INNOVATION 68 JUNE 2016 © BL Add MS 31318A, The British Library Board, CC Public Domain The new online tools fi nd digitized cultural assets – such as centuries-old maps or manuscripts – and supports researchers to effi ciently digitise and publicise new materials on the Internet. It identifi es location information in historical sources with digital processes – for example in Greek, Latin, and Arabic texts, medieval world maps, and Portolan nautical charts as well as early Chinese maps. Now, for the fi rst time, content from maps and texts can be compared side by side by using digital cross-references to place names. Scientists can therefore track how place names, geography, and language changed as well as how and when geographic understanding developed in different traditions of knowledge over time. The innovative technologies for data processing, annotation, and visualisation developed by AIT help project partners to work more effi ciently and generate information more quickly from historical sources. They can search and analyse extremely vast amounts of data in real time and therefore research complex correlations between records interactively. Several tools, which were developed during the “Pelagios” project, are already used by institutions and experts from 13 countries in 8 different languages. The next project phase of the Pelagios community will be expanded further in the next two years and the developed technologies will be advanced. Pelagios is funded by the American Andrew W. Mellon Foundation with a total amount of 1,264,000 US dollars. AUSTRIAN KNOW-HOW FOR ONLINE SEARCH ENGINE WITH COLLECTIVE INTELLIGENCE AIT has gained an international reputation with its “Digital Insight” research team in the fi eld of management of complex data volumes. The AIT led by Ross King works on solutions for open, simple, and intuitive access to large data banks consisting of image, audio, video, and text fi les. The digital technologies developed by AIT distinguish themselves with extremely intuitive interfaces and processing large and complex data volumes with a special method. Combined with special know-how in the fi eld of historical data, AIT’s technologies support the work of experts in archives, libraries, and research institutions around the world. DIGITAL HERITAGE In collaboration with internationally leading universities, the experts of the Austrian Institute of Technology (AIT) make good use of their know-how in the fi eld of Internet technologies to make historical sources on the Internet easier accessible and easier to use. The digitisation of our cultural heritage: A US innovation system buys know-how and Internet technologies from Austria.
NEW BUSINESS - EXPORT TODAY 1/2016
To see the actual publication please follow the link above