Web Technologies

Future Trends and Review

Prof. Beat Signer

Department of Computer Science

Vrije Universiteit Brussel

beatsigner.com

2 December 2005
 The Future of the Web
▪ From a Web of documents (e.g. HTML pages)
to a Web of structured data and services
▪ semantic web and linked data
▪ cloud computing
▪ enabling technologies
- URI, XML, RDF and OWL

▪ The Internet as one global machine

▪ interoperability of services
▪ automatic reasoning
▪ The Mobile Web
▪ access information and services offered by the global machine
from everywhere at any time, feed the machine with new data and
teach the machine new relationships between data
December 18, 2020 Beat Signer - Department of Computer Science - bsigner@vub.ac.be 2
 The Future of the Web ...
▪ Internet of Things
▪ integration of physical objects with the global machine
▪ physical world gets reflected in digital space via sensor input data
- RFID, GPS, temperature, ...
▪ information and services managed by the global machine get
projected into the physical space via augmented reality
▪ Personal data that is nowadays stored in folders on
personal computers might move to the global machine
▪ User interfaces for the global machine
▪ personalised filtering and recommendation of related information
based on user profiling and AI technologies
▪ cross-media browsers

December 18, 2020 Beat Signer - Department of Computer Science - bsigner@vub.ac.be 3

 The Future of the Web ...
▪ How will documents look like in the future?
▪ graph of linked data
▪ documents as structural view of the linked data
▪ How are the presented ideas related to approaches
introduced earlier in the course?
▪ e.g. Bush's Memex or Nelson's Xanadu
▪ Do we need new publishing models for the creation of
linked data to be managed by the global machine?
▪ Finally, it is not only about connecting our data, services
and machines but we are the machine

December 18, 2020 Beat Signer - Department of Computer Science - bsigner@vub.ac.be 4

 New Forms of User Interfaces
▪ Is the concept of a
document still the right
metaphor for accessing
linked data?
▪ What about interfaces
with semantic zooming Microsoft's Photosynth interface for digital images
functionality to seamlessly
dive into more details?
▪ Will the increasing impact of social computing also be
manifested in future interfaces for the global machine
▪ e.g. filtering and ranking of information

December 18, 2020 Beat Signer - Department of Computer Science - bsigner@vub.ac.be 5

 New Forms of User Interfaces ...
▪ In the future we will no longer just access information
from the machine via a web browser but augment and
use the physical environment as natural user interface
(augmented reality interfaces)
▪ The use of linked data could help to overcome some the
limitations of existing document-centric desktop
interfaces
▪ files as ultimate level of granularity
▪ no links (associations) between files or parts of files
▪ missing content annotation functionality

December 18, 2020 Beat Signer - Department of Computer Science - bsigner@vub.ac.be 6

 New Forms of User Interfaces ...
Wikitude World browser

B.A. Parviz, University of Washington

augmented phone display
augmented reality windshield, GM

augmented contact lens

augmented car windshield

December 18, 2020 Beat Signer - Department of Computer Science - bsigner@vub.ac.be 7
 The Future of the Internet

internet of things security and privacy

web of data mobile web

self-organising social computing

cloud computing one global machine

December 18, 2020 Beat Signer - Department of Computer Science - bsigner@vub.ac.be 8

 Fluid Cross-Media Information Spaces

01001000100
0101001100010010100010010
0100100010010001000100001001000
100010001100001001000110010101010110
1100010010100010010010010100010101011001
101001100001100 101010100
0010100 100 110101010101
00100 01010101000
1001 1111111111
111 0000000010
0 11111111
0101001011
010101010
111010101
001010010110

December 18, 2020 Beat Signer - Department of Computer Science - bsigner@vub.ac.be 9

 RSL Hypermedia Metamodel and iServer

Global Information Systems Group, ETH Zurich

December 18, 2020 Beat Signer - Department of Computer Science - bsigner@vub.ac.be 10

 Structure

Links

Users

Layers
Plug-ins Active
Content

Global Information Systems Group, ETH Zurich

December 18, 2020 Beat Signer - Department of Computer Science - bsigner@vub.ac.be 11

 Interactive Paper and Augmented Reality
▪ Bridging the paper-digital
divide
▪ seamless transition via
cross-media linking
▪ Visualisation of interactive
areas and functionality
▪ design patterns
▪ Interaction design
▪ online versus offline input
processing
▪ multimodal interaction

December 18, 2020 Beat Signer - Department of Computer Science - bsigner@vub.ac.be 12

 Personal Information Management (PIM)
▪ Keeping, organising and
re-finding information
▪ digital and physical
▪ Study of human-
information interaction
▪ files, piles, mixtures, …
▪ OC2 PIM model
▪ based on RSL hypermedia
metamodel
▪ Cross-Media PIM system
▪ explicit as well as implicit
associations between entities
December 18, 2020 Beat Signer - Department of Computer Science - bsigner@vub.ac.be 13
 RSL-based Associative File System
structural link
navigational link
signer

My Pictures My Videos My Presentations

Vancouver ER 2010 Vancouver ER 2010 ER 2010 WISE 2009

Aquarium Keynote

single slide
cross-media transclusion
Granville Vancouver Public Keynote Olga and Dinner transclusion (via OOXML
Island Harbour Market J. Thorp Lamia ER 2010 RSL selector)

multiple classification cross-media association Gregory Cardone

December 18, 2020 Beat Signer - Department of Computer Science - bsigner@vub.ac.be 14

 MindXpres Presentation Platform
▪ Flexible representation
of presentations
▪ use of structural RSL links
▪ separation of content and
structure
▪ based on HTML5, JavaScript
and CSS
▪ Extensible platform
▪ content-based approach
▪ content reuse (transclusion)
▪ non-linear navigation and
zoomable user interface
▪ rich media types
December 18, 2020 Beat Signer - Department of Computer Science - bsigner@vub.ac.be 15
 Course Summary
1. Introduction
▪ history of the Web
- Memex, Xanadu and various hypertext systems
▪ ARPANET and TCP/IP
▪ World Wide Web
2. Web Architectures
▪ HTTP protocol and session management
▪ client-server architectures, proxies, tunnels and gateways
▪ caching
▪ client-side processing
- JavaScript, Java Applets, ...
▪ server-side processing
- CGI, Java Servlets, JavaServer Pages (JSP), ...

December 18, 2020 Beat Signer - Department of Computer Science - bsigner@vub.ac.be 16

 Course Summary …
3. HTML5 and the Open Web Platform
▪ history of HTML
▪ HTML5 principles and markup
▪ HTML5 APIs
- e.g. WebSockets, Geolocation, Drag and Drop, …

4. Web Application Frameworks

▪ Model-View-Controller (MVC)
▪ Apache Struts 2
▪ Spring framework, CakePHP, Node.js, ...
▪ web content management systems

December 18, 2020 Beat Signer - Department of Computer Science - bsigner@vub.ac.be 17

 Course Summary …
5. CSS3 and Responsive Web Design
▪ CSS syntax and selectors
▪ CSS inclusion and cascading
▪ box model and layouting
▪ responsive web design
- media queries, breakpoints, …

6. JavaScript and jQuery

▪ basic JavaScript concepts
▪ JavaScript best practices
▪ jQuery syntax and event handling
▪ JavaScript Object Notation (JSON)

December 18, 2020 Beat Signer - Department of Computer Science - bsigner@vub.ac.be 18

 Course Summary …
7. XML and Related Technologies
▪ SAX (Simple API for XML) and DOM (Document Object Model)
▪ XSL (XSLT)
▪ XPath, XPointer and XLink
▪ Document Type Definition (DTD) and XML Schema
▪ XML-RPC, VoiceXML etc.
8. Web 2.0 Patterns and Technologies
▪ main concepts and interactions
▪ various Web 2.0 applications and social implications
▪ asynchronous partial updates and RIAs
- AJAX
▪ service-oriented architectures (SOAs)
- Big Web Services and RESTful Web Services

December 18, 2020 Beat Signer - Department of Computer Science - bsigner@vub.ac.be 19

 Course Summary …
9. Semantic Web
▪ semantic web stack
- RDF and RDFS, OWL, SPARQL, ...
▪ semantic web applications
▪ (X)HTML extensions and HTML5 Microdata
- Microformats, RDFa

10.Web Search and SEO

▪ information retrieval concepts
▪ web search engine architectures
▪ Google PageRank algorithm
▪ search engine optimisations (SEO)
- e.g. white and black hat optimisations

December 18, 2020 Beat Signer - Department of Computer Science - bsigner@vub.ac.be 20

 Course Summary …
11.Security, Privacy and Trust
▪ HTTP Authentication
- basic authentication, digest authentication and base64 encoding
▪ symmetric key and public key cryptography
- RSA cipher
▪ digital signatures and digital certificates
▪ TLS/SSL and HTTP Secure (HTTPS)
▪ privacy issues

December 18, 2020 Beat Signer - Department of Computer Science - bsigner@vub.ac.be 21

 Exam
▪ Dates
▪ January 21 & 22 (3 ECTS) and January 26 & 27 (6 ECTS)
▪ Each student will be assigned an examination slot
of 20 minutes (15 minutes for 3 ECTS version)
▪ 5 minutes for questions about the assignment (6 ECTS)
▪ 15 minutes oral exam about different topics that have been
covered in the course
- note that there will be no specific preparation time

▪ Overall grade = oral exam (60%) + assigment (40%)

▪ students have some flexibility in distributing the grades for the
assignment (±2 points)
- by default all team members get the same grade for assignment
- send us an email before January 4, 2021 if you want to change the distribution

December 18, 2020 Beat Signer - Department of Computer Science - bsigner@vub.ac.be 22

 Exam …
▪ Students following the 3 ECTS programme will
only have an oral exam (100%) and no assignment
▪ Submission of the assignment via Canvas
▪ deadline: December 21, 24:00 (UTC+1)
▪ The exam will cover all the content presented in the
lectures as well as any additional information from the
exercise sessions
▪ includes the videos shown in some of the lectures

December 18, 2020 Beat Signer - Department of Computer Science - bsigner@vub.ac.be 23

 Exam …
▪ Remember to read the following paper as it
forms part of the course material
▪ Vannevar Bush, As We May Think, Atlanic Monthly, July 1945
▪ Make sure that you can sketch basic architectures of
web information systems
▪ possible roles of different technologies
▪ know how the things presented in different lectures fit together
- e.g. security applied to varying architectures
- e.g. web search for RIAs
- …

▪ Make sure that you understand the basic concepts

▪ however, we might ask questions at any level of detail to evaluate
your knowledge
December 18, 2020 Beat Signer - Department of Computer Science - bsigner@vub.ac.be 24
 Other Courses
▪ Specialisation: Data Management and Analytics (DAMA)
▪ Advanced Topics in Information Systems (MA)
▪ seminar about recent developments in information systems
▪ information systems and information management
▪ information visualisation and navigation
▪ human-machine and human-information interaction
▪ Information Visualisation (MA)
▪ perception and colour theory
▪ representation of data (encoding of value/relation)
▪ presentation of data (visualisation techniques)
▪ interaction
▪ dashboards and case studies

December 18, 2020 Beat Signer - Department of Computer Science - bsigner@vub.ac.be 25

 Other Courses ...
▪ Next Generation User Interfaces (MA)
▪ interaction design
▪ multimodal interaction
- theoretical concepts, fusion and fission, ...
▪ interactive tabletops and surfaces
▪ pen-based interaction
▪ gesture-based interaction
▪ tangible interaction, virtual reality
and augmented reality

December 18, 2020 Beat Signer - Department of Computer Science - bsigner@vub.ac.be 26

 Are You Interested in a Thesis?
▪ Possibilities for BA, MA and PhD theses
▪ Mixed Reality Solutions
- e.g. for museums, photography etc.
▪ Tangible User Interfaces
▪ Dynamic Data Physicalisation Framework
- big data exploration interfaces
▪ MindXpres Presentation Platform
▪ Cross-Device and Cross-Media Interfaces
▪ Smart Environments and Cross-Domain Internet of Things (IoT)
▪ Hybrid Tracking and Implicit Human-Computer Interaction
▪ Personal Information Management (PIM)
▪ Interactive Paper Solutions
▪ Do you have your own ideas? Come along to discuss them...
- https://beatsigner.com/flyers/ThesesOverview.pdf

December 18, 2020 Beat Signer - Department of Computer Science - bsigner@vub.ac.be 27

 References …
▪ B. Signer and M.C. Norrie, As We May Link:
A General Metamodel for Hypermedia Systems,Pro-
ceedings of ER 2007, 26th International Conference on
Conceptual Modeling, Auckland, New Zealand,
November 2007
▪ https://beatsigner.com/publications/signer_ER2007.pdf

▪ A.A.O Tayeh, P. Ebrahimi and Beat Signer,

Cross-Media Document Linking and Navigation, Pro-
ceedings of DocEng 2018, 18th ACM Symposium on
Document Engineering, Halifax, Canada, August 2018
▪ https://beatsigner.com/publications/tayeh_DocEng2018.pdf

December 18, 2020 Beat Signer - Department of Computer Science - bsigner@vub.ac.be 28

 References …
▪ B. Signer, Towards Cross-Media Information
Spaces and Architectures, Proceedings of RCIS 2019,
13th International Conference on Research Challenges
in Information Science, Brussels, Belgium, May 2019
▪ https://beatsigner.com/publications/signer_RCIS2019.pdf

▪ B. Signer, Fundamental Concepts for Interactive Paper

and Cross-Media Information Spaces, Dissertation ETH
No. 16218, Zurich, Switzerland, 2005
▪ https://beatsigner.com/publications/signer2006.pdf

December 18, 2020 Beat Signer - Department of Computer Science - bsigner@vub.ac.be 29

 References …
▪ B. Signer, What is Wrong with Digital Documents?
A Conceptual Model for Structural Cross-Media Content
Composition and Reuse, Proceedings of the 29th Inter-
national Conference on Conceptual Modeling (ER 2010),
Vancouver, Canada, November 2010
▪ https://beatsigner.com/publications/signer_ER2010.pdf
▪ R. Roels and B. Signer, A Conceptual Framework and
Content Model for Next Generation Presentation
Solutions, Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer
Interaction (PACMHCI), 3(Issue EICS), June 2019
▪ https://beatsigner.com/publications/roels_PACMHCI2019.pdf

December 18, 2020 Beat Signer - Department of Computer Science - bsigner@vub.ac.be 30

The End

Good Luck with the Exam!

2 December 2005