An interesting topic was being discussed at the World Science Festival in New York City. The topic was The History of the Internet and Its Future and it was brought up that contrary to the claims of Al Gore or the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). The concept of the Internet was invented by a Belgian Information Expert named Paul Otlet, as reported in Fox News .
Otlet came up with the concept while imagining where telephones and television might someday go and be capable of.
The guest of honor at the discussion was Vinton Cerf, who is widely credited with inventing the internet while working on a United states military project called ARPAnet. He had put together a system for routing data in packet s around the globe called TCP/IP. Cerf is almost always referred to as the “Father of the Internet”. It was during this panel discussion that panelist Alex Wright of the New York Times reminded everyone in attendance that the concept of the Internet had been around since the 30’s.
In 1934, Paul Otlet proposed that television and radio could do more than transmit voice and video but interconnect data lines also. His idea was creating an information library and being able to call into it and access any bit of data you were looking for.
A person could call into the library and using a television signal a librarian could display all the books a person needed. He also suggested that a system could be established where multiple books could be sent to one screen (multiple tabs).
His theories have been put into play with modern technology but it seems as if the credit should be further spread around than it has been.
Watch a video of Paul Otlet ‘s theories.
