Freebase Parallax: A new way to browse and explore data from David Huynh on Vimeo.
It's acually working already to some degree, but not as good as in the example shown here for every search query you throw at it. Till now, the data in the world wide web is not yet represented consistently and completely in the semantic web and that integration thing will take many years, there are some technical challenges left but mostly, the ressources lack I guess.
If just the whole semantic web thing was perfected for daily usage, it could have HUGE consequences. The technology itself is actually already being widely used invisibly by many big fishes like amazon, last.fm, often where you see websites making "smart" suggestions. It could be a HUGE paradigm change. It would allow computers to help us integrating an overload of information that a person alone cannot overview anymore. The computer will become much more useful in the future, it will be getting increasingly smart in interpreting any given information, anticipating actions that can be taken, and making intelligent suggestions.
In life science, this is already being applied more widely. It allows for example, that the computer can make conclusions for himself (called "reasoner"), but also there, although much more care is taken to integrate existing data with the semantics (so called "ontologies"), it's still in its infancy when it comes to the application.
But it would not just change the way we deal with information or rather, the way we are provided with information. If you think it to the end, this could be nothing less than a revolution with wide psychological, social and political consequences as well. It would allow to cluster not only information, but also PEOPLE on the basis of their shared interests, activities and opinions. The basis of this is already there with one particular semantic subweb called FOAF (friend of a friend). For example, it could boost the ridiculously inefficient way of resistance towards cooperate interests against the human people and the planet as a whole (see empathic civilisation). It would help coordinate concerted actions of public disobedience, which until now, is absorbing itself by repeating things one to another, loosing time and energy for concrete action in a lot of blabla. In could reduce the "overhead" of organization among a large number of heterogenous individuals and groups. If you just let your healty paranoia do its thing for a second, this is probably the reason, why society doesn't give it the necessary ressources to develop to the end. It could be "dangerous" to them.
Interesting about the approach of freebase, linking things and describing relationships -just like in wikipedia- is open to contributions by everyone.
