Now, being one of the first presenters, I now understand the reason why.
They picked me as the first speaker. Because I am the oldest person in this room. Right?
Okay. So, 30th anniversary of W3C. Congratulations! Congratulations to all of us and W3C as well.
But W3C 30, only 30 years. It's young.
50 years ago, my career started as a computer scientist backgrounding from UNIX operating system,
and then tried to connect the UNIX and working on the protocols. And the idea of the other things.
But, I was given, when I was 19 years old, this book, from somebody. Do you
know this book? Okay. All right. Ted Nelson. This is a 1974 book
and I received it in exactly 1974. So Ted, even before, ten years before
this one, which is sixty years ago. Right? He was running the project
called the Xanadu, and then probably many of you know about that.
But Xanadu is the origin of the hypertext Tim Berners-Lee refers to
actually 15 years after this book. So that was '89, right?
So okay, so that was basically the history, but going back to the 60
years when Ted talked about the hypertext which is basically the, you
know, kind of turned out to be an HTML, web and the World Wide Web.
It's interesting to read back, to study back the Xanadu project and also
reading this book. Because this is called a computer lib.
And, did you know that this is another face on the other side. It's called ‘Dream machines’.
So the Xanadu was talking about all the information on the
global space and then a link, bidirectional link, and then the origin and
the author of the contents need to be respected. And then, there is other
storage need to be, you know, everywhere, type of a concept.
Already, Ted mentioned on the Xanadu project 60 years ago, and then this book is why
dream machines means a PC. And the personal computer. So after ten years,
and then computer turned out to be a personal one. So you have the other
computers, kind of smart phones, in your pocket, right? Now. So this is
when… so he very much excited, he was… oh by the way, I know Ted very
well because Keio University hired him as a faculty.
And he got a Ph.D from Keio University. Anyway. So dream machines means a personal computer,
which is personal power which very much attracted Ted about that, and then
the to be connected on the internet. And then computer lib. This is like
humans lib type of a thing. Democracy was very much his concern, if you
are reading this book. So, anyway, all the data around the world are
connected and shared, securely shared. That kind of a concept was already
there 60 years ago, and then the team made a great World Wide Web
space, and here we are for the W3C. Now, we are talking about the data. We are talking about the,
it's a web for everyone. The Internet society had an ‘Internet is for everyone’ concept in '95.
And, it's everybody and everywhere type of thing finally achieved.
Thank you for the standardization, one single space,
globally, therefore, the cost and the opex and capex going very low.
Therefore, anybody can be very creative and achieving their dreams. That's a dream
machines talking about. And that is what have been achieved these past 30
years with the W3C. So what started from the original idea, like a dream,
60 years ago, now turned out to be a reality. And, this is a space we are
working for. Standardization is really important, because it's going to be
shared, and it's going to be a contribution and the platform to
everybody. So, this is very important. As TCP/IP and the web space are
very, very special assets of a human being today. So, I really appreciate
the W3C and 30 years of history. It's a very fun working with you.
Because Keio University was two years later, Keio University, was
becoming a host, one of the hosts for the global extension of the W3C.
Finally, let me show you one thing.
[Laughs and applause]
Don't worry, I'm not playing.
This is a Stratocaster by Fender.
When Chris was chairing the Audio working group, and then there was a
‘MIDI on the web’ thing, and the MIDI companies, like Yamaha and Roland. This is actually the Fender
and the Roland collaboration and the – let me see – all right…
This said ‘Fender powered by Roland’ which was specially made when Roland was a member of the W3C.
They created and worked with Fender for this guitar. If you look
at the pickup part there is a MIDI pickup added to here. And, also of
course the W3C logo in it. And then the MIDI connected. So, actually, this is one of the
things that, you know, our standardization work on the web space has been very much technical.
But also impacting. This is like 10 years ago. Impacting to the any other industries. So which is,
you know, happening now. So when we think about any kind of industry after
the DX and then, you know, they are getting a benefit of the all the internet and the web to their
new industry. This is one of the examples. So I'm very happy to working
with you, for the past 30 years. And also, you know, looking forward to
work with you for the future. Thank you very much.