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What does the future hold for the internet? What will the internet look like in 2025, 2030 or 2040?

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In March 1989 Sir Tim Berners-Lee wrote a memo that led, eventually, to the web. That was 25 years ago this year. Back in the 1980s, even the simple concept of documents which could be hyperlinked was difficult to understand. So what will digital life be like another 25 years from now? How dramatically will things have changed by 2040?

Both utopian and dystopian visions of the future internet abound. By looking at people's greatest hopes and fears for the digital future, it's possible to imagine very different visions of what may one day come to pass.
A bright outlook It's a summer morning in 2040. The internet is all around you and all the things that you're about to do during your day will fall in to place thanks to the data streams flying across the internet. Public transport to the city dynamically adjusts schedules and routes to account for delays. Buying your kids the perfect birthday presents is easy because their data tells your shopping service exactly what they will want. Best of all, you're alive despite a near-fatal accident last month because doctors in the hospital's emergency department had easy access to your medical history.
It sounds good, doesn't it? This is the future in which data powers everything. It's an idea that the web's creator has been pushing for a while now. During a recent appearance in London, he said that we might one day also have much greater ownership over the data that belongs to us.

"I would like us to build a world in which I have control of my data, I own it," he explained. "We'll be able to write apps which take data from all different parts of my life and my friends' lives and my family's lives."

Smart services, which use artificial intelligence to help us better manage our workloads, will likely contribute to a less cluttered, more streamlined online world where email overload and scheduling headaches are a thing of the past.

With data flying around in ever greater volumes, though, there are some who fear the implications for privacy. But contemporary concerns over privacy breaches and mishandling of data could well have been tidied up by 2040, according to information security expert Bruce Schneier, who is speaking at BBC Future's World-Changing Ideas Summit next week.

"The question is, when is there going to be real legal and technical privacy on the internet? And my guess is 20 or 30 years - a generation is about right. We won't have the current level of spying and data collection," he argues.

Schneier explains that, decades from now, those who worry about privacy will look back at contemporary surveillance the way people today look back on child labour - it's something that most people just don't accept any more.
Virtual nightmares It's a winter evening in 2040 and the world is a darker place. The internet is teeming with cybercrime and it's become impossible to go online without making your bank account vulnerable or risking identity theft. Trolls have taken over social networking, the web is ludicrously priced and segmented, meaning only the rich can access the most useful and up-to-date resources. If that wasn't bad enough, in some countries people's every move is constantly monitored by secret police using networked sensors and internet communications. Even if you can get online, would you want to?
Hints of the potential for digital catastrophe are peppered around the world already. As the New York Times noted, a recent Pew Research report on the likely nature of the internet a decade from now contained the word "threat" more than four times as often as the word "hope".

The potential problems are many. For one thing, the rise of data-driven services leads some to worry of a Minority Report-style future in which our course in life is mapped out for us, eroding our ability to make free choices. Then there's the worry that the data savvy might become a web-empowered elite, keen to keep those who are not digitally enabled firmly on the lower rungs of society.

"The internet will help the rich get richer and become a tool to further marginalise people who are already living with poverty, mental illness, and other serious challenges," wrote an anonymous director of operations for social network MetaFilter in the Pew report.

One way of keeping the web democratised and egalitarian is by safeguarding net neutrality, which means a web that is open, decentralised and universally accessible - rather than one which is segmented, better featured for some rather than others and so on. "We need to keep fighting for net neutrality," Berners-Lee said in London. But those who fear for the future say there's every chance that neutrality won't survive in the long-term. In fact, there are some who believe key battles have already been lost. At the beginning of this year, for instance, the US DC Circuit Court of Appeals struck down network neutrality rules. The move theoretically allows wealthy corporations to pay to have their online services promoted - and to have rival services blocked, stifling competition.

It's not just net neutrality that's at threat. Other contributors to the Pew report expressed concerns over the aggressive enforcement of police state policies online, which allow oppressive regimes to censor media or spy on their own citizens with increasing ease. And if government interference wasn't enough, there is also the threat of increased security problems posed by criminals. Already, networked devices in people's homes have inspired nightmarish scenarios in which personal appliances can be compromised from afar. Even baby monitors have been hacked maliciously.
The tempered view
For the realist, what might actually happen by 2040 probably falls somewhere between these two extremes. Good things, and bad things, will happen via the internet. It's a point made by Schneier when the spectre of cyberterrorism is raised. He's not overly worried about such things because, he says, the web is a place balanced by the diverse intentions of the many who use it.

"Everyone uses cyberspace," he says. "Everybody. The moon shines on the just and the unjust. Everybody drives cars, eats at restaurants and sends email. The good guys and the bad guys. So what?"

As for business, it's difficult to believe that certain companies will jump to act moralistically in cut-throat economic times. Corporations, indeed, probably always have and always will display certain unethical behaviours. On the other hand, markets mean that people are allowed to hold those corporations to account when things go wrong or when they behave in an unacceptable way.

"With some things you just have to have regulation or laws to say that's illegal, you can't do that," commented Berners-Lee. "At other times the market will work well where things are transparent enough for people to vote with their feet and go to a different website."

New era social networks like Sgrouples and Ello, which promise to behave ethically, provide a new kind of competition for the established giants criticised by some.

In an open web, then, competition will not only drive the positive innovations people yearn for, it could also allow for egalitarian values to persist. But that's not to say all of our woes will disappear. The world wide web in 2040 promises to be different, but we can be sure of one thing: it will remain a diverse reflection of our species.
To find out more about the future of the internet, check out the World-Changing Ideas Summit in New York on 21 October. BBC Future will be covering the event in full - so watch this space.

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What will the internet look like in 2040?

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In March 1989 Sir Tim Berners-Lee wrote a memo that led, eventually, to the web. That was 25 years ago this year. Back in the 1980s, even the simple concept of documents which could be hyperlinked was difficult to understand. So what will digital life be like another 25 years from now?

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The revolutionary connecting of a series of physical devices in your home, from smart devices such as fridges and thermostats to Amazon's Alexa and Google's Assistant.

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The Internet of Things-internet connections in everyday objects that allow them to send and receive data-is growing and growing quickly.

You might recognize it currently in cars, voice-activated assistants and health trackers.

In 1999, just 4% of the world's population was online. Today, 49% of the world's population is connected online and an estimated 8.4 billion connected things are in use worldwide, according to the Pew Research Center in Washington, D.C.

Pew Research along with Elon University's Imagining the Internet Center in Elon, North Carolina, asked technologists, scholars, strategic thinkers and other leaders to consider the future of IoT in a survey during the summer of 2016. They asked: "As automobiles, medical devices, smart TVs, manufacturing equipment, and other tools and infrastructure are networked, is it likely that attacks, hacks and ransomware concerns in the next decade will cause significant numbers of people to decide to disconnect or will the trend toward greater connectivity of objects and people continue unabated?"

More than 1,200 responded, with 15% predicting a disconnect and 85% estimating people would move even more deeply into connectivity.

Several themes emerged from the responses, a report created by Elon University noted:

People crave connection and convenience.

Unplugging isn't easy now, and by 2026 it will be even tougher.

The IoT will be accepted despite dangers because most people don't think the worst-case scenario will happen to them.

Human ingenuity and risk-mitigation strategies will make the IoT safer.

Notable numbers of people will disconnect.

Whether or not people disconnect, the dangers are real. Security and privacy issues will be magnified to a great degree by the rapid rise of the IoT.

The conclusion? "Despite wide concerns about cyberattacks, outages and privacy violations, most experts believe the Internet of Things will continue to expand in the next several years, tying machines to machines and linking people to valuable resources, services and opportunities," Pew reports.

The report, which can be read here or here, is part four of a five-part series on the future of the internet, is based on a nonscientific open-ended questionnaire with 1,201 respondents conducted from July 1 to Aug. 12, 2016.

artificial intelligence, bed, bedding, big data, business intelligence, data, future, internet connections, internet of things, mattress, sleep

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Predictions about the Internet of Things

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The Internet of Things-internet connections in everyday objects that allow them to send and receive data-is growing and growing quickly. You might recognize it currently in cars, voice-activated assistants and health trackers. In 1999, just 4% of the world's population was online. Today, 49% of the world's population is connected online and an estimated 8.4 billion connected...

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The photo-sharing app and website Instagram was alaunched in 2010 as a photo-sharing service that has also now become one of the major social networking platforms online with

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Since its birth in October 2010, Instagram has made great strides in the world of social media. Three years ago, not many people used or even knew of the photo- and video- sharing social network app that lets you customize your images with filters. But now tens of millions of users use Instagram to connect with each other through visual communication and social interaction.

What is Instagram?

Instagram is a mobile app that allows users to upload content and share their lives with the world through photos and videos. In many respects, Instagram's photo-sharing platform has been unique from the start. Once a user takes a photo, he or she can choose a filter to customize the image and capture the moment perfectly. The purpose of the filters is to transform an amateur or mediocre mobile photo into an artistic and professional-looking image.

The app is also meant to be used in real-time, so Instagram users can share their experiences and followers can share in those experiences as they happen. Instagram also took social network sharing and made it easier by giving users a convenient way to instantly share a picture on several platforms, all from one app. Users can share photos onto Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Flickr and Foursquare.

On the app itself, users can peruse a homepage of their followers' recent posts, check a newsfeed for follower activity, comment on and like any public pictures, as well as tag followers in both comments and photos. The hashtag trend, in particular, is widely used in captions and comments among Instagrammers. Instagram is also accessible on the web, but only with the viewing, commenting and liking functions; to upload photos, users must use Instagram's mobile app.

Instagram's Start

Instagram, founded in 2010, derived its name from the combination of "instant camera" and "telegram." Starting with one million monthly users, the photo-sharing app found itself with 100 million uploaded photos by July 2011 and 10 million users in September of that same year. In April 2012, the company announced passing the 30 million user mark. That same month, Facebook took note of Instagram's growth and bought the app for $1 billion, its third largest acquisition to date. From that point on, use of Instagram skyrocketed. It reached 80 million monthly users after the acquisition and nearly doubled that to 150 million monthly users by the end of 2013.

Instagram's New Features and Updates

Instagram's exponential climb in popularity is partly attributable to the Facebook purchase, though important steps the company took in 2013 also gave the app a boost. In May of that year, Instagram introduced photo tagging and "Photos of You," a new tab on a user's profile with a collection of every picture he or she is tagged in. Photo tagging also extended to brands, a business-friendly move that reportedly led to increased sales.

Continuing on its path to becoming more social, Instagram made it easier to share posts by adding links to embed photos and videos in July 2013. With this new function, people can show Instagram content as it was meant to be seen, by simply copying and pasting an embed link into an article or on a website. This was a smart move for Instagram, as it allowed users to share content elsewhere and potentially drive traffic back to Instagram.

In October 2013, Facebook began incorporating "natural-looking ads" within the app. Because users weren't used to ads, Facebook decided to start with only a handful of appealing, high-quality photos and videos from a few brands. Within a month, this approach proved successful as 5% of ads led to likes by users.

At the end of 2013, Instagram also added a private chat service for followers to send private photos and videos to one another. Before this, the only means of communication was completely public through likes and comments. Now people can send content privately to as many as 15 people using the "Direct" messaging button. Users can write captions for the images they are sending and, after sending images, they can continue the chat underneath the photos.

All of Instagram's updates were strategic moves, with the goal of increasing user engagement and site traffic.

Current and Future Status

Instagram was listed in Time Magazine as one of the top 50 apps for Android in 2013. By early 2014, a report by Global Web Index found that Instagram was the fastest growing social network, increasing its active users by 23% in only 6 months. A few months later, reports surfaced that Instagram eclipsed Twitter with mobile users; the photo-sharing app boasted a whopping 35 million monthly mobile users, almost 5 million more than those on Twitter mobile. This should come as no surprise given Instagram's history of growth, but, when you consider that users can only use the mobile app for its main function, photo uploading and sharing, one might also argue that Instagram has exceeded all expectations.

To get started, just download the app, log in and instantly begin sharing moments in your life with all your followers and other Instagram users.

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Since its birth in October 2010, Instagram has made great strides in the world of social media. Three years ago, not many people used or even knew of the photo- and video- sharing social network app that lets you customize your images with filters. But now tens of millions of users use Instagram to connect [...]

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12. Facebook, YouTube & Twitter came in quick succession.

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12. Facebook, YouTube & Twitter came in quick succession.

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Facebook (the Facebook) was launched by Mark Zuckerberg in February 2004, a computer programmer and psychology student at Harvard University. The video uploading website YouTube (2005) and micro-blogging site Twitter (2006) with the very first tweet by its founder followed shortly after...

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social networking service (website category)

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10 years after Mark Zuckerberg built "Thefacebook" in his Harvard dorm, Facebook has more users, more revenue, and arguably more impact than it ever has. How has the social network changed (and changed us) over the years?

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The MySpace social networking site launched in 2003 and became an instant sensation as a means of promoting yourself online and making new friends as well. Instant messanager software Skype was also launched in 2003

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Two men from a company called ResponseBase - which, like eUniverse, was the target of many complaints about spamming - came to eUniverse when that company purchased ResponseBase in 2002. They were Chris DeWolfe, the current chief executive of MySpace, and Tom Anderson, the first "friend" of MySpace members.The three men were members of Friendster, the social-networking site that preceded MySpace, and they used that site as a template for MySpace, but with the focus on commerce rather than networking, Mr. Lapinski said.

Mr. Lapinski said MySpace's initial popularity came not from word-of-mouth, as is often assumed, but from an intense e-mail campaign. From there, Mr. Lapinski details the already well-known, drama-fraught deal to sell Intermix to News Corporation last year. He describes the current MySpace as more of a marketing tool than a social-networking site.

Loren Baker of Search Engine Journal wrote that nearly everything in the article is old: It is "well known in the marketing world that the parent company which sold MySpace to News Corporation was not a band of do-gooders."

"Does this mean that MySpace will spam you now?" Mr. Baker asked. "Not really, as Fox Interactive is not going to ruin a good thing."

JUST ANOTHER WORD The Cato Institute this week published its annual Economic Freedom of the World report, which "seeks to measure the consistency of the institutions and policies of various countries with voluntary exchange and the other dimensions of economic freedom."

"This year's report," according to the introduction, "notes that economic freedom remains on the rise," though the average score is still only at 5.1 out of 10. The highest-scoring country is Hong Kong, with a score of 8.7, followed closely by Singapore (showing that economic freedom is measured here in strict isolation from other kinds of freedom). The United States scored 8.2. At the bottom are countries like the Central African Republic, Algeria and Venezuela. The report can be downloaded from cato.org .

NOSTALGIA BREAK Nostalgic types and ironic hipsters will love the set of 1970's toy commercials on YouTube (search for "70's toy commercials"). The spots for games like Bing Bang Boing and for toys like the Water Wiggle are fun to watch, but the most striking thing about these commercials is how long they were. At a full minute each, they might lose most of today's attention-short youth (youtube.com)

DAN MITCHELL

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Two men from a company called ResponseBase - which, like eUniverse, was the target of many complaints about spamming - came to eUniverse when that company purchased ResponseBase in 2002.

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10. In 2001, the Dot-com bubble did burst.

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10. In 2001, the Dot-com bubble did burst.

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Many bright minds (especially graduates) had been launching successful internet companies, such as Webvan, taking part in the e-commerce bubble made millions of dollars. But in 2001 this period of extreme growth abruptly ended.

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The Dot Com Bubble Explained in One Minute

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9. Downloading songs and albums with Napster in 1999.

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9. Downloading songs and albums with Napster in 1999.

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The emergence of a pioneering peer-to-peer files sharing service that allowed people to share MP3 files easily and for free online between 1999 and 2001, however, it ran into serious copyright infringement issues

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Napster: once synonymous with underage illegal streaming and made notable by Justin Timberlake, who played founder Sean Parker in blockbuster The Social Network.

But now Napster is back - and legal - and bosses say this particular streaming service is the one leading the way in a music revolution.

J Hus uses his friends to ensure he is representing urban London

Gone are the days of cassette tapes, CDs, fat MP3 players that could hold only 10 songs. Now, music is consumed on devices holding thousands of tracks that still fit in your pocket.

Napster had a lot to do with shaping the current music scene, and the bosses have spoken exclusively with Metro.co.uk about how the site has morphed from an illegal download site to a top streaming service discovering some of the hottest artists.

Thorsten Schlesche, Executive Vice President and General Manager for Napster Europe, told us: 'We have been very disruptive to the music industry with the legacy of Napster and really changed the way people consume music and get music via the internet.

'Even now via Napster we have been the pioneers for streaming as well. We definitely have been the first streaming service for a very long time.

'There is a long history of pioneering, being the first, trying to change things and being disruptive. We definitely feel that this is a very good thing.'

Back in 1999, Napster was a revolution on the music scene as a peer-to-peer file sharing service, allowing people to pass around their favourite hits for free. All illegally of course.

Founded in the 90s by Shawn Fanning, John Fanning and Sean Parker (of JT fame), Napster ran on a premise that kids would share music from their MP3 players with one another using their software.

And they were right. Running between 1999 and 2001, the service at one point had 80 million users at its peak.

But in 2000, the site ran in to trouble, when rock band Metallica filed a lawsuit after they found a demo of their song I Disappear had been put on Napster ahead of it's release.

Copyright complications had caught up with them.

After record labels also sued the site in another separate lawsuit, Napster was forced to shut down by a court order.

But its assets were liquidised after going bankrupt, eventually being bought by Roxio, an American software company, and then Best Buy, until Napster merged with Rhapsody - another online music store - in 2011.

Rhapsody subsequently phased out the Rhapsody brand in favour of Napster, and in a mission statement on their website said they were now 'one big happy family'.

Now the service boasts an online music store, offline playlists and GIFs to create an interactive experience for listeners.

Although Ed Sheeran had credited the earlier service with providing a platform for people to hear his music - and his subsequent rise to success - Napster as a brand hasn't always had the greatest reputation in the industry.

But bosses say that the software developed back then was the start of what we now call the streaming boom: with platforms like Spotify, Apple Music and Amazon Music copying this innovation in the way music is consumed.

Although the Napster now is not the same as the original Napster - they're different companies - there was a deliberate choice by bosses to keep the name and logo synonymous with fair dealing with artists.

Thorsten said: 'The company I'm working for today probably nothing in common with the former file-sharing platform we had as a brand.

'But the brand is in common, the passion for music is in common but definitely we value our artists and we value music and we feel that the music industry and the artist should get the right compensation for what they are doing.'

So how are they different from players like Apple Music and Spotify who are currently dominating the streaming service field?

The answer is they're not, really. But Napster don't see that as a negative.

Thorsten said: 'I would say between all the streaming apps there is a lot of commodity - around 70/80% - but then there are small differences which really makes it key.

'That's not a bad thing because it gives customers the chance to experience music streaming services and getting used to certain behaviour and then amongst the services, choose the service that has the features that they love and want to use most.'

For Napster, music, and loving music is key.

And although Napster are still growing as a brand in the UK, they hope that appreciation for music will dominate over short-term gains of getting music for free.

Thorsten concluded: 'We're still in a growth stage [in the UK]. We need a bigger partnership, but that's something we're hoping to announce this year.'

Looks like Napster is back, and back for good.
Be sure to watch our Facebook Live with Lewis Watson today at 1pm.
MORE: Ed Sheeran denies rumours he's planning to quit music after his Divide tour

MORE: The complete guide to Ed Sheeran's many random celebrity mates

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'We have been very disruptive to the music industry': Napster bosses on the rise, fall and rise of the 'revolutionary' music service

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Napster: once synonymous with underage illegal streaming and made notable by Justin Timberlake, who played founder Sean Parker in blockbuster The Social Network. But now Napster is back - and legal - and bosses say this particular streaming service is the one leading the way in a music revolution.

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8. Google's first webpage became live in 1998.

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8. Google's first webpage became live in 1998.

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This famous internet search engine began life as a research project at Stanford university and in two years became what they hoped, a better way to search the web that ranked web pages on their content and relevance

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A visual history of Google Search starting from its creation by Larry Page and Sergey Brin in 1996 to today.

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The first video that went viral of a CGI baby doing the cha-cha. It appeared on news stations across the US and Europe as well as making an appearance on the huge hit TV show Ally Mcbeal...

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It was a time of baggy pants, flannel and the Goo Goo Dolls. It was 1996. Our nascent exploration into the World Wide Web was about to get super weird with the first ever viral sensation of a baby doing the cha-cha.

We've had nearly two decades to let CGI animation grow up since the first CGI baby cha-cha'd it's way into our heart (or freaked us out, depending on your views about it). But the shared connection we all have with that first dancing baby still remains.

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A Brief History Of The Dancing Baby Meme

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It was a time of baggy pants, flannel and the Goo Goo Dolls. It was 1996. Our nascent exploration into the World Wide Web was about to get super weird with the first ever viral sensation of a baby doing the cha-cha.

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6. In 1995, Netscape & Windows '95 browser are born.

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6. In 1995, Netscape & Windows '95 browser are born.

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The first official web browser program that reached the public was Mosaic invented by students of the University of Illinois, at the start of the 1990s, and this later became Netscape and was followed by Windows 95' web browser...

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This week marks the 20th anniversary of the release of Netscape Navigator, the venerable web browser that unquestionably helped popularize the World Wide Web in an immeasurable way. Developed by Jim Clark and Marc Andreesen, Netscape Navigator was a revolutionary piece of software that fundamentally changed the way the masses used and accessed the Internet.

These days, Netscape is nothing more than a memory, having been discontinued and replaced in the market by familiar names like Chrome, Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Safari.

To help commemorate an incredible milestone in the history of the Internet, here is a visual history of the Netscape web browser, from its early beginnings to its untimely death at the hands of AOL.

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This week marks the 20th anniversary of the release of Netscape Navigator, the venerable web browser that unquestionably helped popularize the World Wide Web in an immeasurable way. Developed by Jim Clark and Marc Andreesen, Netscape Navigator was a revolutionary piece of software that fundamentally changed the way the masses used and accessed the Internet.

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5. The White House has a website by 1993.

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5. The White House has a website by 1993.

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By 1993 there are now over 600 websites available to browse online and these include the White House and the UN at a time when Congress formally recognised the potential of the internet for the economy.

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The White House entered a weird new place called the World Wide Web when it launched its very first Web site 20 years ago this week. This was how CNN anchor Miles O'Brien described the site at the time: "For those of you brave enough to spend time sitting in front of electronic devices, there's a new place to check out on the cyber scene." The cyber scene. (Also, by this definition of "brave," we are all national heroes. Where can we pick up our Internet medals?)

The site, referred to by CNN as a "new computer system," was announced by none other than Mr. Internet himself, Vice President Al Gore. You can take a look at the Clinton White House's first site here, as it's been archived by the National Archives, as it existed in November 1995.

Now, the year was 1994, and the Internet was kind of a thing. But not really. GeoCities wasn't even launched yet, which is where the White House Web site looks like it belonged. It was a time when clip art ranked among the highest forms of design. Thus, any ancient online relic shouldn't be judged too harshly by today's standards.

But, we couldn't resist a modern tour of the historical Internet. Let's begin at the top, shall we?

Okay, for starters, top-notch welcome page. Classy cursive font interspersed with functional Tahoma. Succinct and to the point. I personally am a bit surprised there is no throwback GIF scrolling at the top, but fear not, because things will get snazzier from here.

Oh, and you, too, can make your own 1994 White House Web site. Here's the code, for all my Internet-makers out there:

The "President's Welcome Message" link sadly does not click through to anything. But Al Gore's welcome message link does. I guess that's what happens when you help invent the Internet, sort of.

"Hi. Welcome to my Internet home page," Gore literally says on his page. "I hope you find the information useful and informative. Electronic communication like this is of course changing the way we communicate, work, and learn." Man, he wasn't kidding, huh?

You can also click through to a short, very rapid QuickTime video of Gore doing vice presidential stuff. Here it is, in GIF-form:

Now, continue scrolling down and check out this clip art. I mean, really. Like, don't even come to me with a piece of information unless it is also accompanied by a graphic representation of said concept.

And you have to hand it to Gore, because such icons are basically the ancestor of the modern-day emoji, which the current White House has generously employed.

Continue scrolling down and you'll come across the best darn thing possibly on the entire Internet. I'm of course referring to " Al Gore's cartoon gallery."

I'm sorry, are you seeing this? Why does this exist? Well, Gore "has amassed a large personal collection of cartoons characterizing his public life." So to get us all jazzed about technology, Gore has provided some examples from his personal collection. They are a hoot. Curiously, some programmer felt just fine with writing, "Some text goes here. Blah blah blah blah" on a live, official government Web site.

Let's go back to the homepage so we can visit " The Executive Branch."

I don't know, guys, I'm digging this. I like the presidential seal, which I am just noticing now (I guess Gore's page was too busy to allow that to stand out). We have a cutout little boy Clinton who is larger than grownups in the photos to the right and left of him. And he's wearing a bow tie. Who doesn't like a kid in a bow tie?

Now, one design flaw here. It appears that Clinton's official signature is overlaid on top of text that reads "unofficial signature" or something of the sort. Come on, programmer guys (or ladies). Strip out that text! This site is supposed to usher in a digital age for the presidency.

Head back to the homepage and you can visit the " First Family," and from there, take a gander at " Family Life at the White House."

Okay, I guess we should appreciate the liberal use of photos here? It is nice to know that you can back up a claim like Clinton enjoys horseback riding with some visual proof. Still, this looks like an amateur picture book. It's unclear whether Internet users of 1994 knew that you have to click on each of these images to enlarge them. Do you remember if you knew that in 1994?

Back on the homepage, you can click through to useful pages such as " What's New" (since 1995, at least), " Publications" and " Comments," from where you can "speak out," the site proclaims. You can also click through to " Tours."

"The White House is also a museum and the home to many great moments in American history," Clinton also literally says on that page. "I hope you enjoy your brief visit through those treasures. Keep in mind that you too are a part of that history. This is, after all, the very first on-line White House tour."

It sure is!

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The White House's first Web site launched 20 years ago this week. And it was amazing.

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The White House entered a weird new place called the World Wide Web when it launched its very first Web site 20 years ago this week. This was how CNN anchor Miles O'Brien described the site at the time: "For those of you brave enough to spend time sitting in front of electronic devices, there's a new place to check out on the cyber scene."

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In a CERN research lab in Switzerland, British scientist Tim Bernes-Lee invented the World Wide Web, i.e. a series of hyperlinked web-pages that anyone could connect to, the initial stages of a system of information pages and websites with various forms of text and other media.

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Sir Tim Berners-Lee is a British computer scientist. He was born in London, and his parents were early computer scientists, working on one of the earliest computers.

Growing up, Sir Tim was interested in trains and had a model railway in his bedroom. He recalls:

"I made some electronic gadgets to control the trains. Then I ended up getting more interested in electronics than trains. Later on, when I was in college I made a computer out of an old television set."

After graduating from Oxford University, Berners-Lee became a software engineer at CERN, the large particle physics laboratory near Geneva, Switzerland. Scientists come from all over the world to use its accelerators, but Sir Tim noticed that they were having difficulty sharing information.

"In those days, there was different information on different computers, but you had to log on to different computers to get at it. Also, sometimes you had to learn a different program on each computer. Often it was just easier to go and ask people when they were having coffee...", Tim says.

Tim thought he saw a way to solve this problem - one that he could see could also have much broader applications. Already, millions of computers were being connected together through the fast-developing internet and Berners-Lee realised they could share information by exploiting an emerging technology called hypertext.

In March 1989, Tim laid out his vision for what would become the web in a document called " Information Management: A Proposal". Believe it or not, Tim's initial proposal was not immediately accepted. In fact, his boss at the time, Mike Sendall, noted the words "Vague but exciting" on the cover. The web was never an official CERN project, but Mike managed to give Tim time to work on it in September 1990. He began work using a NeXT computer, one of Steve Jobs' early products.

By October of 1990, Tim had written the three fundamental technologies that remain the foundation of today's web (and which you may have seen appear on parts of your web browser):

HTML: HyperText Markup Language. The markup (formatting) language for the web.

URI: Uniform Resource Identifier. A kind of "address" that is unique and used to identify to each resource on the web. It is also commonly called a URL.

HTTP: Hypertext Transfer Protocol. Allows for the retrieval of linked resources from across the web.

Tim also wrote the first web page editor/browser ("WorldWideWeb.app") and the first web server ("httpd"). By the end of 1990, the first web page was served on the open internet, and in 1991, people outside of CERN were invited to join this new web community.

As the web began to grow, Tim realised that its true potential would only be unleashed if anyone, anywhere could use it without paying a fee or having to ask for permission.

He explains: "Had the technology been proprietary, and in my total control, it would probably not have taken off. You can't propose that something be a universal space and at the same time keep control of it."

So, Tim and others advocated to ensure that CERN would agree to make the underlying code available on a royalty-free basis, forever. This decision was announced in April 1993, and sparked a global wave of creativity, collaboration and innovation never seen before. In 2003, the companies developing new web standards committed to a Royalty Free Policy for their work. In 2014, the year we celebrated the web's 25th birthday, almost two in five people around the world were using it.

Tim moved from CERN to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1994 to found the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), an international community devoted to developing open web standards. He remains the Director of W3C to this day.

The early web community produced some revolutionary ideas that are now spreading far beyond the technology sector:

Decentralisation: No permission is needed from a central authority to post anything on the web, there is no central controlling node, and so no single point of failure ... and no "kill switch"! This also implies freedom from indiscriminate censorship and surveillance.

Non-discrimination: If I pay to connect to the internet with a certain quality of service, and you pay to connect with that or a greater quality of service, then we can both communicate at the same level. This principle of equity is also known as Net Neutrality.

Bottom-up design: Instead of code being written and controlled by a small group of experts, it was developed in full view of everyone, encouraging maximum participation and experimentation.

Universality: For anyone to be able to publish anything on the web, all the computers involved have to speak the same languages to each other, no matter what different hardware people are using; where they live; or what cultural and political beliefs they have. In this way, the web breaks down silos while still allowing diversity to flourish.

Consensus: For universal standards to work, everyone had to agree to use them. Tim and others achieved this consensus by giving everyone a say in creating the standards, through a transparent, participatory process at W3C.

New permutations of these ideas are giving rise to exciting new approaches in fields as diverse as information (Open Data), politics (Open Government), scientific research (Open Access), education, and culture (Free Culture). But to date we have only scratched the surface of how these principles could change society and politics for the better.
Important Note: This text is intended as a brief introduction to the history of the web. For a more detailed account, you might want to consider reading:
In 2009, Sir Tim co-founded the World Wide Web Foundation with Rosemary Leith. The Web Foundation is fighting for the web we want: a web that is safe, empowering and for everyone.

Please do explore our site and our work. We hope you'll be inspired by our vision and decide to take action. Remember, as Tim tweeted during the Olympics Opening Ceremony in 2012, "This is for Everyone".

This is for everyone #london2012#oneweb#openingceremony@webfoundation@w3c

- Tim Berners-Lee (@timberners_lee) July 27, 2012

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Sir Tim Berners-Lee is a British computer scientist. He was born in London, and his parents were early computer scientists, working on one of the earliest computers. Growing up, Sir Tim was interested in trains and had a model railway in his bedroom.

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3. ARPANET project (1960s) & the first email.

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3. ARPANET project (1960s) & the first email.

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The earliest network of computers linked happened first in a single facility and then a wider network of educational and research institutions. It was the also first network to switch/exchange packets of data along phonelines and to implement the protocol suite TCP/IP both of which became the technical foundations of the modern internet. The first email was sent in 1971.

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1. Invention of electronic computers (1950s)

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1. Invention of electronic computers (1950s)

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In the 1950s, computers underwent a revolution when John Atanasoff went for a solitary drive one evening, stopped for a bourbon and came up with the idea of electronic computers, where the mathematical operations became changes in electrical charges rather than mechanical movement.

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Enjoy the story of how U.S. physicist John Atanasoff co-developed the Atanasoff-Berry Computer, the first electronic digital computer, on Biography.com.

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2. Galactic Network Concept dev. in 1962.

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2. Galactic Network Concept dev. in 1962.

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MIT researcher envisioned a network of computers that allowed users to gather data Aand access programs from anywhere in the world using a computer and outlined this in a series of memos which kickstarted the development of ARPANET...

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Joseph Carl Robnett Licklider (; March 11, 1915 - June 26, 1990), known simply as J. C. R. or " Lick", was an American psychologist and computer scientist who is considered one of the most important figures in computer science and general computing history.