The World Wide Web offers a wealth of texts, tables and maps for you to browse through. But computing your own results from that information is a headache. You must transfer the data to your computer, acquire software and learn how to use it. You must describe to the software the data you have and the operations to perform on the data. The results may go back to the WWW, but the descriptions remain with you. They are inaccessible by others. RAINBOW II will let you process information directly on the WWW, combine information from different sources, share descriptions and execute the operations you want.
As of today, organisations that put applications on the WWW must program new functions for each new use of their data. With RAINBOW II, an architecture will be available in which existing software can be plugged in and will interoperate. You will be able to select and combine functions yourself and to build applications from reusable parts accessible over the Internet. You will tailor these applications to your needs without having to program the interfaces.
The RAINBOW II framework will be accessible from a Java-enabled WWW browser using the CORBA specification on an IIOP network. It is fully generic in that it does not depend on domains, applications, or wrapped software.
RAINBOW II is multilingual. DFKI will implement into the RAINBOW II framework language technology software suited for a variety of tasks, including tools for indexing, analysing and generating texts in various languages. From these parts, applications will be configured that extract information from newsgroup postings, generate content summaries in multiple languages, and translate statistical information expressed in controlled languages with high quality.
- Framework for the creation of distributed applications within the WWW
- Creation of a language technology tool set within a flexible object-oriented framework
- User-driven configuration of (language technology) applications by combining reusable parts
- Enabling the user to maintain and extend applications
Partners
Ministère Wallon de l'Equipement et des Transports, Belgium (Co-ordinator),
AITECH S.A., Belgium (Technical Co-ordinator),
Telespazio S.P.A, Italy,
Istituto Nacional de Estatistica, Portugal,
University of Edinburgh, Great Britain,
Alcatel CIT S.A., France,
Facultés Universitaires Notre Dame de la Paix ASBL, Belgium,
National Technical University of Athens, Greece, and
- further associated, subcontrated or sponsoring partners.
Prof. Dr. Stephan Busemann
