Integrating the World : The WorldInfo Assistant

The Internet is an extraordinary resource for information about countries throughout the world. There is detailed information about weather, geography, transportation, politics, news, etc. This data comes in a variety of forms including web pages, databases, maps, satellite imagery, newspapers, online radio and television, and so on. The problem, of course, is how to navigate through this abundance of information without getting bogged down in the details of the location, organization, and format of the information. Towards this end we have developed the WorldInfo Assistant, which extracts and integrates geographicrelated data about countries throughout the world.