“The Third University of Cambridge”: BBN and the Development of the ARPAnet

UK Horizons: FRC — Renaissance Philanthropy – A brighter future for all through science, technology, and innovation

Successful coordinated research programmes, like those at ARPAs, have often resulted from exceptional contractors. Many of the best contractors leveraged organisational models uncommon in academia or VC-funded startups. They combined technical ambition, a willingness to build real technology for actual users, and flexible management structures all under one roof to tackle ambitious R&D problems which made the programs a success. These organisations were driven by the pursuit of an ambitious North Star technical vision, not revenue-maximisation. And they pursued this vision with a mix of contracts and grants. We call organisations that do this Frontier Research Contractors (FRCs). Two of ARPA’s most impactful  programmes, the original internet and autonomous vehicle projects, were both led by FRCs. FRCs are also often referred to as 'BBNs' by researchers, inspired by the early internet (ARPAnet) contractor, Bolt, Beranek & Newman.

"Watch What I Do"

I don't know who first made the parallel between programming a computer and using a tool, but it was certainly implicit in Jack Licklider's thoughts about "man-machine symbiosis" as he set up the ARPA IPTO research projects in the early sixties. In 1962, Ivan Sutherland's Sketchpad became the exemplar to this day for what interactive computing should be like--including having the end-user be able to reshape the tool.

How It All Started: Pre-W3C Web and Internet Background

1971: Ray Tomlinson of BBN creates email program to send messages across a distributed network.

The one and future internet

The internet has become inextricably entangled into our economies, cultural and social lives. We stand on the brink of the next technological revolution, in which the internet of things transforms ...

Other Internet

Applied Research

My journey to the heart of the forgotten internet

Slowly but surely, huge swaths of the internet are vanishing. But the artefacts of the early web are still out there, and they have lessons for the future.

When the Internet Was a Place - Front Porch Republic

Not too long ago, the internet was a place you visited. The family desktop sat in its designated closet or back office. In schools, there were rooms filled with computers blinking in tandem, waiting for your class to arrive and hop online. You had to purposefully arrive at the internet, and when done, you left […]

About Us

Around the world, building the internet’s operating system—and a better way to work. In a world of tech companies fighting for growth at any cost, imagine one that gives away its most successful pr…

The UK paid £4.1 million for a bookmarks site

Or, as they like to call it, the 'AI Skills Hub'. Which was built by PwC because of course it was

AI Slop and the End of Knowledge

As an early fan of the internet, I was amazed that all the knowledge of the world was becoming available to everyone, everywhere, all the time. But things have changed.

Historical pragmatism and the internet

This article argues that the literature describing the internet revolution in the 1990s was characterized by the rhetoric of the technological sublime. This rhetoric suffered from three fatal flaws: (1) it was not sufficiently grounded in the historical development of technology; (2) it viewed the internet in isolation, failing to consider the wider technological context; and (3) it failed to examine the internet in view of the social, economic, religious and political circumstances of its users. Several examples from history are cited, demonstrating that changes in various systems for the production, dissemination and preservation of cultural information both border and deborder the world. The article suggests that if internet researchers take a pragmatic, historically grounded approach, they will discover that the introduction of internet technology can be seen to have similar consequences. While the technology overcomes many boundaries (of space and time, politics and economics), other social borders may be created at the same time. It is easier to see old boundaries coming down than to see new ones being erected. Rather than being swept by utopian or dystopian enthusiasms, the article insists that the really interesting discoveries are to be made in locating the subtle social shifts taking place, relatively unnoticed, as a consequence of technological change.

The Past and Present of Computer-Augmented Hypothesis Generation

Don Swanson’s career started on a path familiar to many who read this blog.

What Was the Internet?

As AI overtakes the web, five writers reflect on how far it’s fallen and what comes next.