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Six Minute English.

From BBC Learning English.

Hello, this is six minute English from BBC Learning English. I'm Neil.

And I'm Sam. What's the matter Neil? You sound upset.

Well I am Sam. I just spent an hour working on my computer when it suddenly froze. I lost everything and I had to start all over again.

Oh, that's so frustrating, like pop-up internet ads and buffering videos that never play.

Modern computers in the internet have revolutionised the way we live today,

bringing us the world with a click of a button,

but not everyone feels happy about these technological developments.

While potentially acting as a force for good and progress, the Internet also provides a way of spreading hate and misinformation and

for some people the World Wide Web remains a mysterious and confusing place.

In this program we'll hear about a new academic subject called web science.

Web science studies the technology behind the internet.

But from the human side it's also interested in how people interact with each other online.

So we'll be asking whether studying web science could make the internet better for humanity in the future.

But first it's time for our quiz question. I wonder what the pioneers of the internet would think about how it is used today. So the question is, who invented the World Wide Web? Was it A? Bill Gates, B, Tim Berners-Lee or C, Steve Jobs?

Well Bill Gates and Steve Jobs were the brains behind Microsoft and Apple Mac, so I'm going to say see Tim Berners-Lee.

Okay, Sam will find out later.

Now, because of coronavirus, the annual Web Science Conference was held online this year.

Its theme was Making the web human-centric.

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