The 6th Screen

The basics of Web 3.0. Wait, Web 3.0?

By Hannah Eaves

What does “jaguar” mean to you? If you’re a fan of Bush’s tax cuts, it’s probably a brand of car. If you are a Mac user it might be an operating system, and if you’re hearing strange noises on the Mexico-Guatemala border, it might be a very big cat. But if you’re interested in the future of online technology, it is the evergreen example used to explain what’s called The Semantic Web.

Semantic web proponents argue several things pretty loudly, and one of them is that computers should be smart enough to understand the deep meaning of words by their context, just like hu-mans understand sentences. Computers should understand that when you ask “Are jaguars ex-tinct in Central America?” you are looking for an answer, and you mean the animal, not the car. They should also understand this automatically, without a user having to manually tag the con-tent where it lives (page or video) with the words “jaguar” and “mammal” and whatever hundred other keywords might make sense. Instead, it should be able to use its context, combined with the infinite informational pages on the web, and human interaction, to make its decision. This implies a level of artificial intelligence whereby computers are able to infer meaning from lan-guage—from the structure of a sentence, from the sentences on a page. Not “how frequently does this word appear” but “I get what you’re saying.”

topics: digital filmmaking, directors, distributors, technology, the web

The 6th Screen

SWAG: Free feature films on the web

By Hannah Eaves

Acronyms and abbreviations occupy an ever increasing part of our modern lives. Some of us spend at least a small amount of time pretending we understand them (IMHO) and feeling proud we can actually use them in crossword puzzles (IMHO, the New York Times, Sunday September 14). But this one—SWAG—goes way back. In fact, according to Wikipedia, it’s actually a backronym. Which means it existed as a real word first and then collectively we made up a series of words for the letters. Originally, it was defined as a small bundle of stuff, and really it still is: Stuff We All Get (of course, this is how the "S" is represented in polite circles).

topics: bay area, digital filmmaking, directors, distributors, documentary, dvd, web

The 6th Screen

To French Polynesia and back with Seesmic

By Hannah Eaves

As my ship cuts a sweet line through the South Pacific, it seems that nothing could be further from this distant spot, where there is no land in sight, than the intricacies of the Bay Area Internet industry. When you look at a globe, French Polynesia falls exactly at the point where all other land masses disappear around the curve, and, if you squint your eyes, there is exactly nothing but ocean around it, with maybe a hint of the Americas or Australia.

The 6th Screen

What's fair (use) is not foul

By Hannah Eaves

Earlier this month the Center for Social Media (CSM) and the Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property (PIJIP) at American University released a report called Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Online Video or, as it was immediately zeitgeisted by boingboing, "HOWTO Make online videos without getting sued." For techies in the online world, "fair use," Creative Commons and net neutrality occupy the same level of heaven as bizarre sea creatures, steampunk gadgets and cryptozoology. But the paper also makes a very handy tool for ordinary Joes experimenting in the new creative freak zone of User Generated Content.

topics: bay area, digital filmmaking, directors