Tim Berners-Lee at NESTA
I was at NESTA last night for a debate about the future of the web. Sir Tim was at NESTA to launch the web science research initiative. I won't bother blogging most of the talk content or the WSRI as I'm sure this is better covered elsewhere.
You are spared my mediocre camera work, as conveniently Bill Thompson was sitting in front of me, and did a good job of recording the event with his superior tiny camera. I was too
awed by the beautiful character sketches of the speakers and audience being produced by my neighbour, Chris Meade, from if:book, to take many photos myself.
TBL's presentation was given in Firefox, which made a nice change, and contained quite a number of typos. Either that, or he's invented a new field called Electroncis. His strongest analogy was comparing the ecosystem of the web with the blob of gunk which you find when you unblock your sink - full of historical items like fishbones and niches where new bits can settle. Nice.
There was no answer to Charlie Leadbeater's question about whether a fully open web could solve the spam problem. Maybe the answer is not to faff around with the web, but just read books; Charlie referred to at least 4 books during his talk, but no online content.
Well done NESTA, especially Roland Harwood for valiant tweeting in the face of laptop crashes. (There was a slight contradiction between the encouragement to twitter, and the instruction given in the main auditorium that everyone should "turn off your mobile phones because they interfere with the equipment".) Excellent canapes, as usual at NESTA :)
You are spared my mediocre camera work, as conveniently Bill Thompson was sitting in front of me, and did a good job of recording the event with his superior tiny camera. I was too
awed by the beautiful character sketches of the speakers and audience being produced by my neighbour, Chris Meade, from if:book, to take many photos myself.
TBL's presentation was given in Firefox, which made a nice change, and contained quite a number of typos. Either that, or he's invented a new field called Electroncis. His strongest analogy was comparing the ecosystem of the web with the blob of gunk which you find when you unblock your sink - full of historical items like fishbones and niches where new bits can settle. Nice.
There was no answer to Charlie Leadbeater's question about whether a fully open web could solve the spam problem. Maybe the answer is not to faff around with the web, but just read books; Charlie referred to at least 4 books during his talk, but no online content.
Well done NESTA, especially Roland Harwood for valiant tweeting in the face of laptop crashes. (There was a slight contradiction between the encouragement to twitter, and the instruction given in the main auditorium that everyone should "turn off your mobile phones because they interfere with the equipment".) Excellent canapes, as usual at NESTA :)