On the occasion of aKademy 2007, the annual conference of KDE
developers and users, Mandriva is proud to announce together with the
NEPOMUK partners and the KDE community that the NEPOMUK-KDE project it
leads is poised to deliver a sea change in the Linux desktop
experience. NEPOMUK-KDE introduces semantic capabilities to the
upcoming release of the K Desktop Environment (KDE 4), providing an
interoperable framework that can be harnessed by all KDE applications
to allow annotating and interlinking any and all desktop objects.
62 years ago, in the famous article "As we may think", Vannevar Bush
aired the dream of a "Memex", a system that would let the user create
associative trails of data, hence becoming an "enlarged intimate
supplement to his memory". In the mean time, the advent of semantic
Web technologies combined with the tremendous progress of database
systems, the exponential growth of digital information stored on
personal computers, the power of graphical toolkits and the
inventiveness of open source communities have produced huge momentum
for a new generation of personal knowledge systems. In 2007, the time
of desktops acting as intelligent assistants has come.
Building upon existing standards and open source technologies, the
NEPOMUK-KDE framework is the first desktop-wide semantic system to
become a reality. The framework provides rich application programming
interfaces allowing for content annotation using well defined
relationships between the information elements and for advanced
content search from any KDE application. KDE Dolphin - the new KDE
file manager - and KDE PIM - an application suite for managing
personal information - count among the early adopters of the
innovative NEPOMUK libraries.
Sebastian Trueg, the leading architect of the NEPOMUK-KDE project,
explains: "NEPOMUK-KDE transforms the data islands currently
encapsulated in each application into a gigantic graph of knowledge
both at the desktop level and soon at the Web level".
With the goals of showcasing the latest advancements of the framework
and involving the community of end users, Mandriva is building a KDE 4
preview image integrating the latest NEPOMUK achievements. "The
objective is to expose the new desktop environment to the largest
number of users, developing its future in close collaboration with the
community it is made for, making the technology truly accessible and
easy to use", says David Barth, Mandriva Consumer Vice-President.
Mandriva and the NEPOMUK Consortium are extending the scope of the
project by bridging existing initiatives related to desktop metadata
management to make semantic features interoperable between different
technologies. Mandriva is also leading the implementation of similar
features on top of the Eclipse RCP and the Mozilla XUL frameworks, and
it is teaming up with XWiki and with the Stockholm Royal Institute of
Technology to design a community semantic help desk with rich desktop
extensions and P2P capabilities that will bring the knowledge sharing
process within the Mandriva community to a new level of efficiency.
Stéphane Lauriere, coordinator of the Mandriva Semantic Web
activities, says: "NEPOMUK paves the way for revolutionary
applications. It will considerably improve the efficiency of users in
their day to day work. NEPOMUK will have a direct impact on the way
people work, learn and communicate, empowering them with new methods
for easily creating knowledge, and for discovering contextually
relevant facts."
Francois Bancilhon, Mandriva's CEO, adds: "It is no surprise that the
innovations carried out by NEPOMUK stem from open source communities,
since
collective knowledge creation is at the heart of the open source
movement. Mandriva is very proud to be part of a European team who is
realizing the next big thing in desktop computing."
A video demonstrating NEPOMUK's integration into Dolphin, the new KDE
file manager, can be found at DailyMotion:
href="http://www.dailymotion.com/liquidat/video/x2bf36_nepomukdolphin"
target="_blank">http://www.dailymotion.com/liquidat/video/x2bf36_nepomukdolphin
Tudor Groza, from DERI, will present the NEPOMUK framework during a
dedicated keynote session at aKademy 2007:
href="http://akademy2007.kde.org/conference/talks/58.php"
target="_blank">http://akademy2007.kde.org/conference/talks/58.php
About NEPOMUK
The NEPOMUK project is funded under the European Union's Sixth
Framework Programme. NEPOMUK brings together researchers, industrial
software developers and representative industrial users to develop a
comprehensive and multi-platform solution for extending the personal
desktop into a collaboration environment which supports both personal
information management and sharing of information via social and
organizational channels. Major partners of the project include DFKI,
DERI, SAP, Thales, and IBM (the full list available online, see
project website below). Mandriva is bringing its values to the NEPOMUK
project, sharing its vision for an open, simple and innovative desktop
that is accessible to all.
More information at:
href="http://nepomuk.semanticdesktop.org" target="_blank">http://nepomuk.semanticdesktop.org
About Mandriva
Mandriva, formerly known as Mandrakesoft, is the publisher of Mandriva
Linux, an easy-to-use and innovative operating system. It is one of
the
most popular Linux editions in the world. Dedicated to making open
source technologies accessible to all users, the company offers a full
range of products and services to individuals, enterprises and
government organizations. Mandriva products are available online in 80
languages and in more than 140 countries through dedicated channels.
Headquartered in Paris, France, the company is publicly traded on the
Euronext Marche Libre .
More information at:
href="http://www.mandriva.com" target="_blank">http://www.mandriva.com
Press contacts
Camille Repussard -
href="mailto:crepussard@mandriva.com">crepussard@mandriva.com
- +33 (0)1 40 41 17 58
Guillaume Martin -
href="mailto:gmartin@mandriva.com">gmartin@mandriva.com
- +33 (0)1 40 41 17 64
Caroline Garlatti -
href="mailto:cgarlatti@mandriva.com">cgarlatti@mandriva.com
- +33 (0)1 40 41 67 67
http://www.linuxlinks.com/portal/news/article.php?story=20070704135546374