Version 1.0.3 of the freebase python library has been released. In this version:

• dump_base is working again
• in load_base, the target domain is created automatically if it is a sub-namespace of the logged-in user’s domain (thanks praveen)
• some unicode issues in mqlwrite are fixed
• slightly saner logging under the “freebase” logger rather than the root logger
• new ‘application_name’ settable on the MetawebSession which will get inserted into the user agent
• switch to form POST by default to account for long mqlread queries

You can install the library using easy_install freebase from the command line.

Just a note from our data team: new data dumps are now available at download.freebase.com, in a variety of formats.

The Freebase data dumps are current as of October 1st, and the WEX (Wikipedia extract) dumps as of September 12th.

Stefano just posted this on the Freebase developers mailing list, and I thought it warranted a repost here on the blog.

One of the interesting pieces of the Freebase dataset that not many people know about is the fact that when we harvest or link data from various sources, we retain their original identifiers and also the uri_templates that we can use to remap those local identifiers back to worldwide web identifiers.

Since this is a very useful feature, I’ve spent a little time to make this information easier to use and create an Acre app that is capable of taking either a freebase id and return all the equivalent URIs for that concept or get a URI and try to find all the equivalent URIs.

NOTE: The service is powered by both Freebase and SameAs

It also offers a JSONP service so that you can access it from your own web pages if you need to do so.

Find it at: http://ids.freebaseapps.com/

Ever since they launched Bing earlier this year the folks at Microsoft have been releasing a rapid-fire stream of new features. Back in July we noted that some of these features – like infoboxes and topic galleries – are actually being powered by the structured data in Freebase. Very cool.

Their latest feature, Visual Search Galleries, takes structured browsing even further, providing a slick visual interface for slicing and dicing a collection of search results – like Digital Cameras, Dog Breeds, or Movies in Theaters. We’re excited to see that Freebase is helping to power this feature as well.

If you go to the Visual Search homepage and click on the Dog Breeds gallery, you’ll see a nice visual display of 161 popular dog breeds:

You can scroll through it, hover over an image to get more information about that breed, or use the filters on the left to narrow your search based on attributes like Size or Exercise Needs. As the attribution notice in the lower right shows, this data is being pulled straight from Freebase.

It’s great to see Freebase being used to help power search in deeper and more interesting ways!

One of our Freebase Experts, Philip Kendall, recently built a fantastic tool for understanding Freebase schemas. Schemaviz shows types and properties within any domain you specify. Here’s the schema for one of our simpler commons domains:

Philip’s email explains what you’re seeing:

* Nodes represent types, edges represent properties.
* Reverse properties are shown in parentheses after the master property name.
* Grey edges represent hidden properties
* Blue nodes are types outside the domain being viewed, but which are linked to from the domain (the edge will be dashed if the master property is from the type outside the domain to that inside the domain)
* Red nodes represent undocumented types
* Node shapes indicate the display style of the type (ellipse: standard, rectangle: CVT, triangle: enumeration)
* All nodes are clickable to view that type

The visualisations are now built into the schema explorer.

As with all other Acre apps, the source code is available and cloneable.