Sir Timothy John Berners-Lee, pretty much universally known as TimBL, is one of the few people who can actually lay claim to having invented a major new technology. By defining HTTP, URLs and HTML, and by implementing the first web server and browser and the first web page, he created the foundations of The Web As We Know It. Since then he has spent a great deal of time directing the W3C, pondering the semantic web and web architecture in general, and otherwise moving the web.ball forward.
That was about the extent of my knowledge until I ran across a press release stating that British PM Gordon Brown had appointed him to lead the new Institute of Web Science. From the press release it looks like this will be at least to some extent an extension of the semantic web work, but will also investigate "other emerging web and internet technologies", provide technical guidance to HM government and work on opening government data (MP expenses, anyone?) to public use.
So, good stuff, we'll see what comes of it.
Brown also announced that all Britons would have "high-speed broadband" by 2020. Not just broadband, but high-speed. Whatever that means.
[That was a couple of governments ago, and I see no mention of any Institute of Web Science on TimBL's personal page. Broadband in the UK seems to be faring rather better, but I'm not really that familiar with the topic. -- D.H., May 2015]
No comments:
Post a Comment