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When computing equipment scientistTim Berners - Leesent a memoranda detailing his idea of a"distributed hypertext system"on March 12 , 1989 , it was largely ignored by his colleagues at CERN , the European Organization for Nuclear Research . This is not surprising : CERN is a lieu where scientists build up vast colliders , not a think cooler for computer geeks . Why should they handle about one man ’s curious estimate to create an interlinked web of information ?
The answer was that he was trying to make their lives easier . Several thousand scientists worked at CERN at the time , but entropy about their projects sat in silos . Linking them together through one extended net of figurer seems obvious now , but it took 18 months before Berners - Lee was granted permission to give metre to his thought .
A replica of the NeXT machine used by Tim Berners-Lee in 1990 to develop and run the first WWW server, multimedia browser and web editor.
He publish the first web Thomas Nelson Page for CERN users in December 1991 and freely distributed his software the next yr . Exponential growth soon followed . By 1994 , with over 10,000 connection servers online , Berners - Lee saw the need for standards . He move from CERN to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology ( MIT ) , where he founded the World Wide Web Consortium ( W3C ) to ensure that the vane ’s royalty - free , open nature was baked into its principles .
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He also started speak about " the semantic web . " This conception is work up upon metadata and relationships — reckon of it as a auto - readable version of the cyberspace that adds both context of use and structure .
A replica of the NeXT machine used by Tim Berners-Lee in 1990 to develop and run the first WWW server, multimedia browser and web editor.
Using this , " you may ask things like , ' let me listen to music which has been written by people who were born in towns in Minnesota with less than 200,000 inhabitants , ' " Berners - Lee allege in anInfiniteMIT video in 2010 . In short , because information has been connect together — and is openly accessible — it can be used in original , unpredictable path . Such a concept ca n’t work if the data is siloed or insure by potbelly .
Pushing for a more open web
Berners - Lee aid to set up theWorld Wide WWW Foundationin 2009 , which aims to"[fight ] for a worldly concern where everyone has affordable , meaningful access to a web that improves their lives and where their rights are protect . " .
For the past ten , he has also pushed for the third evolution of the web , which he dubs " Web 3.0 . " This often gets confused with Web3 , but they are very unlike : Web3 is based entirely around the usage of blockchain to build a decentralized internet , with cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin used to trade . web 3.0 , by contrast , stays true to the establish principle of being unfastened and royalty - free . It also builds on the two key ideas of the semantic web and giving people control over their data point .
In 2016 , Berners - Lee create the Solid protocol , a " single sign - on across the entanglement , " he toldCNBC ’s Beyond The Valley podcast in February 2023 . " And then you give everybody [ their ] own personal cloud storage , call it a Solid pod , they have double-dyed control over that . "
The BBC also partnered with Inrupt two years ago to launch a six-month trial called “BBC Together + Data Pod”.
Rather than 100 of companies controlling the data point you have bring home the bacon to them , as is the status quo , any app creator can access your information , or a percentage of it , by tapdance into your seedcase , with your permission . Berners - Lee used the example of share data with a vacation - planning app at theGlobal Freight Summit in November 2023 . " So I ’m choke to show you all the data in my pod about all of the other family vacation that we ’ve had before , just for the purpose of helping me discover the next one . Then it will all fly , [ the app ] wo n’t have approach anymore . "
For Solid to work , Berners - Lee realized he needed to peach to governments and enterprise . That ’s why he lay up Inrupt with co - founderJohn Bruce . The idea behind the company , Bruce told the Beyond The Valley podcast , was to " galvanize the efforts " around the hearty communications protocol and make " an enterprise - tier version of it all . " The venture aims to make Solid secure and scalable so it can be used by governments and monolithic organizations who want to use datum in a more honourable and consensual way .
Can the internet’s creator make Web 3.0 a mainstream idea?
In the five - and - a - half yr since its foundation , Inrupt has make some successes . It worked with the Flemish government to create a " data public utility company company " calledAthumi , give consumers and businesses within Flanders their own pods in which they can store their personal data . This system enables users to control and partake data , for example to share vocation data point with prospective employers and smartwatch data with doctor .
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In 2022 , the BBC also partnered with Inrupt to launch a six - calendar month tryout call " BBC Together + Data Pod " to give viewers control over their data when taking part in a watch party on its streaming serving , iPlayer .
Max Leonard , main technologist at Inrupt , tell VideoWeekthat " there was only a small identification number of people who were really bothered by [ the data side of it ] , but they pop off into quite a wad of detail . " He add : " But most hoi polloi just wanted to get on and apply the thing . "
Inrupt ’s site also observe " customers " such as the U.K. and Swedish governments , British bank Natwest and the British National Health Service ( NHS ) . There are also three American organizations including the insurance society Allstate , Brooklyn - based mood tech caller BlocPower and the Bezos Earth Fund .
So far , then , Inrupt has not had an explosive shock . But Berners - Lee cites citizenry ’s growing awareness of their personal data as a key driver of change . " the great unwashed will realize that basically anything which works and does n’t give them information in their pocket is kind of robbing them of the power , " he told the Beyond The Valley podcast . " There wo n’t be of a sudden a solar day when everything switches across , but just incrementally and inexorably , everything will be moving into this new , much more powerful world . "
