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XML
2000 Attracts Over 3000 Visiters
XML 2000 attracted the largest XML
audience ever to the Nation's capitol this December. The final
count stands at 3,287.The conference ran 6 days and offered 28
tutorials, 7 special interest days and over 150 speakers. This
year the tracks included:
- Getting
Started with XML
- XML,
Enabling Business on the Web
- Building
an XML Web Site
- Publishing
with XML
- Society
and Technology
- Device-Independent
Web Accessibility
- XML; The
Leading Edge
- Knowledge
Technologies
This track content
represents the most comprehensive coverage of XML and
related standards of any XML conference. Most
conferences focus on core standards and
programming/implementation techniques. This
conference is different in that it provides the greater
context and highlights the leading edge and what the
future holds. This is the conference where we go to
find out what is coming not just what is!
XML Expo was Largest Ever!
Just as the conference drew
more attendees than ever before, the exposition drew more
exhibitors than ever. All available exposition space was
sold
and over 90 companies were represented on the show
floor. Exhibitors included:
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Fourthought, Inc.
previewed 4Suite Server, a platform for Web-based
applications that uses XML to represent and exchange
business data. 4Suite Server can be used as a black
box for easy incorporation into other applications
locally or over a network.
-
Collego Corporation
showcased Atomic Catalog, an easy-to-use XML e-catalog
solution that allows business managers to leverage
existing product information to create, manage and
publish rich electronic catalogs to multiple
destinations and formats quickly, easily and
cost-effectively.
-
Inera, Inc. highlighted
eXtyles, an integrated suite of editorial and XML
tools for Microsoft Word that automates XML production
processes. Inera also gave a sneak preview of
"Alice," the internal code name for its
innovative collaborative enabler currently under
development.
-
Kinecta Corporation
announced Kinecta Interact Lite, the industry's first
free syndication tool that enables businesses to
automate and streamline the distribution and receipt
of digital content.
-
TIBCO Extensibility
demonstrated its latest product, XML Canon, the first
end-to-end platform to develop and deploy XML assets
and vocabularies within an organization and between
trading partners.
-
Architag International
announced the beta release of the first software
product, xRay, for Microsoft Windows operating
systems. XRay is a real-time, validating XML editor
that provides fast creation, viewing and editing of
XML documents.
-
FutureXpert.com
showcased XPERT (Xpath based query language Evaluation
and Retrieval Tool), a Java software that pursues a
flexible XML content management. It allows multiple
types of XML documents to be indexed together and to
be retrieved with Xpath queries in an efficient way.
Tim Berners-Lee Highlights
His Vision for the Semantic Web
Tim Berners-Lee, Director
of the World Wide Web Consor,tium visited the conference on
Wednesday, December 6th. Berners-Lee, known as the
"father of the Internet" and author of Weaving
the Web, responded to the GCA invitation to speak
about his vision for the Semantic Web as part of the
"Knowledge Technologies" track. His rather
surprise visit to the conference caused quite a
stir. Everyone wanted to see the presentation, which
was to take place in a track meeting room. Due to
excessive demand by attendees (and speakers alike), the
conference schedule for the day was modified to enable
Berners-Lee to address the entire body of conference
attendees in the main ballroom. GCA certainly thanks
Tim Berners-Lee for his understanding in being switched
from a small track setting to the plenary forum and thanks
our attendees for being so flexible throughout that day!
According to XML.com,
"In one of his most complete public expositions of
the vision to date, he[Berners-Lee] explained the layered
architecture that he foresees being developed in the next
ten years."
One of the important points
made by Berners-Lee is that in the context of the Semantic
Web, the word "semantic" means "machine
processable." It does not imply natural language
semantics. The semantics for data convey what a machine
can do with that data. Berners-Lee also stressed
that like XML, the Semantic Web is a declarative
environment. You can say what you mean by some data,
and not what you is to be done with it.
Berners-Lee also
highlighted each of the elements in the architecure of the
Semantic Web. Besides XML, and XML Schemas, RDF and
RDF Schemas are important as a language for describing
resources and resource types. Berners-Lee mentioned
his meeting earlier that day with Michel Biezunski and
Steve Newcomb, editors of XML Topic Maps highlighted the
closeness of RDF and XTM specifications and indicated that these technologies may
be even more closely aligned in the future. Above
this layer, Berners-Lee described an ontology layer that is capable of
describing relationships between types of things. He
also highlighted the importance of digital signatures and
the concept of trusted information to the Semantic Web of
the future.
Tim Berners-Lee honored
Lauren Wood for her work as editor of the Document Object
Model. Wood's work on DOM was completed with the
announcement of DOM Level 2 as a W3C Recommendation this
December.
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