This session by Terence Huwe

What is meaning-based computing? (MBC)

Importance of forecasting probability – ‘how should we modify our beliefs in the light of new information” – see “The Theory that would not Die” Sharon Bertsch McGrayne (http://www.librarything.com/work/11186931)

Based on Bayesian analysis.

What are the applications and potential uses of meaning based computing? Used for code breaking, handwriting and speech analysis etc. Approach commercialised by Michael Lynch – in the form of Autonomy (now acquired by Hewlett-Packard) – applied to ‘enterprise search’. 80% of a firm’s info assets are unstructured and thus hard to retrieve conventionally.

Two events furthered the growth of MBC – in 2007 the US federal rules of civil procedure made all data forms admissible for litigation – seen in the Enron case. The explosion in social media has created new challenges for firms – meaning they need to track huge amounts of unstructured information.

So – enterprise search is booming – MBC thrives in commercial and pure research settings. Autonomy’s MBC-based tools:

• Implistic Query – hotkey to related information without leaving a primary task
• Hyperlinking – live links, diverse sources
• Smart or Active Folders
• Automatic Taxonomy Generation
• Sentiment Analysis
• Automatic clustering of all data types