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Tuesday, February 9, 1999
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The way we will be
An American university has frozen one second in the life of the Internet to be used for a research study in 2004
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By Dafna Lewy-Yanowitz
What is one moment in time in the life of the Internet made up of? What does it say about our society, the media, the balance of power and life in the 'real world'? Last Thursday, members of the MIT business management school "froze" one moment in time from the Internet, which was then stored in a hermetically-sealed time capsule, to be opened again in five years time.
The capsule contains selected events from Net life on that particular Friday: an on-line guide for parents who are trying to explain the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal to their children; a selection of pages about the rush to buy shares in Internet-related companies; a report on the Ford Motor Company's take-over of Volvo; documentation relating to an on-line fashion show; a feminist website by a group of Asian businesswomen; MP3 sites; the homepage of the International Socratic Association; a selection of voice files containing important speeches on the subject of the Internet; a job search site; a site for Super Bowl adverts; one explaining the new euro; and much more.
The capsule also contains the predictions of important figures in the Internet world - Bill Gates, Tim Barnes-Lee, Kofi Annan, tycoons, professors, journalists and sociologists - who attempted to describe what the Internet and the digital world will look like five years from now, even though they admit that reality is likely to far exceed their own imaginations.
In Internet terms, five years is the equivalent of the time between the invention of the wheel and the racing car. Which is why MIT is relating to the capsule as a piece of digital archaeology. In contrast to other time capsules which have been buried underground or sent into space, this one has been digitally encoded and can only be reopened by using an algorithm known only to the MIT committee. The committee also invited members of the public to submit their own predictions, which will be compared with the experts' prediction when the capsule is reopened.
http://www.mitsloan.mit.edu/timecapsule/main.htm.
© copyright 1999 Ha'aretz. All Rights Reserved
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