How to Keep Up with the Semantic Space

Fact: Reshma Sohoni, chief executive of Seedcamp (the VC accelerator focusing on European tech startups) said in an interview this week that “In the past few months, we’ve seen a lot more developments around the semantic web,” and talked about the coming value of semantic web services.  

Analysis:  There’s never-ending buzz about the semantic space. Just this week John Conroy writing at the Content Matters blog had a long and interesting piece examining “three ingredients needed to enable and popularize the semantic Web,” with the aim of answering “if we really are on the cusp of a content revolution.”

Also, I admit it, I can’t stop playing with the semantic-space startups, whether it’s Sensebot or the newly launched Evri, or Powerset (just acquired by Microsoft, as I wrote about previously).

The Nimitz Class Data Center?

Just an observation: We were discussing this week with a Navy 3-star the status of Microsoft’s work in mega-data-centers.  We brought up the combined-container strategy we’re using and how this provides a hyper-flexible platform for large data center scenarios, in obvious ways – lots of computational power available for web-scale hosting or anything smaller. 

Massive Data Centers, Right in your Cellphone

I try to keep my cellphone on “vibrate” during meetings; no one needs to know my taste in ringtones. But more importantly, I keep it on so that I can use the browser and web search ability, which I wind up doing almost as often as I check my email.

Yesterday was a good example of the utility of ever-handy web search. My group and I had brought together an international group of government officials to visit Microsoft Research’s annual TechFest.  Tuesday was the “Public Day” with the media and outsiders allowed, so we spent that day at the Microsoft Convention Center with Craig Mundie, Rick Rashid, and a hundred others, but Wednesday morning we offered a series of side briefings for the group at Microsoft’s Executive Briefing Center, on topics of interest to large government and defense agencies.  Topic one was data centers.

Manferdelli Had a Salad, I Had Meatloaf

I had a very pleasant lunch today in Reston with John Manferdelli, one of the engineering legends with whom I’m privileged to work at Microsoft.  (Check out this list, kind of my own corporate “bucket list” of people to meet and listen to).

John arrived in DC a couple of days ago; unlike mere mortals, he decided to spend a weekend day off visiting the University of Maryland Engineering  Library in the Math Building, and told me he’d found a fascinating book on random numbers….