17. A personalized content recommendation system comprising: a client interface device configured to automatically generate a content signature that includes semantically salient content elements from monitored user's information data stream transmitted on a publicly accessible network without human intervention, the content signature includes a network address to the monitored user's information that the semantically salient content is based upon, and a plurality of densities of topics embodied in the salient content elements; a collaborative personal interest inference engine resident to a non-transient media and configured to generate automatic predictions about the interests of the user; a database server that retains a personal interest profile based on a plurality of monitored past behaviors; and a server programmed to filter items in an incoming information stream with the personal interest profile, the content signature, and programmed to identify only those items of the incoming information stream that match the personal interest profile.
17. A personalized content recommendation system comprising: a client interface device configured to automatically generate a content signature that includes semantically salient content elements from monitored user's information data stream transmitted on a publicly accessible network without human intervention, the content signature includes a network address to the monitored user's information that the semantically salient content is based upon, and a plurality of densities of topics embodied in the salient content elements; a collaborative personal interest inference engine resident to a non-transient media and configured to generate automatic predictions about the interests of the user; a database server that retains a personal interest profile based on a plurality of monitored past behaviors; and a server programmed to filter items in an incoming information stream with the personal interest profile, the content signature, and programmed to identify only those items of the incoming information stream that match the personal interest profile. 18. The system of claim 17 where the server is further programmed to rank the items of the incoming information based on a measure of the absolute relevance of the items of information to the user.