Babies assigned a personal Web site at birth; companies that store your "digital assets" like a bank; search engines which find your perfect holiday with undreamt-of precision. These are some of the concepts on the agenda at the 15th International World Wide Web Conference.
From tomorrow, 1,200 delegates from 46 countries will be at the International Conference Centre in Edinburgh.
The gathering of the world's foremost Webmasters will be headed by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, a Briton, who is the director of the World Wide Web Consortium and widely recognized as the father of the Web.
He will take the conference platform along with speakers whose diversity illustrates the all-embracing tentacles of his invention, including representatives of Amazon, the UK Film Council, Reuters, Yahoo, Nokia, Microsoft, Boeing, IBM and Walt Disney.
There will be sessions on creating a successful Web-based business, as entrepreneurs seek to exploit "the second dotcom boom" and hit on a big idea that will make them rich after the fashion of Google.
According to Berners-Lee's colleague at Southampton University, Wendy Hall, the executive director of the conference, the "next Google" will be the first business to seize opportunities offered by rapidly developing technology.
"I have a vision that in the future when a baby is born you'll get some sort of internet ID that is effectively your digital persona, and it will grow with you," Hall said.
"It will actually represent you in some way -- what you know, what you've done, your experiences. I guess you'd call it your URI [Uniform Resource Identity]," she said.
"This is the thing that always identifies you. Every time you do something on the Internet, it is effectively logged, building up this profile that is with you for your life. Then you have your life's record, which can include any legal documents or photographs or videos that you might have, that you can pass on to your children," Hall said.
Already anyone who goes online is adding to a "digital footprint" and will have to manage it increasingly carefully, Hall believes.
"People are beginning to become aware of how easy it is to have their identities stolen. You need to understand what information about yourself you are leaving digitally around the world," she said.
"I think of it like a bank. Our digital assets are as valuable to us as financial assets: they are going to be what defines us in the future. There are businesses that will grow up that will help you manage your digital identity," Hall said.
READINESS: According to a survey of 2,000 people, 86 percent of Swedes believe the country is worth defending in the event of a military attack Swedes are stocking up on food items in case of war, as more conflict in Europe no longer feels like a distant possibility, and authorities encourage measures to boost readiness. At a civil preparedness fair in southwest Stockholm, 71-year-old Sirkka Petrykowska said that she is taking the prospect of hostilities seriously and preparing as much as she can. “I have bought a camping stove. I have taken a course on preservation in an old-fashioned way, where you can preserve vegetables, meat and fruit that lasts for 30 years without a refrigerator,” Petrykowska said. “I’ve set aside blankets for warmth, I
FRUSTRATIONS: One in seven youths in China and Indonesia are unemployed, and many in the region are stuck in low-productivity jobs, the World Bank said Young people across Asia are struggling to find good jobs, with many stuck in low-productivity work that the World Bank said could strain social stability as frustrations fuel a global wave of youth-led protests. The bank highlighted a persistent gap between younger and more experienced workers across several Asian economies in a regional economic update released yesterday, noting that one in seven young people in China and Indonesia are unemployed. The share of people now vulnerable to falling into poverty is now larger than the middle class in most countries, it said. “The employment rate is generally high, but the young struggle to
ENERGY SHIFT: A report by Ember suggests it is possible for the world to wean off polluting sources of power, such as coal and gas, even as demand for electricity surges Worldwide solar and wind power generation has outpaced electricity demand this year, and for the first time on record, renewable energies combined generated more power than coal, a new analysis said. Global solar generation grew by a record 31 percent in the first half of the year, while wind generation grew 7.7 percent, according to the report by the energy think tank Ember, which was released after midnight yesterday. Solar and wind generation combined grew by more than 400 terawatt hours, which was more than the increase in overall global demand during the same period, it said. The findings suggest it is
‘ARMED CONFLICT’: At least 21 people have died in such US attacks, while experts say the summary killings are illegal even if they target confirmed narcotics traffickers US forces on Friday carried out a strike on an alleged drug-smuggling boat off the coast of Venezuela, killing four people, US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said. The latest strike, which Hegseth announced in a post on X, brings the number of such US attacks to at least four, leaving at least 21 people dead. An accompanying video shared by Hegseth showed a boat speeding across the waves before being engulfed in smoke and flames. “Four male narco-terrorists aboard the vessel were killed,” the Pentagon chief wrote. He said the strike “was conducted in international waters just off the
RSS