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 HP has released a new version of
Jena, its open source Semantic Web toolkit used by enterprises
and people around the world to create applications that share,
process and integrate information across the World Wide Web.
With more than 17,000 downloads so far, Jena is widely recognised
as the most popular toolkit for Semantic Web developers.
It is capable of supporting applications as diverse as database
integration, knowledge management, news syndication and
image annotation.
"Approximately 80 per cent of Semantic
Web applications that we have seen at recent major conferences
have been based on Jena," said Martin Merry, who manages
Semantic Web research at HP Labs Bristol, where Jena was
developed.
Jena implements the new RDF and OWL Semantic Web language
recommendations announced today by the World Wide Web Consortium
(W3C) http://www.w3.org/2004/01/sws-pressrelease.
These languages herald a new era of information sharing
on the Web.
The purpose of the Semantic Web is to make the Word Wide
Web understandable by machines, allowing computers to find
and integrate information from diverse sources so that it
can be used for different purposes. With the use of Jena,
more of the Web's content can be created in a machine-comprehensible
form, allowing increasingly intelligent gathering, filtering
and processing of knowledge.
"We are proud to be supporting open Web standards with
this latest version of the highly successful Jena Semantic
Web toolkit, created by one of the leading Semantic Web research
groups," said Dick Lampman, HP senior vice-president
of Research and Director of HP Labs. "HP is excited by
the opportunities that the Semantic Web creates for new information
integration services and products."
James Hendler, co-Chair of the W3C Web Ontology Working Group
and Director of Semantic Web Technology at the Maryland Information
and Network Dynamics (MIND) Laboratory, said: "Jena provides
a capable and fully featured support package, backed by HP's
reputation as a major player in the computing world. We use
Jena heavily in the projects the MIND lab is doing with industrial
and government partners. I salute both HP's support for OWL
and its decision to release Jena as an open source product."
"The idea behind Jena is to make it easy for developers
to try out the Semantic Web," said Brian McBride, the
originator of Jena at HP Labs, and co-chair of the W3C's RDFCore
working group. "Jena is a free, well-engineered, standards-conformant
toolkit. The active and growing community of Jena users, developing
a wide range of applications including photo annotation, enterprise
knowledge management and data integration, indicate that it
is succeeding.
"For more information about HP and the Semantic Web and
to download Jena, visit www.hpl.hp.com/semweb
About HP
HP is a technology solutions provider to consumers,
businesses and institutions globally. The company's offerings
span IT infrastructure, personal computing and access devices,
global services and imaging and printing. For the fiscal
year ending on Oct. 31, 2003, HP revenue totaled $73.1 billion.
More information about HP (NYSE, Nasdaq: HPQ) is available
at www.hp.com.
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