How Semantic Technology Will Revolutionize Education
November 27, 2015
Will advanced semantic technology return us to an age of Socratic education? In a guest post at Forbes, Declara’s Nelson González suggests that’s exactly where we’re heading; the headline declares, “The Revolution Will Be Semantic: Web3.0 and the Emergence of Collaborative Intelligence.” In today’s world, stuffing a lot of facts into each of our heads is much less important than the ability to find and share information effectively. González writes:
“Most importantly, Web3.0 is opening paths to collaborative intelligence. Isolated individual learning is increasingly irrelevant to organizational health, which is measured largely through group metrics. Today, public and private institutions live or die based on the efficiency, innovation, and impact of corporate efforts.”
The post points to content curators like Flipboard and Pinterest as examples of such collective adaptive capacity, then looks at effects this shift is already beginning to have on education. González gives a couple of examples he’s seen around the world, and discusses ways collaboration software like his company’s can facilitate new ways of learning. See the article for details. He writes:
“Web 3.0 is unleashing a kind of ‘back to the future’ innovation, the digital democratization of what élites have always practiced: deep learning through imitative apprenticeship, humanistic personalization via real-time observation, and mastery through crowdsourced validation. Silicon Valley is thus enabling us all to become the sons and daughters of Socrates.”
Launched in 2012, Declara set out to build better bridges between online sources of knowledge. The company is based in Palo Alto, California.
Cynthia Murrell, November 27, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Content Matching Helps Police Bust Dark Web Sex Trafficking Ring
September 4, 2015
The Dark Web is not only used to buy and sell illegal drugs, but it is also used to perpetuate sex trafficking, especially of children. The work of law enforcement agencies working to prevent the abuse of sex trafficking victims is detailed in a report by the Australia Broadcasting Corporation called “Secret ‘Dark Net’ Operation Saves Scores Of Children From Abuse; Ringleader Shannon McCoole Behind Bars After Police Take Over Child Porn Site.” For ten months, Argos, the Queensland, police anti-pedophile taskforce tracked usage on an Internet bulletin board with 45,000 members that viewed and uploaded child pornography.
The Dark Web is notorious for encrypting user information and that is one of the main draws, because users can conduct business or other illegal activities, such as view child pornography, without fear of retribution. Even the Dark Web, however, leaves a digital trail and Argos was able to track down the Web site’s administrator. It turned out the administrator was an Australian childcare worker who had been sentenced to 35 years in jail for sexually abusing seven children in his care and sharing child pornography.
Argos was able to catch the perpetrator by noticing patterns in his language usage in posts he made to the bulletin board (he used the greeting “hiya”). Using advanced search techniques, the police sifted through results and narrowed them down to a Facebook page and a photograph. From the Facebook page, they got the administrator’s name and made an arrest.
After arresting the ringleader, Argos took over the community and started to track down the rest of the users.
” ‘Phase two was to take over the network, assume control of the network, try to identify as many of the key administrators as we could and remove them,’ Detective Inspector Jon Rouse said. ‘Ultimately, you had a child sex offender network that was being administered by police.’ ”
When they took over the network, the police were required to work in real-time to interact with the users and gather information to make arrests.
Even though the Queensland police were able to end one Dark Web child pornography ring and save many children from abuse, there are still many Dark Web sites centered on child sex trafficking.
Whitney Grace, September 4, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Search Improvements at Twitter
June 18, 2015
Search hasn’t exactly been Twitter’s strong point in the past. Now we learn that the site is rolling out its new and improved search functionality to all (logged-in) users in TechCrunch’s article, “Twitter’s New Search Results Interface Expands to All Web Users.” Reporter Sarah Parez tells us:
“Twitter is now rolling out a new search results interface to all logged-in users on the web, introducing a cleaner look-and-feel and more filtering options that let you sort results by top tweets, ‘live’ tweets, accounts, photos, videos, news and more. The rollout follows tests that began in April which then made the new interface available to a ‘small group’ of Twitter users the company had said at the time. The updated interface is one of the larger updates Twitter’s search engine has seen in recent months, and it’s meant to make the search interface itself easier to use in terms of switching between tweets, accounts, photos and videos.”
Twitter has been working on other features meant to make the site easier to use. For example, the revamped landing page will track news stories in specified categories. Users can also access the latest updates through the “instant timeline” or “while you were away” features. The article supplies a few search-interface before-and-after screenshots. Naturally, Twitter promises to continue improving the feature.
Cynthia Murrell, June 18, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Upgraded Version of Kofax Kapow Released
June 11, 2015
The article on KapowTech titled Kofax Kapow 9.5 Adds Analytics and Simulation Capabilities discusses Kofax’s recent upgrade. The new version includes more graphic support, speedier robot design and testing, and the ability to easily share and synchronize projects. The article says,
“As a global leader in commercial intelligence for the energy, chemicals, metals and mining industries, we provide objective analysis and advice on assets, companies and markets, giving clients the insight they need to make better strategic decisions,” said Matthew Jennings, a Director Operations for Research at Wood Mackenzie. “The new analytics capabilities built into Kofax Kapow 9.5 will give our business analysts detailed, up-to-the-minute insight into how our web data integration processes are running.”
Dave Caldeira, Senior Vice President of Product and Solutions Marketing for Kofax speaks to the importance of real-time management in order for users to keep on top of their projects. The article reports that the Kofax Kapow platform is the quickest way to work with enterprise applications that also routes the need for any coding. Most importantly, it provides the ability to use information that was previously useless. Kofax has more than 20,000 users that rely on the company for its aid in customer engagement.
With Lexmark in Kentucky, the crowd in Harrod’s Creek wishes the company success as it adjusts to its new owner.
Chelsea Kerwin, June 11, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph

