Wolfram|Alpha: Making the world’s knowledge computable
In 1988 the first direct IP connection between Europe and North America was made and Berners-Lee began to openly discuss the possibility of a web-like system at CERN.
English scientist Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web in 1989.
He wrote the first web browser in 1990 while employed at CERN near Geneva, Switzerland.
Initially, the world wide web is a project to connect wisdom, knowledge & research to people contributing and interested in science.
This idea evolved into what we know as the digital age.
Today, in its essence, it is more or less, what it was supposed to be.
A network for the people to connect any kind of idea, present, share & talk about it.
The basic system, in easy to understand terms, the possibility to view a web page, a document, linked to other documents has become a little part of the initial idea.
New projects and ways of thinking emerged into the possibility to interact with Digital Systems.
These Systems open up new Doors in order to reshape and understand large amounts of data.
Supercomputers lead to powerful simulations that can be used to calculate physical problems or predict the weather for example.
As more sensitive Information is transferred trough the internet, the security provided today relies mostly on cryptography.
The next step in the digital age, the very most desired thing by companies in the digital world at the moment, is a computer based on Quantum Mechanics.
The successful implementation of such a system, would give any company, country, or private organisation the Metaphorical key over the internet as we know today.
As advertised by many companies who are working on this subject,
the power of such a Quantum Computer, would put easily aside any kind of Security,
on which the worlds population is dependent and bound to.
For more information on this particular concern please visit following TED talk.
TED.com - Craig Costello - will quantum computers defeat cryptographers?
It is very hard to anticipate what uses this technology would bring for the people.
Wolfram Alpha is an example how computers today, can help us work with large amounts of data very easy.
It presents a wide set of functions that is passed on to 10.000 processing units in order,
to deliver an easy to understand result, that can be used for everyday questions and tasks.
Another aspect of the digital age is power consumption, as stated by BBC news:
Bitcoin's energy consumption 'equals that of Switzerland'
Bitcoin a decentralized digital currency without a central bank or single administrator that can be sent from user to user on the peer-to-peer bitcoin network without the need for intermediaries,
uses as much energy as the whole of Switzerland.
Sources:
Wikipedia: Tim Berners-Lee; CERN; Stephen Wolfram
TED: Craig Costello
BBC: Energy
