As the word “data” is used here, it includes articles, data, software, workflows, etc. When efforts such as these or others achieve their goals, we will have the third generation of computing, where not only is the network the computer, but, as indicated above, “all” of its data are interoperable. It was also designed several decades ago, but it, too, has only become practical with today's high performance connected computers. Another effort making progress in the interoperability of heterogeneous data is the Digital Object (DO) Architecture. Twenty years ago when Web designers created the Semantic Web, an observer noted that “the only new thing about the Semantic Web is the Web.” Nevertheless, just as the Web revolutionized access to information, the Semantic Web may revolutionize access to knowledge. Semantics is one of the long-studied areas of artificial intelligence and it entered a new phase in the new century. Interoperability of data requires a semantic layer. Publication takes on a new meaning here, since the computers must “understand” all of these artifacts well enough to provide us novel assistance. Hardware with these capabilities is the innovation trigger that will enable Open Science, which is the “publication” of all relevant science results: data, software, workflows, etc., in addition to summary articles describing those science results, and accessibility of all these elements (at least all those produced with public money) for the cost of an Internet connection. They are a thousand times more powerful and a thousand times cheaper than computers were a generation ago: A multi-terabyte disk costs a hundred dollars, a thousand dollar computer can execute several billion instructions per second and the network that connects millions of such computers has a bandwidth approaching a terra-bit per second. High performance networked computers are today's equivalent of the printing press. The printing press was the innovation trigger that enabled semi-Open Science (OS).
0 kommentar(er)
