Just because the new iPhone arrived in stores today doesn’t mean the rest of the technology world shut down. In fact, today in San Francisco the 2010 Semantic Technology Conference continued its week-long series of talks and sessions about the semantic Web – the ability to understand and intelligently interpret content from the Web. A fascinating of how the semantic Web is colliding with the real-time Web is through Twitter and the impending release of annotations – and Ph.D student Joshua Shinavier provided some fascinating semantic scenarios for their use. Sponsor Twitter posts already contain plenty of metadata that allows for smart filtering and organization, including date and location. With annotations, however, the metadata possibilities will be literally endless. Tweet metadata could eventually contain information or links based on words or phrases in the tweet itself, other options added to the tweet, or even other external data like the weather in the senders location at the time it was sent. Imagine being able to add an infinite number of hashtags to a post without wasting precious characters. As Shinavier points out in his presentation ( see slides above ), Semantic databases could then plug into the annotation metadata and provide real-time semantic information to those who seek it. Using existing databases like GeoNames , Linked Movie Database and FOAF (Friend of a Friend) , very specific searches for genres of tweets can be collected. Searchers could ask for tweets about “places in developing countries,” “English-language movies starring Chinese actors,” or “songs by artists my friends like,” says Shinavier. Shinavier likens annotations to the real-time version of attributes from RDF (Resource Description Framework) , which provide websites with extended semantic metadata. Since Twitter’s annotations will be easy to implement for developers, the sheer size of the network of use will create the “long tail” of real-time semantic data, he says. The application of the semantic Web to annotations will make it easier for developers to create richer applications, which benefits the end user. In basic terms, the Web is getting smarter. Not Skynet smart, but smart, and with the mashup of the real-time fire-hose of information coming from services like Twitter, the semantic Web can provide even deeper and richer interactions for users. Personally, I am highly anticipating the release of annotations because I know brilliant developers are going to create amazing applications that leverage metadata. Throwing in semantic recognition only sweetens the pot. Image from Flickr user Colectivo Mambembe . Discuss

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Wait, what the heck is geofencing ? No, it’s not some virtual sword fighting app for your phone. Geofencing, or a geofence, is exactly what its name implies – a virtually fenced-off geographic location. When this concept is applied to mobile phones, it refers to a device’s ability to receive automatic alerts or notifications when entering, leaving or moving within a specific geographic area. Location Labs , providers of location services for mobile developers, announced earlier this week the release of its library that will allow iPhone developers to build geofencing apps thanks in no small part to new features included in the new iOS 4.0. Sponsor Location Labs’ Geofence Library for iPhone As the company points out, location services on mobile devices have been hindered both by differences in location technology standards, and the significant drain on the device’s battery caused by its use. With the introduction of background applications with iOS 4.0 and increased battery performance in the new iPhone, Apple has created a fitting platform for geofencing apps, the company says. One aspect of background location capabilities in the new OS is and API that notifies apps “based on configurable accuracy and distance change filters,” which is a highly-accurate “always on” battery drainer, says Location Labs. A new service, the “significant change location service,” uses less power but the lower accuracy and frequency makes geofencing useless, delaying notifications by several hours. “With the iPhone, we employ a combination of the standard and significant change location services, intelligent interaction with the iPhone backgrounding and suspending logic as well as local awareness of proximity to the geofence boundaries,” the company said in a blog post Wednesday. “Together these allow us to offer a high quality firing latency guarantee (measured in minutes) while keeping impact on battery life to a minimum.” What This Means for Location Apps To get an idea of how geofencing technology could improve on existing location-based applications, just look at the current popular apps. Apps like Foursquare and Gowalla could implement this infrastructure to allow users to automatically check-in when entering the geofence of a particular location. I can’t even count the times I’ve been out and forgotten to check-in at various locations, robbing myself of precious Foursquare points. With geofencing, I could have been automatically checking in as I went from place-to-place, or perhaps a push notification would have reminded me after I was within the perimeter of the geofence for a certain amount of time. Additionally, geofences could allow for a feature of location apps that Robert Scoble advocated for earlier this month . As Scoble points out, it is helpful to location app users if they can tell if their friends are still at a location, and determining how long users spend in businesses can have a significant impact of location-based marketing. “For instance, I hate shopping so I’ll only spend four minutes inside the Gap, if I go at all. But there are many people who will linger there for hours,” he said. “If you are another clothing store, which customer is more valuable to you to get to come to visit your store? Me or that other customer?” Other interesting ideas for geofences include connecting mobile devices to house lights or air conditioning units to automatically activate them when users approach their homes. Friends could even be notified when they are within a certain distance of one another. The possibilities for geofencing applications are enormous with this new library from Location Labs. Photo by Flickr user KWDesigns . Discuss

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Do you want to chat with friends who are watching the same TV shows you are or reading the same books? Do you want to check in to record and share a history of your offline entertainment activities? Many startups think you will and the number of apps for that is growing fast. The latest entry into the field is from GetGlue , a startup that offers a popular plugin for social Web browsing, that just announced its iPhone app for entertainment check-ins today. The service stands out in the field as one of the only offerings that features books and other activities, and it has an excellent recommendation feature that’s sure to be adopted by competitors in time. What are other startups doing in this market? Below we offer a feature comparison between GetGlue and competitors HotPotato , Kickfour , Tunerfish , Miso and Philo . Sponsor How The Apps Work Are you having fun watching a TV show, listing to a song, reading a book or just thinking about something? Entertainment check-in apps will let you find the title of what you’re engaged with, and then “check in” to record the experience, leave a comment, see what other people and your friends are doing at the time, and more. Most of these services offer badges, rewards and elite status designations, sometimes with editorial benefits. Additional promotional activities are sure to come from advertisers in time as well. It’s an emerging field, but one that’s beginning to feel crowded already. The TV industry is hoping these kinds of applications will help it strike back against audience attrition and provide a new channel for content producers to market their work. “From a business perspective,” says Comcast’s social technology group senior director of product, Mike Berkley, “it’s about providing awesome marketing channels for content providers. The analogy is that Foursquare (in theory) is a great marketing tool for local businesses… these TV check-in apps are a great tool for TV networks.” From a user’s perspective, there is potential for fundamental change in the way we do entertainment. “TV as a form factor does not natively invite interaction,” Berkley says, “but it is an ideal consumption experience for rich media. That’s why mobile and iPad are so important, as the input devices.” In several cases, entertainment check-in apps are going beyond TV, as well. Which App to Use? Here’s how six of the players in this market look, feature by feature, as far as we can tell so far. Beyond Checking In What’s the biggest problem with most of these apps? Not enough people use them yet, so it’s not terribly social. There are a few apparent exceptions. Miso has Google funding and is already well on its way towards popularity. World Cup games are actively discussed on Miso, in real time. The iPad app Miso announced yesterday is absolutely dreamy looking. HotPotato is the best designed, and at tech events can provide a common back channel. GetGlue already has a popular Web presence, so it’s far more active than some of the others. Still, they need something more. That’s where GetGlue is strongest: It offers personalized recommendations, including among new releases from the world of music, movies and books. That means it provides immediate value, even if no one else you know uses the app. GetGlue even includes a section for topics you’re thinking about, complete with viewable YouTube movies about those topics. Long term as well, check ins alone are unlikely to prove sufficiently captivating. “The critical thing,” says social mobile engineer and researcher Nitya Narasimhan , “will be the kinds of add-on features (beyond check-in) that can create stickiness. Right now, the focus seems to be just shared experiences but I think that features like the social discovery credits where you are credited for incentivizing someone else to watch the program – those are interesting.” That’s what the Comcast-built Tunerfish does, in fact. If someone else clicks on a link to a show that you’ve shared, you get credit for that in the system. What will all of this look like in the future? “It’s hard to say,” says Comcast’s Berkley, “because there is so much rapid change at the moment. The TV screen is about to explode. There will be tons of innovation coming to TV over the next 12 months – TV will be dramatically redefined.” Are you ready to get social, via mobile, with your offline activities? Discuss

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Not only did Bing arrive as a new search option in Apple’s iOS4 update yesterday, but Microsoft also just launched a new version of its native Bing for iPhone app . The app now features a RedLaser -like barcode scanner and an enhanced social search mode that highlights results from your social network on Twitter and Facebook. In addition, the app now also features a basic Twitter and Facebook client. Sponsor Twitter Client and Social Search The Twitter/Facebook client is very basic and only allows you to respond to tweets, retweet and post new tweets. The app does not feature a URL shortener or any other advanced features. Chances are, you wouldn’t want to use the Bing app as your standard Twitter and Facebook client, but the features are good enough to allow you to interact with your friends when their Tweets and Facebook status updates appear in your social search results. Barcode Scanner: Fast, Easy – But With Limited Results The most interesting feature addition to the Bing for iPhone app is the barcode and cover art scanner. With this, you can quickly scan a barcode an any product with the iPhone’s built-in camera and compare prices at different online retailers. In our short test, the app was able to read barcodes pretty easily – even on an iPhone 3G without autofocus. While RedLaser and ShopSavvy sometimes take a while before they recognize a barcode (especially if you don’t have a very steady hand), the Bing app quickly latched on to any barcode we threw at it. Sadly, though, the shopping results in the Bing app can’t compete with those in ShopSavvy, for example. While Bing only returned 3 results for this book , ShopSavvy returned over 50 results, including 15 from local brick and mortar stores. Discuss

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Two of our favorite topics to geek out over here at ReadWriteWeb are the real-time Web and the Internet of Things . Today, we (like everyone else across the Internet, it seems) ran into a rather nifty looking website that merges those two realms rather successfully using open data from the London and U.K. train systems. The live train map for the London Underground is a nearly real-time Google Maps mashup that shows the various trains of the London Underground as they move about their subterranean travels. Sponsor The real-time Web , put simply, is a set of technologies that allows the information we see on the Internet to change as quickly (or nearly so) as what it represents in the real world or online. It’s the weather forecast , your friends’ status updates on Facebook and the pitch-by-pitch tracking of an afternoon’s game . As for the Internet of Things, it is the connection of the Internet to everyday objects. In this case, it’s data on every train in the London subway system as provided by the London Data Store , an open-data effort with the Greater London Authority. The train map, created by Matthew Somerville , takes data from the Transport for London API and plots it out on a Google Map. On it, yellow pinpoints represent train stations, and the plethora of slowly moving red pinpoints represent an army of trains. Clicking on a red pin identifies which train you’re looking at, the station it just left and where and when it is expected to arrive. We asked Somerville how real time the page really it, and he explained that while “the API itself appears to be pretty-much real-time” the page itself was put together in a few quick hours and currently requires a user refresh to keep truly up to date. With a bit more coding, he explained, the page could be just as real time as the API itself, which he presumes uses the same information as the platform indicators for telling when trains are arriving. As with many real-time technologies, the map shows a very real future for the merging of the real-time Web with the Internet of Things. Soon enough, the objects we interact with on a daily basis – whether trains, planes or our refrigerators – will interact back with us, in real-time. While Somerville acknowledges a number of faults in the current incarnation, he also notes that the source code for the project is available for download on GitHub. The code for this project is based on his previous mapping of all the trains in the U.K. Discuss

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