The World Wide Web Is 20 Years Old

The modern day internet, better known as the "World Wide Web", which has completely transformed the way we live, has entered into its twenties today as many will mark the anniversary.

Its inception dates back to 13 March 1989, when a computer scientist, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research, popularly known as CERN Laboratory, presented a paper containing means and methods by which particles physics scientists could easily share and find out essential electronics documents. 

At that time, the use of internet was limited to defence and academics domains only and communication was wholly text-based, banking on general newsgroups, along with remote Telnet chat to send messages.   

The document, entitled "Information Management: A Proposal", heralded the worth of simplified iteration of Standard Generalised Markup Language, and it described what is now known as world wide web that has annealed into almost every sphere of our lifestyles.

The paper resulted into the creation of Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML), a coding language used to illustrate methods of presenting images and texts in the web format, and when this language get combined with Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (HTTP) and Uniform Resource Locator (URL), it build an essential framework to support sharing of electronic documents in an electronic format.  

In order to mark the twentieth birthday of the web, CERN will be hosting a couple of "short presentations from web veterans, in addition to a keynote speech from Sir Tim Berners-Lee, alongside a demonstration of the original browser". 

The WWW has revolutionised the way information is transferred and has changed the life of many, including lads at ITProPortal.com, forever. The days of 56K modem where egg timers were a familiar sight are long gone. Having a service like Youtube or Spotify was near science-fiction. The world wide web on the whole has matured considerably and will almost certainly look distinctly different in 10 years time.

Taken from ITProPortal.com

Thief Uses Google Earth To Nick Lead Roofs

In an incident which further sparked concerns over the misuse of Google Earth application for felonious purposes, a thief stole lead worth a whopping £100,000 from the roofs of the buildings, by using the application to get the detailed view of these listed buildings.  

Tom Berge, a 27-year-old builder from Sutton, used the Google Earth application, which offers detailed aerial images of places across the globe, to search out various listed buildings, including churches, schools, and museums, that could be ransacked for lead.  

Berge used the application to figure out lead roofs with their darker colours, and made £44,500 by selling around 44.6-tonnes of lead during his six months long spree, which started from September to February. 

The roofs of Sutton High School for Girls, Croydon Parish Church, and Honeywood Museum in Carshalton were all looted. Berge is sentenced to eight months in jail, suspended for a couple of years, after he confessed involvement in as many as 30 offences.  

The court was told that Berge, along with his accomplices, meticulously planned the thefts, as he went to site equipped with the necessary equipment, such as ladders and abseiling ropes, to plunder the roofs, and even stole a car to make a speedy escape. 

Aside from the fact that the judgement highlights the legal loopholes that exist in the current UK system, it also shows that thieves, like any professionals, can be resourceful. Google Earth is a tool and while the incident highlighted one wrong use, it has an overwhelmingly good aura with its pedagogical and didactic features.

Taken from ITProPortal.com

Windows goes Mobile 6.5

Phone rivals HTC and LG today joined Microsoft at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona to launch the world’s first handsets set to run the latest incarnation of Windows Mobile.

Peter Chou, HTC's Chief Executive, kicked things off by promising buyers of its new Touch Pro 2 and Touch Diamond 2 free upgrades to the new OS when it’s launched later this year.

Microsoft is yet to confirm a firm launch date for the mobile OS, but head honcho Steve Ballmer said today that version 6.5 will bring “the full Windows experience to mobile phones”.

Although the software firm has long denied plans to produce its own branded mobile phone, Ballmer added that handsets running version 6.5 will now be known as “the first generation of what we’re calling Windows phones” – or at least he hopes so.

LG chief Skott Ahn also said today that its new touchscreen phone, the GM730, will be equipped with Windows Mobile 6.5.

Intuitive, smart and useful is what Windows Mobile 6.5 will help customers’ smartphones to become, according to Ahn.®

Microsoft To Release Surface 2 Device In 2010?

The next version of table top touchscreen computer, dubbed Microsoft Surface 2, could come as early as 2010 according to one of Microsoft's development partners.

Speaking to an audience at the South by South West (SXSW) Festival, Chris Bernard, user experience evangelist for Microsoft, declined to mention any release date but given the fact that the large touchscreen devices are expensive, it is unlikely that they will become common place in the next few years.

His intervention came after Erik Klimczak, creative director at Clarity Consulting, unintentionally stated that a second version of Surface with a higher definition would be available within 12 months.

Currently, Surface is limited to XGA resolutions which is just enough for everyday tasks; a more advanced version of surface codenamed Second Light (ed: no Silverlight or Second Life) will come with a secondary projector to allow secondary pictures to be overlaid on the table top.

Infrared sensors are also expected to be integrated to allow the computer to interact with the graphic user interface without having to wear esoteric peripherals.

Surface, which some have called Microsoft's answer to the iPod Touch only bigger, is still very much a niche player that's available for thousands of pounds. It will be interesting to find out whether Microsoft modify the Surface for a more traditional environment.

As a sidenote, CSI fans have already seen the Surface in action thanks to a partnership between Microsoft and the producers of the award winning series. Microsoft has also managed to introduce Photosynth, its 3D Photo stitching technology, to millions of viewers as well, as well as the likes of HD View and tablet PCs. 

Taken from ITProPortal.com

New 'virtual calendar' to organise families

The O2 Joggler sends text message reminders to family members, and doubles as a multimedia entertainment system, complete with news, weather and traffic widgets.

The days of sticking reminder notes to the fridge door and forgetting doctor’s appointments, swimming lessons and birthdays could soon be over, after mobile phone company O2 launched a new high-tech calendar and messaging service designed to help families get more organised.

The O2 Joggler, which goes on sale next month, will send text message reminders of events or appointments to family members. It could, for example, be used to remind a child to take their flute to school for a music lesson later that day, and even tell a parent what time they need to collect the child that evening. At the moment, the Joggler will only send reminder texts to O2 handsets.

“We’ve developed the O2 Joggler with today’s busy families in mind,” said Alistair Johnson, marketing director of O2. “It has been purpose built to help families better organise their lives.”

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Storage breakthrough could bust density record

Researchers have developed a breakthrough storage technology capable of squeezing the contents of 250 DVDs onto a disk the size of a quarter.

The technique involves using the self-assembly properties of chemically dissimilar polymer chains to array themselves into ludicrously dense but perfectly regular formations.

Working with co-lead investigator Thomas Russell of UMass Amherst, Ting Xu of the University of California at Berkeley was able to create defect-free arrays with cell sizes as small as three nanometers.

Three-nanometer domains could theoretically create storage densities of 10 terabytes per square inch. Compare that density to the record 803 gigabytes per square inch achieved in rarified testing of perpendicular magnetic recording technology at TDK's labs, and this new technique has the potential for increasing storage densities by 12.5 times over that record.

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Vista SP2 for public consumption

Microsoft has put Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 Service Pack 2 up on its website for public consumption.

The company made the service pack available to its TechNet and MSDN technical testers late last month, but this is the first time the Service Pack has been offered to the public at large.

The service pack is a 388MB download through Microsoft's TechNet site. It's also available through Windows Update at a considerably more svelte 43MB.

Anybody hoping to tinker with the Service Pack will need to uninstall any beta versions they may have, and have Vista SP1 installed.

As with previous service packs, SP2 will bundle all previous bug fixes and patches, as well as support for Blu-ray, Bluetooth 2.1 and Windows Search 4, the latest version of Microsoft's desktop search technology.

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