), I will write about.

One thing in the end. After all, what I have read about Hakia and on their web site, they seem to have a completely different notion of 'Semantic Search'. What they do is to apply (enhanced) information retrieval techniques based on natural language processing. They do NOT evaluate any additional given semantic annotation (RDF, OWL, etc...), which might be addid into the web pages or connected to them. They claim (same as Peter Norwig) that the average user is much too stupid to supply semantic annotation (because for doing that he needs to be a linguist as they say).
Of course, if you are following the PLAIN trail of the W3C and encode everything by hand (HTML, XML, RDF, OWL, SWRL, etc...) then you have to be some real expert. But today, you (at least most of you) don't encode HTML by your own. Remember, there are lots of real nice WYSIWYG editors for doing that AND (even more) there are several simplifications (just think of writing your blog). In the same way there will be smart user interfaces and editors providing help in generating semantic annotations for your texts. First and most simple step is providing labels and keywords (just 'tags') for your blog posts. Most people do that...just because (1) they want to put some order into the set of their postings and (2) they want their posting to be found.

Who's afraid of Google...?

Today I read an article in the German newspaper 'DIE ZEIT' entitled with 'Who's afraid of Google'. It was about Google's project of digitizing the entire printed books of the world and their deal with the 'Bayerische Staatsbibliothek' (the 2nd largest scientific library in Germany). Several scientists and librarians were asked about what they think about Google's plans and its effects on the culture in general.
In general the opinion was more critical than enthusiastic (and I can follow their arguments). On the one hand, Google offers some kind of democratozation of the reading culture (meaning that in the end all books might be available for everybody at any time). But, Google as a philanthropist...? Business first! This means, clicks are money...and thus, it's all about money. The main criticism of the community was that Google will get a monopoly concerning all our reading. Thus, the obvious next step (from some pessimistic point of view) is censorship (or at least 'filtering'). Just imagine Google to be in a position that dictates what we are reading (I mean concerning the content). Then, there is no democracy at all....
The other complaint of the librarians was concerning the poor quality of Google scanning the books. There are examples of 'thumbs' inside scans (btw I was not able to find an image proof of that...but I confess that I was searching with Google...) and the offered resolution of 300 dpi for color/grayscale (for handwritten codices as e.g. the 'Sachsenspiegel' this is not enough) and 600 dpi for print is also subject of criticism.

Speaking as a scientist, I'm really happy that almost all scientific literature (at least for me as being a computer scientist) is available in the world wide web and that it can be accessed by searching Google. I don't want to stay in libraries for hours, discussing with librarians, filling out forms, copying articles from books, and maybe waiting weeks or months before I am able to access certain literature. But...(and now be honest)...who of you does not print out an article for reading (and commenting, annotating, etc...).
Google print maybe will offer the possibility to read the very first edition of 'Robinson Crusoe' while sunbathing at the beach...but will you? For sure, we all LOVE books. But, do we also 'love' a computer screen? You might touch books, feel (and scent) the old leather of a binding, browsing through worn pages, making annotations and remarks....just having the ability to put content (knowledge) into some matter (the book), take it everywhere you want to, being your companion...and you know where it is (on the shelf, on your nightstand, in the bathroom...). Do you think, having a book just on some screen is something similar (concerning your sensation). You switch the screen off...and the book is gone. Of course, it's somewhere in the digital universe...but not for real on your nightstand when you put out the light.....

In the end, I don't think that Google print will be as 'mean' as being projected by many librarians. Of course it will bring some change (and also some positive change). But it will not 'extinguish' the book. Publishers and booksellers will keep on selling books and we will also keep on reading them. Monopolies are not democratic (...some contradiction ahead). Therefore, we should also support all the other digitizing projects, as e.g. the digitizing project of the 'Börsenverein des deutsche Buchhandels' or the 'European Library' and their 'Europeana' project that will be launched by the end of march.

The Semantic Web will NOT fail .....

...well, maybe it will not develop as projected by the W3C...but there is something evolving :)
Just to answer the question raised at the DERI blog "The Semantic Web will fail?" and to make a statement to Stephen Downes' post on "Why the Semantic Web will fail".
First thing, I wonder why the DERI blog leaves Downes' statement uncommented. Isn't DERI doing a lot of Semantic Web research? Ok, but let's go into detail. Downes' first thesis is

"The Semantic Web will never work because it depends on businesses working together, on them cooperating."

Does it? Why do inter business relations work...? Although there's competition going on, the benefit of sharing common standards is pretty obvious. Maybe you're right that the Semantic Web will not develop as the W3C projects (just remember ISO/OSI and TCP/IP for the sake of standardization). Maybe it's not possible to design the Semantic Web in a top-down manner. But, on the other hand maybe we will see some bottom-up evolution as in the way of the social web (aka web 2.0). And why not thinking of some hybrid aproach? Then, business will adapt sooner or later...and they will. At least, when they face the situation that semantic technology is required to run money making applications. Maybe we are still lightyears away from what is promised by the Semantic Web, but from my point of view we are just about to see some major changes and developments in the upcoming 5-10 years.

Further he says that
"But the big problem is they believed everyone would work together:
- would agree on web standards (hah!)
- would adopt a common vocabulary (you don't say)
- would reliably expose their APIs so anyone could use them (as if)"

The point is that one of the main purposes of the Semantic Web is to get together heterogeneous data. That means data that are coded with different vocabularies (but containing some additional encoded semantic that states how one vocabulary relates to the terms of another). And just look at RDF. There are already a lot of companies that suport RDF in their applications.

Anyway, the criticism is not new. Just remember Peter Norwig's argument...The nice thing about Stephen Downes' post is the discussion below that is definitely worth while reading...

Liquid Browsing - a new paradigm for accessing huge collections of data ?!

As promissed yesterday, I've installed iverse's liquidfile, a kind of substitute (or supplement) for the mac finder. (For all those mac illiterates: the finder is some kind of file system browser). Liquidfile applies the principle of liquid browsing to the filesystem of your computer. To get a short overview, how liquid browsing works, just take a look at the following short movie presentations [1] [2]. It's rather difficult to describe the way how it works with words, because its a visual way of browsing...and thus it is better explained in a visual way also. It's a 2 dimensional visualization, where e.g. the x-axis represents a timeline (as e.g. file creation date) and the y-axis represents all files in an alphabetical order. Then, every file is put on that grid and denoted with a bubble. The size of the bubble (which itself is semi-transparent) reflects the size of the file. The nice thing in general about liquid browsing is that you are able to visualize huge amount of data also on small displays. In that case the mouse pointer acts as some kind of magnifying glass.

As for the file system on your computer, this kind of visualizations has some advantages. First, you can dissolve the entire directory structure (if you want) and look at all files at once (on my computer this were more than 15.000 files). You have the possibility to combine complex (realtime) filtering with several selection mechanisms to find the files you are looking for. Simultaneously, the order in which the files are presented in general stays always the same and does not change. Thus, your visual memory will always be able to memorize the approximate position of a distinct file that you are looking for.
Of course the system has several drawbacks (at least now). My macBook is rather new (january 2007). Thus, almost all of my files have the same creation date (most of them were simply copied to the macBook on the very same day....). Therefore, the time axis will work best, if you start to work with your computer and they will be created/changed over the time.
Another drawback is the limitation of the axes to represent only filenames, filesizes, or creation/change dates. I would like to order files also according to other (also content based) criterias to get a better overview.

But, it's a nice appetizer anyway. What I would like to try out is to visualize relationships between entities (files/documents) with this technique. Just imagine bubbles of different entities and if I focus on one, all other bubbles that represent entities, which are in a certain relationship to the entity being in focus will highlight or move closer (of course in realtime...).

CeBIT Day 3 ... finally

Finally I'm back home at the HPI in Potsdam. Yesterday (Sunday) was my last day at this year's CeBIT computer fair and there were a lot of interesting things going on...
First, by chance I met HBS-fellow Jan Schmidt. Together with Oliver Gassner and Reinhard Karger as host he was talking about the use of networking platforms such as second life, their use, the hype, and social spam (read more about it in Jan's blog).
Another very interesting talk was scheduled afterwards: Carsten Waldeck, founder of iverse was talking about liquidfile - a file browsing application based on liquid browsing. Liquid browsing offers the possibility to arrange and manage a huge number of data items (e.g. documents) in a rather efficient way by a smart 2d-visualization. This principle is now applied to file system management on your local computer. There is an implementation for the mac and I will test it asap to give you a report.
In addition Carsten Waldek and host Reinhard Karger were talking about the plan of installing a social networking platform for archiving intellectual content (not in the sense of intelectual property). But, you should be able to express an idea, to upload your idea in any form of document, and to receive an official timestamp. Of course maintaining a database of 'ideas' will be rather difficult. Thus, all those ideas have to be translated into 'logic' (means with the help of ontology and rule representation languages). Then, if you have a new idea, you can check, if anyone else has already thought about it and if there are some people with similar interest. The other way around, you will be able justify that you have a claim in some idea because you have registered it previously. The trouble is....translate a natural language document into logic representation...you know that this - if done completely automatically - will fail (at least too often....). Thus, we will have to wait, until the semantic web will come.
On the other hand....we have been thinking and thinking again about possible killer applications for the semantic web. This(!) could be one....

BTW, I also met another HBS-fellow Andreas Scheper after the talk (read more about the CeBIT future talks and see some videos in Andreas sein Blog). We decided to meet again at re:publica in berlin, where als the HBS has a so called plugin that will be filled with some fruitful discussion...

So, CeBIT is over for me now... If you want to stay informed about ongoing CeBIT work and CeBIT after hours, keep on reading Miss Marple's Blog.

It's CeBIT time again ... Day 2

Incredible, but true...yesterday evening we've succeeded in walking through ALL CeBIT halls. If you've ever been there, you know that this means something. Somebody told us, that taking the whole 9 yards means walking almost 10 kilometers. Ok, in the evening without the crowded passages its much easier (except the crowded parties of course). And there the CeBIT often offers Live music of exceptional quality.

But before that you stand there at your booth from 9 am to 6 pm, talking to peoples, explaining and demonstrating your project, making new contacts, taking and planning appointments...
Saturday and Sunday are the days of the so called 'Beutelratten' (meaning non-business visitors that are hunting all possible giveaways and gadgets, gathering all in free giveaway bags that they have to carry around everywhere and everytime). But, anyway besides of those, today we also had some rather interesting business visitors.
Tomorrow on Sunday will be my last CeBIT day...and I must say it's okay. Another three days would be really too stressful...

Please don't forget to register at OSOTIS, our new video search engine, and win an iPod!!
(to be continued...)

It's CeBIT time again ... Day 1

Friday, my first day on CeBIT computer fair. This year, we (Osotis) have a booth at the joint exhibition of 'Mitteldeutschland' in hall 09 - the hall of research and future. Next to us are the other EXIST-SEED funded projects of the FSU Jena -- MobiSoft (watch out for Steffen's Blog, esp. for his pictures) and Navimatrix. On the other hand - my second employer is also present in hall 09 - the Hasso-Plattner-Institute of the University of Potsdam at the joint exhibition of 'Berlin-Brandenburg' with the projects Lock-Keeper (a hardware firewalling system), TeleTask (a simple tele lecturing system), and Tele Lab (a laboratory for security techniques). I will write about the most interesting projects of hall 09 in the upcoming posts.

Yesterday, we had a lot of trouble to keep our system running. But today, Jörg (fortunately) managed to solve the major problems. Thus, I tried to upload a few more videos (including a lot of Berkeley public lectures). If you read this blog, please register at Osotis, because we need a lot of users to keep the system working!

As usual, CeBIT would be half as interesting without it's after business parties. Almost in each of the more than 20 halls there were several parties going on (many including live music, all including free drinks, some including free food...). It's the most difficult task during the day to find out, where and what is going on after business, where to go for 'dinner', for some drinks, and for to listening the best music.

OSOTIS ...winning an iPod...and the CeBIT rumble starts again

I have already talked about the video search engine OSOTIS, but it has again improved over the time. First at all, what does 'OSOTIS' mean? No, it's not some sort of ancient egyptian god. It's just derived from the botanical name for 'forget-me-not', which is greek 'Myosotis'. So, the name already gives some hint for the offered service:
(1) OSOTIS offers search within videos
(2) right now, most videos available at OSOTIS are academic lecture recordings, ranging from short viseo sequences from the famous Solvay conference in 1927 (where Einstein replied to Bohr that God does not throw dice...) up to lectures from Berkeley, MIT, Stanford, Oxford, or also my lectures at the Friedrich-Schiller-University in Jena (Germany).
(3) OSOTIS does not host the videos (as youTube or Google does). They only provide links to your resources. Nevertheless, OSOTIS downloads the offered video stream for post processing and for generating timed annotations for the video serch.
(4) You can register at OSOTIS (btw if you register before April 15th you have the chance to win an iPod 30GB) and maintain your own video collections, maintain an own user profile, make friends, choose your favourite videos, and (!) you can tag videos.
(5) You can even tag inside video streams. This means that the tagging information also includes time information and that the search is able to replay the video exactly from the right position.
(6) OSOTIS is a social networking tool.
And OSOTIS is at the CeBIT computer fair that has just opened its gates. Visit us at hall 9, D04!
Yes...and tomorrow I will be at CeBIT in Hannover for the next three days. So just stay tuned, because I will write about everything interesting that comes into my way.

exams...it's always (most times) the same

Again, today are oral examinations to do. During the semester break, it's the time for most of the exams for the computer science diplomas, masters, or bachelors. I teach several courses that are relevant for students of computer science, as 'web technologies' or 'technical foundations of the internet (TFI)' (and of course 'semantic web')...
Most students come to get examines in 'webtechnologies' or 'TFI', and because these courses are given for senior students, we do oral examinations because there are to few students to justify the labour of preparing a written exam.
But, the point is...most student simply think that web technology or internet technology is something they know already (maybe because it's part of our everyday life) and they don't prepare well or they prepare in the wrong way. I always tell them 'you don't have to give me technical details and parameters. Think global! You have to understand HOW everything is working together. Don't take things granted..ASK if you don't understand or if you cannot answer WHY things are done the way they were...'
It's almost useless. Often I have the feeling that I could talk to the wall instead of human beings capable of listening and understanding. Of course, the facts are quite simple. Everybody has heard of HTTP. Everybody knows that HTTP is used for transporting messages between browser and WWW-server...but, if it comes to (web)-caching, cache control, and stuff like that..and that it is even related to HTTP...I guess most people take that for granted and forget it immediately after having heard.
The same with web-programming. Of course everybody has heard of distributed programming, stubs, skeleton, and so on. But, if you ask, what exactely a stub has to do, to get a procedure call transfered to another computer....
I could tell you hundreds of examples including search engine technology, semantic web, ontologies, web-caching, dynamic HTML, client-side/server-side programming, ...

Sometimes, I'm a little bit frustrated. The students even have the possibility to watch the lectures again from our video database. They even have the possibility to get them all on DVD to watch them again at home. In addition we prepare a lot of material....and what is the outcome? About 2/3 (two thirds) of all exams are dissapointing. Don't get me wrong. Not all of these students do fail the exam. They were prepared an knew quite something...but if you try to figure out how things interact and why certain things are arranged in the way they are....you realize that the students take those things for granted and don't care to take a look behind..

O.k....enough of blustering around. The next exam will be at 3 p.m. Let's hope that sombody is reading this blog :)

Daniel Kehlmann - Die Vermessung der Welt

I have no idea whether this book has been already translated in English. If so, read it! (...it has. I've just looked it up at amazon..the title is Measuring the World)
It's some kind of biography of two of the most outstanding people of the 19th century, Carl Friedrich Gauss and Alexander von Humboldt. But beware...it's some very special kind of biography......(By the way, I've visited the 'Alexander-von-Humboldt Gymnasium in Schweinfurt' and made my Abitur there).
I'll switch to German.
Das Buch war für mich wirklich eine der großen Überraschungen in den Neuerscheinungen des letzten Jahres. Der Gattungsbegriff Biografie trifft es nicht ganz, aber irgendwie natürlich doch. Wir stürzen mitten in die Geschichte, als der bereits betagte Gauss nach Berlin aufbrechen muss, um auf Einladung von Humboldt an einem Kongress teilzunehmen. Eigentlich will er ja gar nicht, vorallem nicht aus dem Bett heraus, aus seinem Haus, aus Göttingen...und überhaupt. Köstlich...vor allem auch der Dialog (eigentlich eher ein Monolog) mit Eugen, seinem seiner Ansicht nach 'missratenem' Sohn. Dazu hat er keine Papiere - die man zur damaligen Zeit für die Reise von Göttingen nach Berlin durchaus benötigte - erzählt dem Polizeibeamten, dass Napoleon seinerzeit sogar auf eine Kanonade Göttingens nur seinetwegen verzichtet hätte...dazu muss sich der Leser die damaligen Verhältnisse in "Deutschland" vor Augen führen. Die herrschenden Fürsten hatten eine Heidenangst vor revolutionären "demokratischen" Umtrieben...und auf Napoleon war man in Deutschland nach dem Wiener Kongress in kaum einem der dazu zählenden 100+x Kleinstaaten allzu gut zu sprechen. Naja...der Polizist muss einen verdächtigen "Turner" (Jawoll....gedenke man doch auch dem "Turnvater" Jahn) verfolgen und beide Gauss gelangen schließlich wohlbehalten nach Berlin, wo sie schon von einem umtriebigen Alexander von Humboldt in Empfang genommen werden. Sehr schön auch die Schilderung, wie man mit Hilfe der noch nicht so recht ausgereiften Erfindung des Herren Daguerre versucht "die Zeit festzuhalten"....
Nun...in diesem Stil wird uns schließlich das Leben der beiden ungleichen Geistesgrößen und Sonderlingen geschildert. Während Gauss sich an die Entdeckung der Mathematik (und schließlich auch der Physik) macht und eine 'innere Welt' bis an ihre Grenzen erforscht, begibt sich Humboldt auf Entdeckungsreise nach Süd- und Mittelamerika, die 'äußere Welt' bis zu ihren Grenzen zu erforschen.
Am Ende bemerken die beiden mittlerweile schon ergrauten Herren, dass sie doch gar nicht so verschieden sind - auch wenn ihr Leben kaum unterschiedlicher hätte sein können.

Ich hab das Buch sehr genossen. Vor allem natürlich, da ich mich durch die geschilderten Eigenarten der beiden Protagonisten an den ein oder anderen hochbegabten (aber doch recht schrulligen) Zeitgenossen erinnert gefühlt habe, der meinen Weg bislang gekreuzt hat...natürlich entdeckt man auch die ein oder andere eigene 'Seltsamkeit' wieder. Ein weiteres Highlight ist für mich Kehlmanns Sprachgewalt. Nein, das Werk ist nichts für den "Wald-und-Wiesen-Gelegenheits-JerryCotton-Leser". Ganz im Gegenteil. Natürlich wirkt die Sprache (ich sage nur "lang lebe der Konjunktiv"!) etwas antiquiert, aber wir befinden uns ja schließlich in der ersten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts und nicht bei RTL.
Fazit: Ich hab schon lange nicht mehr ein so kurzweiliges und interessantes Buch gelesen. Lesebefehl!

Ning and Library 2.0

Again, it was only a matter of time, until a Web 2.0 Site turns up that allows you to create your own social networking web site. Ning hosts numerous socual networking web sites covering all possible issues. It's rather simple...just register and create your own site following the dialog.
Yesterday - again by chance...i.e. by tag-browsing bibsonomy entries - I found one of Ning's social networking sites on the topic 'library 2.0'. I signed up and I'm rather curious what will happen there :)