On Tuesday Tim Berners-Lee rounded off his Australian speaking tour with a City Talks presentation before 2,000 people at a packed Sydney Town Hall.
After an interminable procession of sponsor speeches, Berners-Lee covered many of the same topics in his presentations at the Sydney CSIRO workshop the previous week and the Melbourne talk the night before.
These included a call for everyone to learn some computer coding skills – or at least get to know someone who has some, wider technology education opportunities, more women in computing fields and a warning about the perils of government over-surveillance.
On government monitoring Internet traffic, Berners-Lee has been strident at all his talks and correctly points out most of our web browsing histories allow any outrageous conclusion to be drawn, particularly by suspicious law enforcement agencies and the prurient tabloid media.
Who owns the ‘off switch’ is also a concern after the Mubarak regime cut Egypt off the Internet during the Arab Spring uprising. The willingness of governments to cut connectivity in times of crisis is something we need to be vigilant against.
The web’s effect on the media was discussed in depth as well with Sean Aylmer, editor-in-chief of the Sydney Morning Herald, saying in his introduction that Berners-Lee’s invention had been the defining feature of Aylmer’s career.
While the web has been traumatic for a generation of newspapermen, Berners-Lee sees good news for journalists in the data explosion, “how do we separate the junk from the good stuff?” Asks Tim, “this is the role for journalists and editors”.
One person’s junk is another’s treasure though and the web presents one of the greatest opportunities for people to “write on their blank sheet of paper.”
When asked about what he regretted most about the web, Berners-Lee said “I’d drop the two slashes,” repeating the line from Melbourne the night before.
At each of his Australian speeches Berners-Lee has paid homage to his mentor at CERN, Mike Sendall. After Sendall passed away, his family found the original proposal for the Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML) which formed the basis for the world wide web.
“Exciting but vague” was the note Sendall made in the margins of Berners-Lee’s proposal.
Vague and exciting experiments was what drove people like James Watt and Thomas Edison during earlier periods of the industrial revolution. Tomorrow’s industries are today’s vague and strange ideas.
Thanks for the article.
Vague but exciting was Sendall’s note. Sir Tim was very pleased that the note wasn’t “exciting but vague”!
Chers
Thanks Lester, I’ll check the recording. It’s quite likely I transcribed it incorrectly.
Well, this is similar to what I had written before as tech like in the past is shifting all industries again including journalism, education, trade shows, etc & some of the business models within those industries have already been changed. I’ll just copy and paste what I’d put up before if haven’t seen yet:
Technologies are shifting industries, business models and lifestyles, well, few of them are here:
What would any 1 have to say for all these below including potential of Facebook/FB and other social networks/media, apps world, cloud computing, gestural tech, 3D printing and so on? Things are changing due to tech including IT including social media/networks, apps worlds, cloud computing and so on which are shifting business models, industries and lifestyles. Trade shows themselves have virtual reality. Then, look at blended learning – http://www.knewton.com/blended-learning/ (50% of high school would have online learning in US by 2019)(that link has the 6 basic types of blended learning where the last 2 types are mostly online). Then, self service revolution which came about a century or 2 ago from US to UK and then the rest which includes ATMs. Also, look at virtual offices (the legal, admin and other professions are changing around the globe not just due to globalization, balance of work and life but also due to tech including virtual offices where physical locations/offices aren’t needed).The yuan maybe challenging the us dollar but even the currency is shifting slowly more towards tech as nowadays can use even mobiles to pay for goods. There’s also the electronic cards as well as virtual currency (virtual currencies are mostly used within online world though if i’m right, FB has also used to for real physical products). Then, there is also 3D printing, gestural technologies also used at trade shows and so on. Most of these technologies have already changed industries – retail, entertainment including publishing and music worlds, manufacturing and so on. US has been involved in the high end manufacturing in the last 20 years or so which can be seen under http://www.pbs.org/america-revealed/episode/4/. Robotics has taken over jobs & the skill-sets have shifted. Less human labour now for any industry as can be seen under previous video. Journalism & public speaking also face same issues as Amazon, Apple, etc provide publishing tools while Twitter is a real-time social news network. Facebook has pages as well as the Spotify, Soundcloud,Docs & other apps. It’s immersed itself into entertainment world & more. Docs app is MS’ answer to Google Docs (cloud computing) & Docs app involves MS’ PDF version as PDF has different versions & is a standard. Facebook also has its blogging section called Facebook Notes though not as developed as WordPress. So, what can Facebook be? Well, the central library/resource/knowledge platform including for entertainment & more. Twitter, on the other hand real-time news social network & it depends on 3rd party blogging platforms for links or articles on its site. These days, social networks, search, cloud computing, apps, 3D printing, etc are not stand-alones. For example, there are real-time integrated search apps used for search content via social networks and other apps. Kurrently, for example is a real-time integrated public search app that searches content from various social networks like Facebook,LinkedIN,Twitter,etc while Cue,Greplin & Kitedesk are private real-time search app that does it for GMail, the above 3 social networks,Salesforce and more & Kitedesk can even share & manage documents. There are other such apps that integrates various technologies.
Google searches are done according to its algorithm. Facebook can be used as an information and communications centre as Facebook has Skype, Spotify, Soundcloud (music apps), other apps including Docs app (MS Docs’ reply to Google Docs – cloud computing) while Cue/Greplin and Kitedesk are the right tools for searching not only within FB but also within other apps as mentioned above. Under FB, can choose the pages that the individual loves and not depend on Google’s algorithm (because each individual’s taste including for search differs).
If use right settings and apps including lists which the firm has provided in the last 10 months or so, FB’s potential can be used efficiently; pages, contacts and apps wouldn’t get so cluttered and also posts/ads/comments can be done for free (mostly).
The dying and thriving careers in next 10 years or so in US, Australia and rest of the world can be found under http://edition.cnn.com/2012/08/13/opinion/careers-tomorrow-townsend/index.html (Dying careers and thriving careers: the jobs of tomorrow) and http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/02/occupations-in-decline_n_1250058.html (10 Careers that are dying out). Traditional retail, manufacturing assembly jobs, postal service workers, office and administrative workers, telemarketing and door-to-door sales are some of the dying careers.
Customer centric approach alone finished in 1980s and Innovative approach took over then. IBM, P&G were the early innovators and then pushed by Google, Amazon, Apple, Salesforce and so on including Facebook.
In addition, I had written this as well, which is needed to any area and which is also the reason why students need laptops or electronic devices these days at schools-above message and this message and topic are inter-connected:
In another 5 years when online education becomes the norm as blended learning has shifting towards online, laptops or any electronic device would be a must (http://www.knewton.com/blended-learning/ (50% of high school would have online learning in US by 2019)(that link has the 6 basic types of blended learning where the last 2 types are mostly online). Technologies are shifting each & every industry – more on that including thriving and dying careers where some of the dying careers are traditional retail, manufacturing assembly jobs, postal service workers, office and administrative workers, telemarketing and door-to-door sales can be found under the humble blog http://rohitthomas.wordpress.com/2012/11/16/technologies-including-facebook-changing-industries-business-models-and-lifestyles-completely/. Can also check out http://www.pbs.org/america-revealed/episode/4/ high end manufacturing which is what the US has gone towards in the last 20 years. And so, robotics are taking over jobs compared to humans (it did with the financial institutions & retail sector as well-self service revolution which also includes ATMs and this started 2 centuries ago-from US to UK & then rest of the world). It’s the same with the education world where virtual reality would be used and that includes social networking integrated with cloud computing as well as search (more of the integration-search,social,apps,cloud computing,gestural technologies,3D printing all found under the blog).
In the marketing world, the traditional marketing still exists but it’s over-taken by online marketing, namely search & email. Social is just coming up while search, social, apps, cloud & various other technologies have already integrated. To do SEO or SEM or SMM, which are search engine optimisation, search engine marketing, social media marketing & other types of online/internet marketing, you need to know HTML, CSS, Javascript, SQL, etc. The systems, softwares and even hardware just tools though knowledge needs to be there before that. What my parents studied 30 to 40 years ago at college/unis for biology/medicine is what students study these days during their higher secondary education because that’s how far the field has advanced (which includes combining the medical software into it these days). On the financial or engineering or tech sides, MS Excel and Access are the basics and advanced version of those uses VBA programming. If want to get into the analytical areas, these are the technologies needed along with learning statistics and mathematics. My sister who works as a Business Valuation Associate for Deloitte uses Excel as her basic tools though at uni and at school, she learnt Statistics as well as Pure & Business Mathematics while my bro who works for HP as a Business Intelligence Consultant uses SQL as his basic tool though he works on Cognos and studied Electronic and Communication Engineering (he studied SQL and others as well).
Journalism-blogging,news,publishing worlds-they are taken over by tech. Apple, Amazon have changed it all as mentioned under my blog and this blog WAS USED under another blogging article of yours. Is it enough just to use MS Word? That’s also a technological tool that helps with essay, report writing and various other things. To communicate with the mass, need to know a bit of marketing (includes advertising)-search, social, apps, etc as mentioned above.
So, education these days have changed like it has in the past as mentioned above with the examples of my parents (1 an anaesthetist who graduated from Royal College of Anaesthetists and Surgeons, Ireland while another a pathologist who graduated from Royal College of Pathologists UK). Students do need these devices BUT AGAIN AND AGAIN, they are just tools aided in applying their various fields in various areas (like statistics and mathematics applied in business, engineering, medicines & so forth or even humanities or arts applied in marketing, journalism, visual arts & so forth).