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Digital Planet: The Internet Archive is 25!

Factual: Science & Nature

The Internet Archive is 25!

21/12/2021 GMT

BBC World Service - Digital Planet, The Internet Archive is 25!

The Internet Archive is 25 and continues to grow.

The Internet Archive is 25! Also the Future of Text – adding metatags and sources to make our written documents more interactive and Moonshot – the tech used to fight COVID

Twenty-five years ago the world wide web was 2.5 terabytes and you needed to dial-up via your phone line to get onto it, so Brewster Kahle decided to set up a project to archive what was out there already.  Now the Internet Archive consists of more than 588 billion web pages, as well as 28 million books and texts, 14 million audio items, and 580,000 software titles, making it one of the world’s largest digital libraries.  Brewster tells Gareth how they’ve done this – especially making content that runs on old and absolute technologies accessible today.

The Future of Text
Why is our tech for text so simple and boring – in effect it’s little more than an electronic copy of a paper page?  But this changes with new technology bringing books and documents to life with interaction and metadata tags that allow you to search, source and organise text as never before.  Father of the internet, Vint Cerf and Frode Hegland, Founder of the Augmented Text Company, are on the show to tell us why we’re now able to move on from using the click of a mouse to manage our text. 


Moonshot – tech used to learn more about neglected diseases is fighting COVID
The COVID Moonshot project began as a virtual collaboration during UK 2020 lockdown.  Scientists, academics, researchers & students started a twitter-fuelled race against the clock to identify new molecules that could block SARS-CoV-2 and develop treatments that would be globally affordable and easily manufactured for most vulnerable communities. Coordinating this effort is the Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative, using the AI tools and computer crowdsourcing tech they’ve adopted for neglected diseases as well as the use of the Diamond Light Source technology. All of this tech allows the scientists to build up a huge catalogue of the structures of disease-causing parasites and then model potential treatments to see if they might work. Dr. Nathalie Strub-Wourgaft, Director of Neglected Tropical Diseases, DNDi joins us.


The programme is presented by Gareth Mitchell with expert commentary from Bill Thompson.

Studio Manager: Bill Nettles
Producer: Ania Lichtarowicz

(Image credit: Internet Archive)

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