[LINK] Internet's web to get wider and wider
Bernard Robertson-Dunn
brd at iimetro.com.au
Thu Apr 23 08:52:19 AEST 2009
Internet's web to get wider and wider
April 23, 2009 - 7:47AM
SMH
http://www.smh.com.au/news/technology/web/2009/04/23/1240079767277.html
While the internet has dramatically changed lives around the world, its
full impact will only be realised when far more people and information
go online, its founders said on Wednesday.
"The web as I envisaged it, we have not seen it yet. The future is still
so much bigger than the past," said Tim Berners-Lee, one of the
inventors of the World Wide Web, at a seminar on its future.
Just 23 per cent of the globe's population currently uses the internet,
according to the United Nation's International Telecommunications Union,
with use much higher in developed nations.
By contrast, just five per cent of Africans surf the web, it said in a
report issued in March.
But that level is expected to rise, especially in developing nations, as
mobile internet access takes off, making it no longer necessary to use a
computer to surf the web, said internet co-founder Vinton Cerf.
"We will have more internet, larger numbers of users, more mobile
access, more speed, more things online and more appliances we can
control over the internet," the Google vice-president and chief internet
evangelist said.
Robert Cailliau, who designed the web with Berners-Lee in 1989, said
having more data on the internet, and more people with the ability to
access it, will spur the development of new technology and solutions to
global problems.
"When we have all data online it will be great for humanity. It is a
prerequisite to solving many problems that humankind faces," the Belgian
software scientist said.
The internet has already led to the development of businesses that could
not have existed without it, boosted literacy and learning and brought
people closer together through cheaper modes of communication, the
internet pioneers said.
"We never, ever in the history of mankind have had access to so much
information so quickly and so easily," said Cerf.
With the help of other scientists at the European Organisation for
Nuclear Research (CERN), Berners-Lee and Cailliau set up the web in 1989
to allow thousands of scientists around the world to share information
and data.
The http://WWW technology - which simplifies the process of searching
for information on the internet - was first made more widely available
from 1991.
The number of websites has since ballooned from just 500 as recently as
1994 to over 80 million currently, with growing numbers of sites
consisting of user-generated content like blogs.
Even its founders are surprised by its popularity.
"What we did not imagine was a web of people, but a web of documents,"
said Dale Dougherty, the founder of GNN, the Global Network Navigator,
the first web portal and the first site on the internet to be supported
by advertising.
For his part, Cailliau said he was impressed that search engines can
still sort through the myriad of material that is now online.
"To me the biggest surprise is that Google still functions despite the
explosion in the number of sites," said Cailliau.
--
Regards
brd
Bernard Robertson-Dunn
Canberra Australia
brd at iimetro.com.au
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