Internet pioneers from around the world celebrated the 10th
anniversary of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) last week as Tim
Berners-Lee, the man credited with inventing the web, announced
that he was coming back to Britain to work on its
development.
Berners-Lee will take up a chair of computer science at the
University of Southampton's school of electronics and computer
science.
He will hold this position as well as being senior research
scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and director
of the W3C.
Berners-Lee will work on the semantic web, the next generation of
the web, which he described as "an extension of the current web in
which information is given well-defined meaning, better enabling
computers and people to work in co-operation."
The semantic web will provide a common framework which will allow
data to be shared and reused across applications, enterprises and
communities.
Wendy Hall, head of the school of electronics and computer science
at Southampton, said, "Many of the staff in the school have worked
with [Berners-Lee] on the development of the web over many
years.
"We are now closely involved with the evolution of the semantic
web, which is his vision for the future."
Nigel Shadbolt, director of the Advanced Knowledge Technologies
Interdisciplinary Research Collaboration, the largest semantic web
project in the UK, said, "Berners-Lee's appointment is a fantastic
boost to our work and it enables us to deepen our involvement with
US and European initiatives."