Well we all know the World Wide Web has absolutely transformed publishing, broadcasting, commerce and social connectivity, but where did it all come from? And I'll quote three people: Vannevar Bush, Doug Engelbart and Tim Berners-Lee. So let's just run through these guys.
Ştim cu toţii că World Wide Web a transformat radical mass-media, comerţul şi relațiile sociale. Dar de unde a pornit? Voi menționa 3 personalități: Vannevar Bush, Doug Engelbart şi Tim Berners-Lee. Haideţi să-i vedem.
This is Vannevar Bush. Vannevar Bush was the U.S. government's chief scientific adviser during the war. And in 1945, he published an article in a magazine called Atlantic Monthly. And the article was called "As We May Think." And what Vannevar Bush was saying was the way we use information is broken. We don't work in terms of libraries and catalog systems and so forth. The brain works by association. With one item in its thought, it snaps instantly to the next item. And the way information is structured is totally incapable of keeping up with this process.
Acesta e Vannevar Bush. Vannevar era consilier științific în guvernul SUA în timpul războiului. Şi în 1945 a publicat un articol într-o revistă intitulată Atlantic Monthly. Articolul se numea "Cum gândim". Vannevar Bush susţinea că felul în care procesăm informaţiile este fragmentat. Noi nu funcţionăm ca bibliotecile, sau sistemele de catalogare, ş.a.m.d. Creierul nostru funcţionează prin asociere. Gândeşte la un lucru, sare imediat la altul. Iar modul în care e structurată informaţia îl face total incapabil să ţină pasul cu acest proces.
And so he suggested a machine, and he called it the memex. And the memex would link information, one piece of information to a related piece of information and so forth. Now this was in 1945. A computer in those days was something the secret services used to use for code breaking. And nobody knew anything about it. So this was before the computer was invented. And he proposed this machine called the memex. And he had a platform where you linked information to other information, and then you could call it up at will.
Astfel el a sugerat un dispozitiv pe care l-a numit memex. Iar memex conecta informaţiile, o informaţie de altă informaţie înrudită, ș.a.m.d. Bun, asta era în 1945. Un calculator pe vremea aceea era utilizat doar de serviciile secrete pentru a decodifica mesajele încriptate. Nimeni nu ştia de existenţa lui. Deci asta era înainte de-a se inventa computerul. A sugerat ca numele acestui dispozitiv sa fie memex. A creat o plataformă unde conecta o informaţie de alta și apoi o puteai accesa de câte ori doreai.
So spinning forward, one of the guys who read this article was a guy called Doug Engelbart, and he was a U.S. Air Force officer. And he was reading it in their library in the Far East. And he was so inspired by this article, it kind of directed the rest of his life. And by the mid-60s, he was able to put this into action when he worked at the Stanford Research Lab in California. He built a system. The system was designed to augment human intelligence, it was called. And in a premonition of today's world of cloud computing and softwares of service, his system was called NLS for oN-Line System.
Dând timpul înainte, unul din cei care au citit articolul a fost un anume Doug Engelbart, ofiţer în Forţele Aeriene ale Statelor Unite. L-a citit în biblioteca bazei militare unde se afla, în Orientul Îndepărtat. A fost atât de inspirat de articol încât i-a direcționat tot restul vieţii. Prin anii '60 a reușit să pună conceptul în aplicare în laboratorul de cercetare de la Universitatea Stanford din California. A construit un sistem. Acest sistem era programat să augmenteze inteligenţa umană. Şi ca o profeţie a lumii din zilele noastre, tehnologiilor de cloud computing si serviciilor de software, sistemul său se numea NLS: oN-Line System.
And this is Doug Engelbart. He was giving a presentation at the Fall Joint Computer Conference in 1968. What he showed -- he sat on a stage like this, and he demonstrated this system. He had his head mic like I've got. And he works this system. And you can see, he's working between documents and graphics and so forth. And he's driving it all with this platform here, with a five-finger keyboard and the world's first computer mouse, which he specially designed in order to do this system. So this is where the mouse came from as well.
Iar acesta e Doug Engelbart. Făcea o prezentare la Fall Joint Computer Conference în 1968. A prezentat -- pe o scenă ca asta a demonstrat sistemul. Avea o microfon ca al meu. Şi manipula acest sistem. După cum vedeţi, lucrează cu documente şi cu grafice, ș.a.m.d. Şi operează tot sistemul cu acestă plataformă, cu o tastatură pentru 5 degete şi cu primul mouse din lume pe care l-a proiectat special pentru acest sistem. Deci de aici provine şi mouse-ul.
So this is Doug Engelbart. The trouble with Doug Engelbart's system was that the computers in those days cost several million pounds. So for a personal computer, a few million pounds was like having a personal jet plane; it wasn't really very practical.
Acesta e Doug Engelbart. Problema cu sistemul lui Doug Engelbart era că un calculator pe atunci costa câteva milioane de lire sterline. Deci, pentru un calculator personal, căteva milioane de lire costa cât un avion personal; nu era foarte practic.
But spin on to the 80s when personal computers did arrive, then there was room for this kind of system on personal computers. And my company, OWL built a system called Guide for the Apple Macintosh. And we delivered the world's first hypertext system. And this began to get a head of steam. Apple introduced a thing called HyperCard, and they made a bit of a fuss about it. They had a 12-page supplement in the Wall Street Journal the day it launched. The magazines started to cover it. Byte magazine and Communications at the ACM had special issues covering hypertext. We developed a PC version of this product as well as the Macintosh version. And our PC version became quite mature.
Dar să trecem la anii '80 când calculatoarele personale într-adevăr apăruseră şi se putea implementa acest tip de sistem în calculator. Compania mea, OWL, a construit un sistem numit Guide pentru Apple Macintosh. Noi am distribuit primul sistem hypertext din lume. Şi începuse să atragă o groază de atenţie. Apple a introdus HyperCard-ul creând şi mai multă agitaţie cu asta. Au avut un supliment de 12 pagini în Wall Street Journal în ziua lansării. Ziarele au început să-i dedice editoriale. Revista Byte și Communications de la ACM au scos ediţii speciale despre hiper-text. Noi am proiectat o versiune PC a acestui produs și una pentru Mac. Iar versiunea PC era chiar avansată.
These are some examples of this system in action in the late 80s. You were able to deliver documents, were able to do it over networks. We developed a system such that it had a markup language based on html. We called it hml: hypertext markup language. And the system was capable of doing very, very large documentation systems over computer networks.
Câteva exemple ale acestui sistem în acţiune la sfârşitul anilor '80. Se puteau transfera documente, folosind reţeaua. Am conceput un sistem ce folosea un limbaj de marcare text bazat pe html. L-am numit HML: hypertext markup language. Sistemul era capabil sa creeze un ansamblu complex de documente folosind reţeaua de computere.
So I took this system to a trade show in Versailles near Paris in late November 1990. And I was approached by a nice young man called Tim Berners-Lee who said, "Are you Ian Ritchie?" and I said, "Yeah." And he said, "I need to talk to you." And he told me about his proposed system called the World Wide Web. And I thought, well, that's got a pretentious name, especially since the whole system ran on his computer in his office. But he was completely convinced that his World Wide Web would take over the world one day. And he tried to persuade me to write the browser for it, because his system didn't have any graphics or fonts or layout or anything; it was just plain text. I thought, well, you know, interesting, but a guy from CERN, he's not going to do this. So we didn't do it.
Am prezentat sistemul la un târg de comerţ la Versailles, lângă Paris la sfârşitul lui noiembrie 1990. Un tânar drăguț pe nume Tim Berners-Lee m-a abordat: "Tu eşti Ian Richie?", i-am răspuns: "Da." Și a zis: "Vreau sa vorbesc cu tine". Şi îmi propune un sistem pe care îl numea World Wide Web. Am gândit, are un nume cam pretenţios, mai ales ca tot sistemul funcţiona pe calculatorul său din birou. Dar el era absolut convins ca acest World Wide Web va cuceri lumea într-o bună zi. A încercat să mă convingă să-i programez un browser deoarece sistemul lui nu avea interfaţă, fonturi, configurație, etc; era doar simplu text. Am gândit, da, sună interesant, dar un tip de la CERN nu va fi capabil de asta. Aşa că n-am urmat idea.
In the next couple of years, the hypertext community didn't recognize him either. In 1992, his paper was rejected for the Hypertext Conference. In 1993, there was a table at the conference in Seattle, and a guy called Marc Andreessen was demonstrating his little browser for the World Wide Web. And I saw it, and I thought, yep, that's it. And the very next year, in 1994, we had the conference here in Edinburgh, and I had no opposition in having Tim Berners-Lee as the keynote speaker.
În urmatorii doi ani, nici comunitatea hipertext nu i-a acordat atenţie. În 1992, i-a fost refuzat şi articolul de la conferinţa Hypertext. În 1993, la un stand la conferinţa din Seattle, un tip pe nume Marc Andreessen facea o demonstraţie a micului său browser pentru World Wide Web. Şi când l-am vazut, mi-am zis: "Asta da ." În anul imediat următor, 1994, am ținut conferinţa aici în Edinburgh, şi nu s-a opus nimeni să-l avem pe Tim Berners-Lee prezentator principal.
So that puts me in pretty illustrious company. There was a guy called Dick Rowe who was at Decca Records and turned down The Beatles. There was a guy called Gary Kildall who went flying his plane when IBM came looking for an operating system for the IBM PC, and he wasn't there, so they went back to see Bill Gates. And the 12 publishers who turned down J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter, I guess.
Deci asta mă poziţionează într-o companie ilustră. În rând cu un anume Dick Rowe de la Decca Records care i-a refuzat pe Beatles. Şi lângă alt tip, Garz Kildall care s-a dus să-și piloteze avionul când IBM căuta un sistem de operare pentru IBM PC, şi cum nu l-au găsit s-au adresat lui Bill Gates. Și mă aşează în rând cu cele 12 case editoriale care au refuzat-o pe J.K.Rowling cu Harry Potter.
On the other hand, there's Marc Andreessen who wrote the world's first browser for the World Wide Web. And according to Fortune magazine, he's worth 700 million dollars. But is he happy?
Pe de altă parte, iată-l pe Marc Andreessen care a creat primul browser din lume pentru World Wide Web. Şi după cum declară revista Fortune tipul valorează 700 de milioane de dolari. Dar...este oare fericit?
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