W3C adopts DARPA language

DARPA Agent Markup Language Web site

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency this month announced that the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) approved a computer language based on DARPA Agent Markup Language (DAML) as an international standard.

Web Ontology Language, known as OWL, was designated an official Web standard, joining such better-known languages as HTML and Extensible Markup Language (XML). The DARPA markup language project last year evolved into OWL and is continuing development under W3C's watch.

OWL builds on XML and is designed to allow a higher level of interoperability among devices, Web sites and databases. It uses XML as to transport data, but OWL is designed to link disparate data from different sources and determine relationships between them.

The language is designed to be one avenue by which designers can pursue the semantic Web, the next-generation "intelligent" Internet.

OWL's proponents say it can refine searches and Web services, giving users more accurate and precise information based on queries. And the language could potentially let computers recognize how disparate forms of information are linked and draw conclusions based on those links.

For example, a computer might check meteorology reports to determine if a traveler is going to fly into bad weather, then automatically check for other flights and flights to nearby areas, and alert the traveler to those options.