Calais (Reuters Product)
Encyclopedia
Calais is a Thomson Reuters
initiative to encourage the wide deployment of semantic technologies
in the information
and content marketplaces. Originally launched in January 2008, the initiative has garnered wide attention due to its technical capabilities and "free to all" business model.
The Calais Web Service
ingests unstructured
text and returns Resource Description Framework
formatted results identifying entities, facts and events within the text. The service appears to be based on technology acquired when Reuters purchased ClearForest
in 2007.
Recent uses of the technology have included the automatic tagging
of blog
articles and the organization of museum collections.
Calais uses natural language processing
technologies delivered via a web service interface
.
Thomson Reuters
Thomson Reuters Corporation is a provider of information for the world's businesses and professionals and is created by the Thomson Corporation's purchase of Reuters Group on 17 April 2008. Thomson Reuters is headquartered at 3 Times Square, New York City, USA...
initiative to encourage the wide deployment of semantic technologies
Semantic technology
In software, semantic technology encodes meanings separately from data and content files, and separately from application code.This enables machines as well as people to understand, share and reason with them at execution time...
in the information
Information market
Although information has been bought and sold since ancient times, the idea of an information marketplace is relatively recent. The nature of such markets is still evolving, which complicates development of sustainable business models...
and content marketplaces. Originally launched in January 2008, the initiative has garnered wide attention due to its technical capabilities and "free to all" business model.
The Calais Web Service
Web service
A Web service is a method of communication between two electronic devices over the web.The W3C defines a "Web service" as "a software system designed to support interoperable machine-to-machine interaction over a network". It has an interface described in a machine-processable format...
ingests unstructured
Unstructured data
Unstructured Data refers to information that either does not have a pre-defined data model and/or does not fit well into relational tables. Unstructured information is typically text-heavy, but may contain data such as dates, numbers, and facts as well...
text and returns Resource Description Framework
Resource Description Framework
The Resource Description Framework is a family of World Wide Web Consortium specifications originally designed as a metadata data model...
formatted results identifying entities, facts and events within the text. The service appears to be based on technology acquired when Reuters purchased ClearForest
ClearForest
ClearForest was a software company that develops and markets text analytics and text mining solutions. Founded in 1998, ClearForest has its headquarters just outside of Boston and has development in Israel near Tel Aviv. It was acquired by Reuters in April, 2007...
in 2007.
Recent uses of the technology have included the automatic tagging
Tag (metadata)
In online computer systems terminology, a tag is a non-hierarchical keyword or term assigned to a piece of information . This kind of metadata helps describe an item and allows it to be found again by browsing or searching...
of blog
Blog
A blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in...
articles and the organization of museum collections.
Calais uses natural language processing
Natural language processing
Natural language processing is a field of computer science and linguistics concerned with the interactions between computers and human languages; it began as a branch of artificial intelligence....
technologies delivered via a web service interface
Web service
A Web service is a method of communication between two electronic devices over the web.The W3C defines a "Web service" as "a software system designed to support interoperable machine-to-machine interaction over a network". It has an interface described in a machine-processable format...
.
External links
- Case Study of Open Calais in E. Curry, A. Freitas, and S. O’Riáin, “The Role of Community-Driven Data Curation for Enterprises,”, in Linking Enterprise Data, D. Wood, Ed. Boston, MA: Springer US, 2010, pp. 25-47.