The Internet Celebrates Its 25th Birthday Today......................It was on March 12, 1989 that Sir Tim Berners-Lee - working at the Swiss physics laboratory Cern - presented a technical paper with the blueprint for the web. At the time, Tim was a software engineer at CERN, the large particle physics laboratory near Geneva, Switzerland. Many scientists participated in experiments at CERN for extended periods of time, then returned to their laboratories around the world. These scientists were eager to exchange data and results, but had difficulties doing so. Tim understood this need, and understood the unrealized potential of millions of computers connected together through the Internet. Tim Berners-Lee, CERN (ca. 1991) Tim Berners-Lee. CERN (circa 1991) Tim documented what was to become the World Wide Web with the submission of a proposal to his management at CERN, in late 1989. This proposal specified a set of technologies that would make the Internet truly accessible and useful to people. Believe it or not, Tim’s initial proposal was not immediately accepted. Tim also wrote the first Web page editor/browser (“WorldWideWeb”) and the first Web server (“httpd“). By the end of 1990, the first Web page was served. By 1991, people outside of CERN joined the new Web community. Very important to the growth of the Web, CERN announced in April 1993 that the World Wide Web technology would be available for anyone to use on a royalty-free basis. Since that time, the Web has changed the world. It has arguably become the most powerful communication medium the world has ever known.The Internet Celebrates Its 25th Birthday Today Whereas only 25% of the people on the planet are currently using the Web (and the Web Foundation aims to accelerate this growth substantially), the Web has changed the way we teach and learn, buy and sell, inform and are informed, agree and disagree, share and collaborate, meet and love, and tackle problems ranging from putting food on our tables to curing cancer. Tim Berners-Lee and others realized that for the Web to reach its full potential, the underlying technologies must become global standards, implemented in the same way around the world. Therefore, in 1994, Tim founded the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) as a place for stakeholders to reach consensus around the specification and guidelines to ensure that the Web works for everyone and that it evolves in a responsible manner. W3C standards have enabled a single World Wide Web of information and people, and an increasingly-rich set of capabilities: Web 2.0 (personal and dynamic) Web 3.0 (a semantic Web of linked data) Web services Voice access Mobile access Accessibility for people with disabilities Accessibility for people speaking many languages Richer graphics and video, etc. The Web Foundation supports the work of W3C to ensure that the Web and the technologies that underpin it remain free and open to all. READ MORE: news.naij/61584.html
Posted on: Wed, 12 Mar 2014 16:42:09 +0000
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