The other day we were having this discussion promoted by @ppinheiro76 at Twittlis about this semantic tagging concept. The idea was that every tag we use in del.icio.us, blogger, or whatever web-data-harvesting tool we use, be unambiguously defined and linked with it's Wikipedia definition. Well, even though we didn't found an universal way about how to do it, I did found on the internet an universal way to tag the REAL world and map it to wikipedia :)
The tool is called Semapedia
and it uses this new (in Europe) technology called smartcode which basically allows to encode information in a black and white pixelised structure (think: 2D version of the traditional supermarket barcode), like a web link.
Basically using sites like Semapedia, you can generate these smartcodes that contain an html link for any wikipedia article (like Wall-E, I liked Wall-E). Semapedia will return you with a pdf containing real world tags that you can readily print and glue wherever you find it interesting in your physical vicinity.
Then, the anonymous mobile troller that passes by, may take a snapshot and, if his mobile device has installed a smartcode scanner (I use the neoreader app for the iphone), he can scan the picture and extract the link that will give him instant access to the web page contained in the smartcode. Here's what I got on my first test:
Cute, hu?
This new technology can encode any textual information including links, SMS messages, microformats, you name it. The applications for this are really mind-blowing and it gets my vote as what regards the next disruptive big thing coming ahead! Wait 'till more people get mobile net access to watch those marketeers "smart tag" virtually any product around you! Heck, I want a t-shirt and a fake tattoo with a smartcode for my web-page!
With the iphone I used the free neoreader app. But I found out there are heaps of smartcode scanners available for hundreds of mobile devices out there. So, if you've got mobile web on your phone or pda and you're a tech enthus like I am, you may want to give it a shot at this service ;)
So far, there are several encoding standards that I know of: QR code, datamatrix and shotcode. You can very easily generate a smartcode to your web-site here, here and here. There, you'll find also useful links for smarcode scanners for your mobile device. UPDATE: You'll also find here a heap of interesting news related with 2d codes in Europe. In particular I found there a link to blog4mobile, which turns my blog into a mobile blog AND provides a QR code to it. Anyone knows of other such services?
People have already started tagging the real world, all over, using Semapedia smartcodes :) Is this the birth of a new socio-cultural movement?
How about you? Have you tried it yet? What smarcode generators/scanners do you use?
Below is a screenshot of the most interesting article of 2013, period. Written by one the most-influentials "good" guys of world, Julian Assange. The article deals about the promiscuity between Google top-notch executives and the White House, and how it affects both institutions policies, at the expense of the people's freedom and will. Below the article I share with you some notes I've taken.
Assange sums it all up to us in two words: "Jared Cohen", and a question "Who is he? ". It's worth it to check him out. I googled him to find out he's a futurist thinker, thinking about the disruptive reach social networks and, now, context networks can attain, world-domination-wise. A megalomaniac thinker surely, with the wits, the will, the intuition, the perception and the goal. He happens to play ball - real hard - both at the White House AND at Google. He's playing with fire though, and it could easily backfire on his employers.
The new Jean-Jacques Rousseau of the XXIst century, a prototypical example of the lacquay that out-wits the masters of the house he serves. This article, and the Edward Snowden case, are a glympse iMHO to a silent-war going on, mostly between the future world-dominating nations (or corporations???), US, China, ..., but also Facebook, Google, Baidu, etc ...
Scenarios outcomes? I would bet on political borders to become obsolete, and on social-network based new nations (or tribes?). Alexander, Julius, Napoleon, Adolf and Benito, they all had big plans, but they just missed the right technology to make the entire world yield into whole "Gaia Pax". Today, technology is almost ripe, almost, to make it a breeze to administrate over 100 billions of citizens, within the blink of a byte. Not only there CAN be only one, but I'd wager, there WILL be only one. It's only a matter of WHEN, and it's definitively not an IF.
For those who fight on good side of the force, I have only one word for advice (or is it three?): "peer-to-peer". Stick with this notion deeply incepted in your mind and we'll be safe enough. NrÂș1 enemies? Anything that qualifies as a "walled-gardens" ;-)
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