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SPARQL: Web 2.0 Meet the Semantic Web — The Semantic Web. It's an odd duck, and not only from the publishing point of view. Academic computer science is starting to take the Semantic Web (which means, for them, webizing the Knowledge Representation part of AI) seriously. There are conferences, journals, books.
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SPARQL to ignite web 2.0 — Kendal Clark, managing editor of XML.com, just wrote: "SPARQL over AJAX just by itself is so cool it gives me a headache!". — What problem does SPARQL solve? SPARQL is here to replace the SELECT part of SQL query statements, the long standing standard for database access.

Petitioning parliament by mouse — If e-government seems to be mainly about doing tax returns online, then e-democracy is its more exciting cousin, promising to put citizens at centre stage of the political process. — E-democracy projects are springing up all over the UK.

Acer Unveils Tablet PC, Plans to Enter U.S. LCD TV Market — The tablet computer has a sliding LCD panel that allows for quick conversion. — Sept. 17 ATHENS, Greece—At its Global Press Conference here Saturday, Acer rolled out a brand new tablet PC with an innovative pop-up hinge.

A Microsoft switch: Vista feature to go cross-platform — As part of the announcement of the next generation look and feel for Windows Vista, Microsoft said that it will make a subset of the new presentation layer available for other platforms. — Windows Presentation Foundation …

Analyst says Google may bid on AOL to fend off Microsoft — Google, the most-used Internet search engine, may consider making a bid for America Online to keep the company from switching to Microsoft Corp.'s search technology, a Merrill Lynch & Co. analyst said Friday.

Netvibes - Personal homepage — Netvibes, a project started in France by Florant Fremont, is the latest web-app based on the idea of personalized homepages and like some others (like Start and Google's personal homepage), it is powered by some nicely developed Ajax.

What's Up At Microsoft! — Nearly a year ago, I wrote, Microsoft is not smart, its just that, its competitors are stupid. Well, in years that have passed, that theory has been proved right. Look at Palm, a company which had the monopoly of the hand held business, and well, now the software is owned by a Japanese firm.

IDG drops Boston Macworld — Once-popular trade show falls victim to Apple's decision to end its participation — The annual Boston Macworld trade show, which once attracted 60,000 users of Apple Computer Inc.'s Macintosh computers, is shutting down, the victim of Apple's 2004 decision to end its participation in the show.