Distorted recording of a human brain.
Image: Getty, editing FAZ
The information available on the web is growing at a breathtaking pace. Existing search engines already do a lot so that we can keep track. But there is still a more far-reaching vision that has it all. A guest post.
Dhe invention of the Internet and the World Wide Web were milestones in human cultural and technological history. For the first time it was possible to retrieve and transmit decentralized information worldwide and almost at the speed of light. It was already in the DNA of the Internet that knowledge can not only be obtained passively, but that users can also participate in the global increase in knowledge. In the first generation of the new communication age, however, this was still quite difficult. It required deep expert knowledge of the commands that could transfer information from one computer to another over the Internet. Only tech-savvy professionals benefited from the new communications technology, and the societal impact was limited.
That changed abruptly with the development of the World Wide Web and its browsers with the intuitive user interface. This moved the information sources, i.e. the web documents themselves, to the center of communication. The software operating in the background or underground, the web browser, collected user requests with the help of its graphic interfaces and ensured, unnoticed, that the complex communication structure and communication exchange via the Internet, for example via links in web documents, took place automatically and that the user received the desired information documents is displayed. This was an essential step in “democratizing” the new communication technology and making it accessible to practically everyone. It’s now child’s play to create websites, share information via social media and organize long-distance communication.
