Corporate news

You have been involved in the development in computational semantics in the 1980s in Germany. Looking back, how do you perceive the Semantic Web. Old wine in new bottles, incremental innovation or a disruptive technology?

The development of the Semantic Web has confirmed many of the approaches of the 80s and put them into a new, very contemporary context. The Semantic Web has taken up and intensified the relevance of those developments. We are now seeing a much faster transfer from research to industrial applications. The Semantic Web approach is set to have a huge influence, in particular in areas such as the media industry, healthcare - but also in the public sector.

You have been experimenting with semantic web technology in electronic program guides recently. How does the TV industry adapt to the Semantic Web? Where will the journey go?

The TV and media industry is currently experiencing a tremendous upheaval. We are seeing  – at least in part – television consumption shifting from the classical TV end device to the Internet. This change will involve the expansion of the linear TV program structure to a non-linear TV program which will be individualized and driven by personal profiles. It is precisely at this point that the Semantic Web approach comes into play. In our work on next-generation electronic program guides (EPGs) we have significantly extended metadata processing in order to reveal implicit relationships which are then used in our recommendation engine. The mechanisms we use are derived directly from the research on description logics and related approaches from the '80s.

A big issue at the moment is Linked Data. From your perspective: Why is the topic so important? How will it affect the media industry?

In our own research activities we are observing these developments with great interest: One extremely interesting, well-known example in the media industry is the application of Linked Data technology by the BBC – used to link their own contents with external contents such as Musicbrainz. While the benefits for the end-users are already obvious, the benefit for the content provider is just starting to become clear. Enhanced processing of user profiles seems to be a first step towards commercially interesting applications.

About Condat

Condat AG is a real veteran in the IT industry. Since our founding 30 years ago in Berlin we have taken part in many of the developments and trends in the sector. We have always had the ambition to participate in cutting-edge innovations in certain areas. Our bread-and-butter business is conducted with customers such as the ARD stations, German cable providers, Deutsche Telekom, Daimler AG, or federal agencies. We offer the classical IT portfolio of e-business applications, mobile solutions, and systems supporting complex, innovative workflows. Our research activities have been playing an increasing role in all our business fields as we integrate the results of our R&D projects into our solution portfolios. Finally, our research provides us with contact to the university scene, to students, teachers and – last but not least – to such interesting partners in the scientific community as the Semantic Web Company in Austria.