Welcome to The Simple Semantic Desktop Blog.

The Simple Semantic Desktop is currently a work in its infancy at Oberlin College, Ohio. The Simple Semantic Desktop aims at making a Semantic Desktop product that can be easily understood and used by the average PC user, using a simpler and less overwhelming interface than the other offerings available. This is not to say that the technologies underlying the SSD are in any way simple. The SSD will use state-of-the-art Machine Learning and Ontological techniques, perhaps even improvements over what exists. The SSD is also subtly different in the sense that it aims to be a semantics based interface to all files on a computer including program and OS files.

Following along the footsteps of the sensational Semantic Web is the idea of a Semantic Desktop (see http://www.semanticdesktop.org/) . The original Semantic Desktop is imagined to be a universal interface to all information on a desktop that utilizes Ontologies (sets of concepts and their relationships to each other) described like they are on the Semantic Web. One can imagine such a well-informed (well-informed about information on your computer, that is) to provide some very interesting and "cool" interfaces . The possibilities are endless, and that's where the problems begin. Most Semantic Desktop software today is too complex and non-intuitive for the average user, and the Simple Semantic Desktop tries to fill that gap.

Can we display the complex relationships of a Machine Learning-based Semantic Desktop with the simplicity of a Vending Machine? I'll build the Simple Semantic Desktop as my senior Computer Science honors project, and two extra words on a sheet of cellulose will be our answer.

- Akshat Singhal