Sparks Ozone Browser

The Sparks Ozone (O3) Browser is a new way for browsing visualy the hidden knowledge of RDFa documents through XHTML overlays. Install the bookmarklet in your browser or integrate the preview version to your website (not publicly available yet).

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Enlighten the Web

Semantic Web technologies have been designed to enable computers to understand and process the information distributed on the Web. OWL/RDF representations are clearly targeting programs whereas HTML is designed for human beings. On the other hand, Microformats and more recently RDFa have been proposed for integrating ontological information into standard XHTML documents. This integration is currently used for third party systems such as screen scrappers and search engines.

Ontological information of a document is not only useful for programs but can also be used for making the underlying knowledge explicit by augmenting visually its look and format.

The Sparks 03 Browser is a pratical application of some of the concepts developed throughout the Sparks framework. Specifically, it uses the overlay concept for augmenting visually standard documents by adding new mecanisms of interaction with the underlining knowledge.

So What is This About?

Ozone is a small piece of what could be the future of knowledge interraction on the Web where ontological information is not only targeting machines but, also humans.

O3 Browser uses the Sparks Framework, a JavaScript Framework currently still in development. This framework intends to propose a new way of interacting with knowledge on the web.

The Browser is a simple script overlay that can be applied to any web page containing RDFa information. This overlay adds a visual layer that enables the user to interact and browse semantic information on the top of an existing document.

How does it Work ?

The Browser is currently provided as a bookmarklet that can be installed in most Web Browsers without requiring any fastidious procedure (currently it only works perfectly in Firefox). The script can also be linked statically to any Webpage but this method is not recommended for production websites since the library is still not stable.

Currently the browser proposes a limited number of visualisation plugins. However, the library is flexible enough for adding new visualisations without any difficulties.

The browser is still a prototype and not really stable. The current version is demonstrating the feasibility of the concept: it may not work yet perfectly on any RDFa document and in any browser (the system is known to work very well on Ivan Herman's Homepage and on Firefox).

Installation

The script is not publicly available at the moment. It will be released soon.

The simplest way to use the Browser is to drag-and-drop the bookmarklet link into the toolbar of your favorite browser (currently it only works perfectly in Firefox) and clik on the link when you want to apply the overlay to an RDFa document.

The script has been tested in Firefox, there is some known issues with the other browser but it should be corrected in the final release.

Functionalities

The browser displays the information over the top of the current page. Two views are available: the first one is designed for normal users whereas the second one called developper view is targeting a Web ontologist:

  • RDFa Visual Browsing: Additional information, searching...
  • Related information (graphical links).
  • Triple View.
  • Sparql Query Interface.

Visualisations

The browser is currently supporting a limited set of visualisations:

  • Twitter Microbloging Account.
  • GeoLocalisation View.

License

Current Sparks/Sparks Ozone browser and code can be used for non-commercial purposes (the code will be released soon under an open source license).

The framework and browser are developed by Gregoire Burel and Elizabeth Cano from the Oak Group at the University Of Sheffield.

This project is supported by the EU project WeKnowIt (ICT-215453).