Prof. Dr. Manfred Hauswirth

"How to link the real world"

Until now the virtual world of information sources on the World Wide Web and activities in the real world have always been separated. However, knowledge accessible on the Web (the virtual world) may influence activities in the real world and vice versa, but these influences are usually indirect and not immediate. We still lack means to interconnect and link this information in a meaningful, general- purpose, and simple way. In this talk, I will present ongoing work and open research problems in this domain which aims at enabling novel ways for humans to interact with their environment and facilitating interactions among entities of the physical world (Internet of Things). As this requires the combination of approaches from diverse areas - Semantic Web, Linked Data, databases, sensor networks, etc. - I will specifically focus on cross-domain problems and open research questions and outline a research agenda to address them.