CSOFT International Ltd., a provider of multilingual localization, testing, and outsourced software development for the global market, announced the upcoming launch of TermWiki, a multilingual, collaborative and Wiki-based terminology management system for the the localization industry. TermWiki comes with enhanced Google-like fuzzy match search capabilities, automated notification features, detailed accessibility and user profile management, a structured dispute resolution infrastructure, image and video support, as well as customizable forms embedded in the system to facilitate compliance with relevant ISO standards for the presentation of terminological data categories. TermWiki is scheduled for public release this spring. http://www.csoftintl.com
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As the world of search becomes more and more sophisticated (and that process has been underway for decades,) we may be approaching the limits of software’s ability to improve its ability to find what a searcher wants. If that is true, and I suspect that it is, we will finally be forced to follow the trail of crumbs up the content life cycle… to its source.
Indeed, most of the challenges inherent in today’s search strategy and products appears to grow from the fact that while we continually increase our demands for intelligence on the back end, we have done little if anything to address the chaos that exists on the front end. You name it, different word processing formats, spreadsheets, HTML tagged text, database delimited files, and so on are all dumped into what we think of as a coherent, easily searchable body of intellectual property. It isn’t and isn’t likely to become so any time soon unless we address the source.
Having spent some time in the library automation world, I can remember the sometimes bitter controversies over having just two major foundations for cataloging source material (Dewey and LC; add a third if you include the NICEM A/V scheme.) Had we known back then that the process of finding intellectual property would devolve into the chaos we now confront, with every search engine and database product essentialy rolling its own approach to rational search, we would have considered ourselves blessed. In the end, it seems, we must begin to see the source material, its physcial formats, its logical organization and its inclusion of rational cataloging and taxonomy elements as the conceptual raw material for its own location.
As long as the word processing world teaches that anyone creating anything can make it look like it should in a dozen different ways, ignoring any semblance of finding-aid inclusion, we probably won’t have a truly workable ability to find what we want without reworking the content or wading through a haystack of misses to find our desired hits.
Unfortunately, the solutions of yesteryear, including after-creation cataloging by a professional cataloger, probably won’t work now either, for cost if no other reason. We will be forced to approach the creators of valuable content, asking them for a minimum of preparation for searching their product, and providing the necessary software tools to make that possible.
We can’t act too soon because, despite the growth of software elegance and raw computer power, this situation will likely get worse as the sheer volume of valuable content grows. Regards, Barry Read more: Enterprise Search Practice Blog: https://gilbane.com/search_blog/
Issuu, a publishing platform for digital magazines, newspapers and catalogs, released its first mobile app for Android-powered devices. Issuu’s new EasyRead (beta) technology automatically enhances the text of any publication enabling users to read text on small-screen devices while still maintaining the visual layout. EasyRead helps a longstanding problem in digital publishing where rich publications such as magazines, newspapers and catalogs are almost impossible to read on small screens. Available as a free beta version Issuu Mobile gives readers access to their favorite publications and must-read documents everywhere they go. http://www.issuu.com/mobile
Syncro Soft Ltd announced the immediate availability of version 11.1 of its XML Editor and XML Author. Oxygen combines content author features like the CSS driven Visual XML editor with a fully featured XML development environment. It has ready-to-use support for the main document frameworks DITA, DocBook, TEI and XHTML and also includes support for all XML Schema languages, XSLT/XQuery Debuggers, WSDL analyzer, XML Databases, XML Diff and Merge, Subversion client and more. Version 11.1 of <oXygen/> XML Editor improves the XML authoring capabilities, the support for XML development and also a number of core features. The visual XML authoring now uses schema information to provide intelligent editing actions that help keep the document valid and provide a better editing experience. The new compact representation of tags and the quick up/down navigation features improve the ergonomics and the usability. <oXygen/> can use any XQJ compliant XQuery processor for XQuery transformations, different error levels and external references can be specified for Schematron messages and the XProc support was improved with better editing and execution. The XML format and indent operation can use DTD/schema information to provide better formatting and the find and replace is now XML-aware and can accept XPath filtering to delimit the search scope. Starting with version 11.1 the diff and merge support from oXygen is available also as a separate application, oXygen XML Diff. Oxygen XML Editor and XSLT Debugger is available immediately in three editions: Multi-platform Academic/Personal license costs USD 64.00 (includes the one year support and maintenance pack). Multi-platform Professional license costs USD 349.00; Multi-platform Enterprise license costs USD 449.00. Oxygen XML Author is available immediately in two editions: Multi-platform Professional license costs USD 199.00; Multi-platform Enterprise license costs USD 269.00. http://www.oxygenxml.com, http://www.syncrosvnclient.com
Design Science announced the release of MathType 6.6 for Windows, featuring support for Windows 7’s handwriting recognition feature as well as extending its support to over 350 applications and websites in areas such as education, elearning, calculation, word processing, presentation, email, blogs and wikis. Among the newly supported applications and websites are Google Docs, Gmail, Blackboard and many others. For the last year, the company has been implementing its Equations Everywhere and Anywhere! initiative, enhancing MathType to eventually work with virtually all the applications and websites used by students, teachers, professors, elearning authors, scientists and engineers. With this new release, MathType now works with over 350 applications and websites. It also features an accompanying “Works With …” web application that shows detailed instructions on how best to use MathType with each product. MathType is US $57 for academic users, $97 for non-academic users; upgrades are US $37 for academic users, $49 for non-academic users. Anyone can download MathType from the Design Science website and try it free for 30 days. http://www.dessci.com
Alfresco Software, Inc. and RightScale, Inc. announced the availability of a joint solution aimed at speeding the deployment time and automating the scaling of Alfresco software in the cloud. Utilizing RightScale’s software-as-a-service (SAAS) cloud management platform. RightScale’s cloud management platform is aimed at enabling organizations to deploy Alfresco open source ECM quickly and create a fully-configured, fault-tolerant and load-balanced Alfresco cluster using RightScale ServerTemplates. http://www.alfresco.com/, http://www.rightscale.com/
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has published new Drafts of XQuery 1.1, XPath 2.1 and Supporting Documents. As part of work on XSLT 2.1 and XQuery 1.1, the XQuery and XSL Working Groups have published First Public Working Drafts of “XQuery and XPath Data Model 1.1,” “XPath and XQuery Functions and Operators 1.1,” “XSLT and XQuery Serialization 1.1” and “XPath 2.1.” In addition, the XQuery Working Group has updated drafts for “XQuery 1.1: An XML Query Language,” “XQueryX 1.1” and “XQuery 1.1 Requirements.” http://www.w3.org/News/2009#entry-8682
EPiServer announced the addition of a complete, integrated e-commerce platform to its existing web content management and community platform. Through a strategic partnership with Mediachase, the EPiServer platform will provide commerce, content and community, and is aimed to enable companies in the retail and B2B vertical markets to deliver a compelling online experience. The Mediachase .NET e-Commerce Framework (ECF) provides an agile best practices architecture, with user experience controls, loosely coupled subsystems, like catalog management, order management, customer management, merchandising, promotions, and a fully exposed .NET developer framework (API). Combined with the extensible EPiServer content management system (CMS) and EPiServer Community platform, .NET web developers can build and deploy online stores, including multi-branding, multi-language, and multi-channel capabilities. Marketing tasks are streamlined through the interface and new capabilities to correlate visitor feedback and experience with store operation and order status at every step of the process. The EPiServer and Mediachase platforms are available now. The EPiServer integrated e-commerce platform is expected in the first half of 2010. http://www.episerver.com