Online newspapers

The traditional newspaper has to share protagonism with the online ones. As this lasts are becoming increasingly popular thanks to their accessibility and the fact that they are almost free. When they first appeared they supposed a challenge for digital editors to turn traditional newspapers in online newspapers.

An online newspaper, also known as a web newspaper, is a newspaper that exists on the Internet, either separately or as an online version of a printed periodical.  Going online created more opportunities for newspapers, such as competing with the television and the radio journalism in presenting breaking news in a timelier manner. This means that now, newspapers can publish breaking news content online when journalist had enough information to write the piece of news.

This has helped a lot when time to decrease costs came. The lack of paper and ink to publish decreased the cost of publication and cheapen it. That allows offering PDF version of the printed newspaper cheaper than printed one and the possibility of buying the section the buyer wants. In addition when publishing, the editor can include multimedia content like videos and sounds.

References:

• Online newspaper. (2009, December 8). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 12:07, December 30, 2009, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Online_newspaper&oldid=330561429
• From print to web e-paper. The challenge of designing the e-newspaper. (2004). In Diginews. Retrieved December 30, 2009 from http://diginews.se/files/040627_elpub_carina_maria_stig.pdf

New era of publication: blogs

Every Internet user is aware of the existence of the blogs. Their use has been growing since the beginning of the new millennium. People seem to use it for many different purposes such as personal blogs, political or even academic.  This blog actually is academic.

At the beginning the blogs were written manually and the HTML code included in the same way. Afterwards, they became more advanced and posts could be written more easily. At this point is when the start their growth and little by little reaching the people at the street. In addition to this growth some legal problems start to happen, the possibility of publish content without confirmation supposed a problem both in academic and gossip world.

Platforms such as Blogger, Word Press or La Coctelera are one of the most important blog publishers in Spain. Content publishing and editing all around the world with just an Internet connection is one the appeals of this new way of publishing and thus the digital edition of texts in order to adapt them to the screen.

Wordpress

References:

• Blogging: personal participation in public knowledgebuilding (2005) by Mark Brady. In University of Essex. Retrieved December 26, 2009. From: http://www.essex.ac.uk/chimera/content/pubs/wps/CWP-2005-02-blogging-in-the-Knowledge-Society-MB.pdf
• Blog. (2009, December 22). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 17:16, December 27, 2009, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Blog&oldid=333203987

Mark-up language

A markup language is a system for annotating a text in a way which is syntactically distinguishable from that text.  There are many different types of mark-up languages. There are three general categories:

1. Presentational markup is that used by traditional word-processing systems, binary codes embedded in document text that produced the WYSIWYG effect. Such markup is usually designed to be hidden from human users, even those who are authors or editors.
2. Procedural markup is embedded in text and provides instructions for programs that are to process the text. Just to name some examples; troff, LaTeX, and PostScript; it is expected that the processor runs through the text from beginning to end, following the instructions and present the text properly.
3. Descriptive markup, the markup is used to label parts of the document rather than to provide specific instructions as to how they should be processed. An example for this would be the HTML language.

The Semantic of presetantion means that they mark what part is the text not how has it to be presented.

Tha style pages allow us to mark the text as body, title, subtittle and so on. So changing the mark we change every part of the text marked with that mark.

References:

• Markup language. (2009, November 2). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 16:11, November 21, 2009, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Markup_language&oldid=323542392
• Hipertexto, el nuevo concepto de documento en la cultura de la imagen (2008, November 23) by María Jesús Lamarca Lapuente in Hipertexto. Retrieved 16:39, December 14 from:http://www.hipertexto.info/documentos/lenguajes_h.htm

The British Library and The Darlington Digital Library.

Both, the British Library and the Darlington Digital Library have available some of their books online. In this post I am going to write a brief review explaining their structure and design, the contect (genre and format)  and who are the people in charge of them.

Digital Library logo

The British Library is sitted at 96 Euston Rd, London. Nevertheless we can have access to eight collections without moving from our home. The collections available are: Henry VIII, Taking liberties, Sacred, turn the pages, historical text, Magna Carta, Maps and views and Black Europeans . Appart form them we can find another two possibilities: enjoying online exhibitions and taking some highlight tour. The pages of the books are shown as a picture with no possibility of highlihting anything, however it is important to point out the quality of the photos.

The Darlington Digital Library defines itself as:

The Darlington Digital Library was created from the first major collection of books, manuscripts, atlases, and maps donated to the University of Pittsburgh. Most of the credit for assembling the Darlington Collection rightly goes to William M. Darlington, an attorney by profession who was born in Pittsburgh in 1815.

In it we can find atlases, books, broadsides, images, manuscripts and maps. before entering one of each parts we are offered a brief exposition of what are we going to find. Once you have decided which book you want to retrieve yo are offeered a brief description of it and a list of the pages available. As well as with the British Library, just photos are offered but in high quallity.

References:

• The British Library (Online Gallery). http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/index.html
• Darlington Digital Library (Digital Research Library, University Library System, University of Pittsburgh) http://digital.library.pitt.edu/d/darlington/

Main differences between ebooks and traditional books.

Everybody can see the differences between the ebook and the traditonal book. Nevertheless there is more than meets the eye and in this short post I am going to introduce the differences beetween them.

• Text can be searched automatically and be linked to other books using cross-referenced hyperlinks.
• E-books allow non-permanent annotation and highligting
• Font and its size can be adapted to the reader.
• Animated images or multimedia clips to be embedded may be allowed.
• An e-book can automatically open at the last read page.
• Text-to-speech software can be used to read the text. Nevertheless, the voice will be auto-generated, so the quality may be  worse than audiobooks.
• It is easier for authors to self-publish e-books.
• A free e-book can stimulate the sales of the printed version.

Ebook vs Book

References

• What is an E-book?. In Todo ebook. The ebook site. Retrieved 12:05, october 12, 2009 from: http://www.todoebook.com/what-is-an-ebook.html
• E-book. (2009, October 11). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 12:08, October 19, 2009, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=E-book&oldid=319241552
• 30 benefits of Ebooks (2008, January 28) In Epublishers weekly. Retrieved 12:15, Ocotober 12, 2009, from http://epublishersweekly.blogspot.com/2008/02/30-benefits-of-ebooks.html

Sir Timothy John Berners-Lee

Sir Timothy John Berners-Lee (born 8 June 1955), is a British engineer and computer scientist and MIT professor credited with inventing the World Wide Web. He inherited his parents’ interest in computer technology. In 1976 he set about building his own computer. He used tools that could be found in the house.

Tim took up employment with Plessey Telecommunications Ltd, a major UK Telecom equipment manufacturer. Working on bar code technology and message systems helped further whet his appetite for computer systems.

He is the Director of the World Wide Web Consortium, a Web standards organization founded in 1994 which develops interoperable technologies (specifications, guidelines, software, and tools) to lead the Web to its full potential. He is co-Director of the Web Science Research Initiative (WSRI), started in 2006 in order to help create the first multidisciplinary research body to examine the World Wide Web and offer the practical solutions needed to help guide its future use and design. He is also a Director of the World Wide Web Foundation, started in 2008 to fund and coordinate efforts to further the potential of the Web to benefit humanity.

Since 2005 he has recieved the following awards:

2005:

• Common Wealth Award for Distinguished Service for Mass Communications
• Die Quadriga Award
• Financial Times Lifetime Achievement Award
• 2006:
• President’s Medal, the Institute of Physics

2007:

• Awarded the Order of Merit by H.M. the Queen
• Charles Stark Draper Prize, National Academy of Engineering
• Lovelace Medal, British Computer Society
• D&AD President’s Award for Innovation and Creativity
• MITX (Massachusetts Innovation & Technology Exchange) Leadership Award
• Foreign Associate of the National Academy of Engineering

2008:

• BITC Award for Excellence
• IEEE/RSE Wolfson James Clerk Maxwell Award
• Fellow, IEEE
• Pathfinder Award, Harvard Kennedy School of Government

2009:

• Foreign Associate, National Academy of Sciences
• Webby Awards Lifetime Achievement Award

Sir Timothy John Berners-Lee

 

Resources:

• Tim Berners-Lee. (2009, October 3). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 17:34, October 3, 2009, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Tim_Berners-Lee&oldid=317624982
• Tim Berners-Lee. In W3C. Retrieved 17:35, October 3, 2009, from http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/
• Tim Berners Lee Biography, (2005, Agoust, 5). In Buzzle. Retrieved 17:40, October 3, 2009, from http://www.buzzle.com/editorials/4-5-2005-68128.asp

La enciclopedia francesa.

La burguesía se formo en el siglo XVII y alcanzó su mayor esplendor en el XVIII. Sus mayores características eras su gran poder adquisitivo (igual o superior al de la nobleza) y su interés por la ciencia. Con la aparición de la burguesía se da la aparición también del tiempo de ocio para aquellos que no pertenecían a la clase privilegiada. Por ello se da también un mayor desarrollo de la literatura del ocio.

También se da a la par el desarrollo del periodismo. En los siglos XVIII y XIX, los líderes políticos tomaron conciencia del gran poder que podían tener las gacetas para influir en la población y proliferaron los periódicos de facciones y partidos políticos. A su par se da el desarrollo de una obra de caracter divulgativo solo al alcance de la burguesia y de la nobleza: la enciclopedia.  A partir de la aparición de la L’Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers en Francia es el resultado de la conjunción de la nueva filosofía naturalista, el espíritu científico y el nuevo estamento de la burguesía. En su totalidad, esta obra comprende 21 volúmenes de texto, 12 volúmenes de láminas y 2 volúmenes de índice general, lo cual supone más de 25.000 páginas.

Portada de "L'Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers"

 

Recursos:

• L’Encyclopédie. (2009, 31) de julio. Wikipedia, La enciclopedia libre. Fecha de consulta: 07:30, octubre 7, 2009 from http://es.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=L%27Encyclop%C3%A9die&oldid=28520968.
• La Enciclopedia,Diccionario razonado de las ciencias, las artes y de los oficios. En Sociedad Andaluza de Educación Andaluza. Fecha de consulta 09:45, septiembre 23, 2009 desde http://thales.cica.es/rd/Recursos/rd99/ed99-0257-01/enciclo.html
• La Ilustración y La Enciclopedia. En Shvoong – Criticas de libros Fecha de consulta 09:50, septiembre 23, 2009 desde http://es.shvoong.com/humanities/h_history/1690683-la-ilustraci%C3%B3n-la-enciclopedia/

Questionnaire #3: Machine translation

Machine translation, sometimes referred to by the abbreviation MT, is a sub-field of computational linguistics that investigates the use of computer software to translate text or speech from one natural language to another. At its basic level, MT performs simple substitution of words in one natural language for words in another. Using corpus techniques, more complex translations may be attempted, allowing for better handling of differences in linguistic typology, phrase recognition, and translation of idioms, as well as the isolation of anomalies.

Today a number of systems are available which produce output which, if not perfect, is of sufficient quality to be useful for certain specific applications, usually in the domain of technical documentation. In addition, translation software packages which are designed primarily to assist the human translator in the production of translations are enjoying increasingly popularity within professional translation organizations.

These are some examples of Online transaltors:

• OpenTrad, http://www.opentrad.org/demo
• Systran, http://oesi.cervantes.es/traduccionAutomatica.html (complemented by ATS)
• ProMT, http://elmundo.reverso.net/textonly/default.asp (aka Reverso)
• Lucy, http://www.translendium.net:8080/home/ (aka Translendium, Metal)
• Google, http://translate.google.com/

Languages from the world

References:

• Machine translation. (2009, March 26). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 09:56, April 1, 2009, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Machine_translation&oldid=279707378
• Definition of Machine Translation. In Macalester College. Retrieved 12:14. April 4. From http://www.macalester.edu/courses/russ65/definiti.htm

Questionnaire #3: Question answering systems

Related with the topic below this post is going to be related with one of the most developed systems: the question answering.  As in the post below I developed abut how does they work, in this I am just going to give few examples of them.

• Powerset: Powerset’s goal is to change the way people interact with technology by enabling computers to understand our language Powerset’s first product is a search and discovery experience for Wikipedia, launched in May 2008. Powerset’s technology improves the entire search process. In the search box, you can express yourself in keywords, phrases, or simple questions. On the search results page, Powerset gives more accurate results, often answering questions directly.
• Anna: If you have any doubts with IKEA, you can ask her. Although she is not very developed she can redirect you to any part in IKEA’s web page in order to get any products.
• Answers.com: This works as Power Set does.

Ask Anna if you have any doubts on IKEA

References

• About Powerset. In Powerset. Retrieved April 1st 11:15. From: http://www.powerset.com/about
• ¿Necesitas ayuda? In IKEA. Retreieved 11:23 April 1st. In: http://www.ikea.com/ms/es_ES/customer_service/splash.html
• Question answering. (2009, March 20). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 09:47, April 1, 2009, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Question_answering&oldid=278611780

Questionnaire #2: Answer Extraction

The system takes a natural-language query as input and produces a list of  answers ranked in order of confidence. According to Language Techonology World where a project in Answer Extraction is developed by  Rolf Schwitter, Michael Hess, Rachel Fournier, Diego Mollá-Aliod, Gerold Schneider, ExtrAns is one of the most developed programs in Answer Extraction.

ExtrAns is a system that finds answers to questions about (the Solaris variety of) UNIX in the on-line system documentation, the manpages. The questions may be phrased in ordinary English rather than in some formal query language. The answers are the sentence(s) of the manpages containing direct answers to the question (if there are any), complete with clickable links into the full manpages containing them.

The search procedure uses a proof algorithm of the user query over the Horn clause representation of the minimal logical forms. Remaining ambiguities in the retrieved sentences are dealt with by graded highlighting.

References:

• ExtrAns.  In Zurich university.  Retrieved 30th March 2009, 12:15. From http://www.ifi.uzh.ch/arvo/cl/extrans/
• Answer Extraction by Steven Abney Michael Collins Amit Singhal. In Vinartus Retrieved 30th March 2009, 12:35. From http://www.vinartus.net/spa/99f.pdf
• Extrans, an answer extraction system by Mots Clefs Keywords, Diego Moll, Diego Moll, Rolf Schwitter, Rolf Schwitter, Michael Hess, Michael Hess, Rachel Fournier, Rachel Fournier. In CtiteSeer. Retrieved 30th march 2009, 12:45. From http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.43.3993
• Off-line Answer Extraction for Dutch Question Answering (December 17th 2004) In Odur by Jori Mur. retrieved 30th March 2009, 12:50. From http://odur.let.rug.nl/~gosse/Imix/clin04_mur.pdf