"With the web you can do almost anything you could
possibly imagine," said Tim Berners-Lee, chief architect of the
World Wide Web, when he opened this year's
BCS Lovelace Lecture.
The lecture, which took place at London's Congress Centre last
month, examined the ideas behind the origins of the internet and
the web and considered how things might develop in the future.
The number of web pages now exceeds the world's population, and
continues to grow exponentially. Berners-Lee said more should be
done to monitor this growth and to nurture developments that
improve the user's experience.
"The twin magics for the creation of the web have been
collaboration and creativity and these need to continue," he
said.
Berners-Lee's goal when he created the web was simply to help
people communicate and transfer information efficiently. He wanted
to find a means to move documents between computers regardless of
operating systems or hardware.
The internet was designed to be independent of application,
whether a user sends an e-mail, uses file transfer, or voice.
Likewise, the web was designed to be independent of application,
whether a user browses or participates.
From its foundation to its ceiling technologies, the web had to
be comprised of royalty-free standards with a clean interface,
which makes no assumptions and is flexible for all user needs, said
Berners-Lee.
"Society consists of many different types of community at
different levels. A universal web must reflect this and include
communities on many different levels, including those relating to
work and home.
"The web is structured on many levels and is perhaps best
described as a fractal tangle," he said.
Berners-Lee also considered the new challenges to web
science.
"The user interface is a significant challenge since this should
have a generality enabling users to browse any data anywhere. They
should also be able to dynamically pick up from ontologies, allow
independent control and 'blow spreadsheet tools away' with their
user-friendliness," he said. Other challenges include data
policies, resilience and new devices.
Berners-Lee concluded, "By increasing the level of collaboration
and creativity improvements can be made to the web. A new geography
of free connectivity with more intuitive interfaces and new forms
of democracy can be created.
"Ultimately, advances are most regularly achieved through the
connection of people's half-formed ideas, whether they are
scientific, political or cultural."
Prepare now for the Semantic Web
Comment on this article:
computer.weekly@rbi.co.uk