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Sunday, October 11, 2009

Sir Tim Berners-Lee Looks Back: the "//" in Web Addresses Was Unnecessary

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Asked what he would have done differently in creating the Web, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, says in this video that the double slash, the "//" after the colon in Web addresses, was unnecessary.

Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, was interviewed on stage by New York Times technology reporter Steve Lohr at a technology symposium at the Embassy of Finland in Washington on Thursday.

He makes his comments about the "//" issue at 3:30 in the clip. (He has spoken about the unneeded symbols previously.)

In the interview, Berners-Lee speaks about the importance for governments to place great amounts of data on the Web and the emergence of the semantic Web. He cites successful examples in Britain.

This 37-minute video was part of a two hour symposium organized by Finland's Technology Academy Foundation, a public and private foundation.

Started in 2004, the foundation awards a biennial prize in the amount of $1.4 million, entitled the Millennium Technology Prize, to individuals for technology achievement that betters humanity. Berners-Lee was the first winner.

The other two winners are Professor Shugi Nakamura of UC Santa Barbara (2006) and Professor Robert Langer of MIT (2008). All three winners participated in the symposium.

You can watch the entire session on Livestream.

Here is the transcript of the Berner-Lee interview with PBS done on Thursday.

Update: Here's Steve Lohr's piece on Berners-Lee on Bits.

Update: 10.14: Here is my interview with Berners-Lee on the topic of video and the Web.

Andy Plesser, Executive Producer

Disclaimer: The Technology Academy Foundation is a public relations client of Plesser Holland Associates.

Posted on 10/11/2009 at 10:29 PM
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Technorati Tags: Steve Lohr, Tim Berners-Lee, URL, World Wide Web

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Comments

your blog's layout is so nice ,and the theme impressed me a lot.

Posted by: mlb jerseys | Sunday, July 10, 2011 at 11:12 PM

There are improvements you know!! Ever heard of Google. Or even better Google Chrome. Welcome to the next world wide web.

Posted by: boat accessories | Friday, January 08, 2010 at 05:26 AM

Oh geez, I made a big error, you are quite right: Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web, not the Internet. Thanks for bringing this to my attention. I have updated the post. Much appreciated.

Posted by: andy plesser | Thursday, October 15, 2009 at 01:53 PM

Forward-Slashes should be a protected species. Come follow the onwards & upwards character... / at http://fwdslashy.com/! Not to be mistaken with Arch-Nemesis \ (back slash)

Spawned out of this revelation from Tim

Made with love
/ x

Posted by: Slashy Virgule | Wednesday, October 14, 2009 at 08:22 PM

Wow this is a terribly written article. Sir Timothy Berners-Lee did not invent the Internet nor the Web.

He did however develop (invent) the HTTP protocol around 1990 which is very much a backdone to much of the information transmitted over the Internet today.

Posted by: Frank White | Wednesday, October 14, 2009 at 10:01 AM

"Berners-Lee, the inventor of the internet...."

Wrong. As has already been pointed out, Berners-Lee did not invent the Internet. In addition, he didn't even invent the concepts behind the Web. He just wrote the first widely adopted implementation of those concepts.

Posted by: Andre Richards | Wednesday, October 14, 2009 at 03:39 AM

He didn't invent the Internet.

He conceived the World Wide Web.

It's not the same thing. The Web is a subset of the Internet. He was a user of the Internet like we all are.

I was at an awards presentation where he actually corrected me after I asked a question and wasn't specific...ironic since I had to correct people all the time prior to that. :P

Posted by: Jay | Wednesday, October 14, 2009 at 02:50 AM

And why did we need www ?

Posted by: Hephail | Wednesday, October 14, 2009 at 02:38 AM

He didn't "invent the internet", you retards.

Posted by: hello, yes | Wednesday, October 14, 2009 at 01:30 AM

Uh, for whoever crafted the URL for this post, those are forward slashes...

Posted by: Freddie O'Connell | Tuesday, October 13, 2009 at 12:58 PM