Why the 'Star Trek Computer' Will Be Open Source and Apache Licensed 129
psykocrime writes "The crazy kids at Fogbeam Labs have a new blog post positing that there is a trend towards advanced projects in NLP, Information Retrieval, Big Data and the Semantic Web moving to the Apache Software Foundation. Considering that Apache UIMA is a key component of IBM Watson, is it wrong to believe that the organization behind Hadoop, OpenNLP, Jena, Stanbol, Mahout and Lucene will ultimately be the home of a real 'Star Trek Computer'? Quoting: 'When we talk about how the Star Trek computer had “access to all the data in the known Universe”, what we really mean is that it had access to something like the Semantic Web and the Linked Data cloud. Jena provides a programmatic environment for RDF, RDFS and OWL, SPARQL and includes a rule-based inference engine. ... In addition to supporting the natural language interface with the system, OpenNLP is a powerful library for extracting meaning (semantics) from unstructured data - specifically textual data in an unstructured (or semi structured) format. An example of unstructured data would be the blog post, an article in the New York Times, or a Wikipedia article. OpenNLP combined with Jena and other technologies, allows “The computer” to “read” the Web, extracting meaningful data and saving valid assertions for later use.'"
Speaking of the Star Trek computer, I'm continually disappointed that neither Siri nor Google Now can talk to me in Majel Barrett's voice.
No, that is not what we mean. (Score:5, Insightful)
'When we talk about how the Star Trek computer had âoeaccess to all the data in the known Universeâ, what we really mean is that it had access to something like the Semantic Web and the Linked Data cloud.
The Enterprise computer was not hampered by being in another galaxy, nor was Voyager's computer hampered by being in the Delta Quadrant. They had local copies of all the data at all times.
Re:And this means???? (Score:4, Insightful)
From somebody who spent a few hours working a show with Gene Roddenberry before his ashes got the cosmic brush off... Having run film clips and sound for his famed "lecture" on Star Trek's past and how that changed our future, I thought he was nuts (1987).
Science Fiction has foreseen future events, but it is NOT an accurate representation of what is going to happen. So how on earth (or in space for that matter) can we tell what software will be used in the future for some yet to be designed hardware? Add to this that we are not even sure when or even if such a theoretical machine will ever exist and how can we figure any kind of useful debate will come from this?
Oh yea, this is star trek.. Home to the group that thinks some group of two bit "B" list actors are somehow for tellers of the future
Your argument from authority is unappealing. The components of a computing system similar to a fictitious one have been identified. The likelihood of their software licensing approach is being projected based upon current component licensing and development plans. We do not think the "B" list actors knew what the "techno-babble" they were spouting meant.
However, when we create devices that are similar to the fictitious devices, we can and will make comparisons. The Hypo-spay exists. Tablet Computers exist. Food replication systems are in development. 3D TV exists. We launched a rocket similar to Jules Verne's to the moon. Eventually the rockets we send to Mars and/or the Moon will land vertically Delta-V style, like Verne's rocket did (so they can take off again). Cars can apply brakes when proximity alarms go off -- Cars can even drive themselves now, like in Sleeper; They can parallel park too! Applications for Mars Colonization are being accepted...
Stop for a moment and think about current technologies. Now extrapolate a bit. Extrapolate a bit further. Write a story about it. Marvel as some of your ideas weren't actually bat-shit insane after all. Some are more accurate than others. I think you need to re-evaluate your life. The future they did not "predict", happened the way they said it would despite your claim to the contrary...