Finally, Apple steps up to Android with the futuristic, ambitious iOS 7

Apple

Apple's not exactly reinventing the mobile OS with iOS 7, but it is refining it yet again. By combining the best of Apple design with good ideas from its competitors, Apple's latest and greatest is exactly what Apple needed to fend off the competition — and bring the cool factor back.

"This is probably the biggest news since the [first] iPhone came out," Gene Munster, a senior research analyst at Piper Jaffray told NBC News.

Many stuck with the iPhone back when iOS had no copy-and-paste, no MMS support, no Notifications Center. They didn't mind the flaws, because the alternatives weren't as stable, weren't as pretty. But the developers behind Android and Windows Phone (and even BlackBerry) got on the ball, creating elegant new ways to interact with a phone. After a while, it was Apple that looked lackluster.

Then, like a relationship counselor with a soothing British accent, Jony Ive saved the day. The force behind Apple's clean, minimalist hardware designs — and now the head of the company's human interface division — addressed many points of tension. With iOS 7, there's no need to feel jealous when glancing at Android's easily accessible settings: iOS 7 puts the important stuff into a Control Center which can be pulled up with a swipe. And you don't have to wish for Windows Phone's front-and-center notifications: iOS 7 slips them straight onto the lock screen.

Beyond the functionality that iOS 7 brings — not just improved controls and notifications, but new ways to share files with nearby users, stream music from the Internet, browse open tabs on the Web and more — the system helps Apple catch up with the razzle and dazzle of the competition. Skinny fonts and bold primary colors interact on layered visual planes that drift gracefully in and out of view — these are all hallmarks of the new design. And if certain elements may look a bit familiar, that's because, yes, many of these ideas — the "flat" school of design — have been visible in Android and Windows Phone for a few years.

Still, it wouldn't be the first time Apple let the competition go first, then swept in and stole the spotlight. Apple wasn't the first with a smartphone or an MP3 player or a tablet computer, but like those devices, Apple's execution with iOS 7 is without equal. The Cupertino-based company may have, for the first time since it lost its inspirational co-founder, Steve Jobs, shown off something that could be described as "magical."

Don't misunderstand though: iOS 7 still isn't the end all of mobile operating systems. By the time fall comes around, Google will probably show off a new version of Android, one that will highlight remaining iOS shortcomings. After all, even in iOS 7, there are no customizable homescreen widgets, no gesture-based Swype-style keyboards, no hands-on control over an apps' system usage — and both the HTC One and Samsung Galaxy S 4 have camera apps with more powerful editing tools.

But for now? iOS 7 is as good as it gets. It binds hardware and software in a way rarely seen, it's easy on the eyes. And come fall, it'll be a free upgrade for about 300 million devices. What's not to look forward to?

Want more tech news or interesting links? You'll get plenty of both if you keep up with Rosa Golijan, the writer of this post, by following her onTwitter, subscribing to her Facebook posts, or circling her on Google+.

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Now, enjoy music while you take a shower

NEW DELHI: Kohler has come up with a shower head fitted with music speaker for all those who want to enjoy music during a shower but are too skeptical of carrying their phone or mp3 players to the bathroom.

'Moxie' is the first of its kind showerhead to combine the delivery of water and music. With the proximity of Bluetooth enabled wireless speaker, bathers are simultaneously showered with music and a best-in-class spray experience.

It syncs with any Bluetooth-enabled device ie smartphones and mp3 player and directly streams music into the shower.

The speaker pod can also be removed for enjoyment on the go across the bathroom and beyond.

Commenting on this launch, Mr. Salil Sadanandan, Managing Director, Kohler India, Kitchen & Bath said that the demand for musical installations in the bathing space had considerable increased and hoped that the device would give a new bathing experience to the consumers.

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Spend too much on Facebook? It can hurt your relationship

WASHINGTON: If you have just started dating someone, it may be wise to limit your time on Facebook.

New couples who use Facebook excessively are far more likely to experience Facebook-related conflict which may lead to emotional and physical cheating, breakup and divorce, a new study has warned.

Russell Clayton, a doctoral student in the University of Missouri School of Journalism, along with Alexander Nagurney, an instructor at the University of Hawaii at Hilo, and Jessica R Smith, a doctoral student at St Mary's University in San Antonio, surveyed Facebook users ages 18 to 82 years old.

Participants were asked to describe how often they used Facebook and how much, if any, conflict arose between their current or former partners as a result of Facebook use.

The researchers found that high levels of Facebook use among couples significantly predicted Facebook-related conflict, which then significantly predicted negative relationship outcomes such as cheating, breakup, and divorce.

"Previous research has shown that the more a person in a romantic relationship uses Facebook, the more likely they are to monitor their partner's Facebook activity more stringently, which can lead to feelings of jealousy," Clayton said.

"Facebook-induced jealousy may lead to arguments concerning past partners. Also, our study found that excessive Facebook users are more likely to connect or reconnect with other Facebook users, including previous partners, which may lead to emotional and physical cheating," Clayton added.

Clayton also found that this trend was particularly apparent in newer relationships.

"These findings held only for couples who had been in relationships of three years or less. This suggests that Facebook may be a threat to relationships that are not fully matured," he said.

"On the other hand, participants who have been in relationships for longer than three years may not use Facebook as often, or may have more matured relationships, and therefore Facebook use may not be a threat or concern," he said.

In order to prevent such conflict from arising, Clayton recommends couples, especially those who have not been together for very long, to limit their own personal Facebook use.

"Although Facebook is a great way to learn about someone, excessive Facebook use may be damaging to newer romantic relationships," Clayton said.

"Cutting back to moderate, healthy levels of Facebook usage could help reduce conflict, particularly for newer couples who are still learning about each other," he said.

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IRobot, Cisco team to create new robot - The Sun

IRobot, Cisco team to create new robot

The Sun

BEDFORD -- IRobot Corp. said Monday that it was teaming up with networking-equipment giant Cisco Systems Inc. to create a video-collaboration robot. The Ava 500 enables people working off-site to participate in meetings and presentations where 

BEDFORD -- IRobot Corp. said Monday that it was teaming up with networking-equipment giant Cisco Systems Inc. to create a video-collaboration robot.

The Ava 500 enables people working off-site to participate in meetings and presentations where movement and location spontaneity are important, iRobot officials said in a statement.

The new product combines IRobot's autonomous navigation and robotics technology with Cisco's videoconferencing expertise.

IRobot CEO Colin Angle said the device will be in beta testing this year and that production units would begin shipment in early 2014.

Shares of iRobot closed Monday at $35, up 33 cents.

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Falling rupee may hurt mobile handset makers

NEW DELHI: The rupee's downward spiral against the US dollar could spell good news for the domestic IT-ITeS sector, which has been facing strong headwinds due to a weak global economy, provided the Indian currency's softening continues.

However, depreciation in the Indian currency, which fell to a life-time low of 58.16 against the dollar, could lead to rise in input costs for handset makers who see their margins eroded by the fall and could be forced to pass on the burden to the consumer, in case the situation persists.

"Rupee depreciation will impact IT and off-shore service providers in a positive way if it sustains for a longer period say for this quarter. It will help in expanding their margins to a certain extent," Gartner Research Director Arup Roy said.

On being asked if the clients will pressurise the service providers (IT & ITeS) for discounts, he said: "The scenario of clients looking to re-negotiate on discounts will only happen if the depreciation in the Rupee continues for a longer time."

Angel Broking Research Analyst Ankita Somani said Rupee depreciating by 1 per cent gives about 30-35 basis points in the operating margins of the IT firms.

"Rupee depreciation in a way is good for the IT firms. Normally the operating margins of these firms is helped by the depreciation," she added.

However, for the middle and low tier mobile makers, the weakening of the Rupee against the US dollar will pinch their margins as most of them import devices or their parts and this could lead to a rise in their input costs.

"There is really a disadvantage for mid-tier and low-tier handsets makers who are importing into India because at that level the price sensitivity to the device price is very high and with the recent depreciation of the rupee that is having a direct impact on retail prices of imported handsets.

"And at low and mid tier, it's likely to have an impact on sales because of the elasticity of demand at that level," PwC India Leader Telecom Mohammad Chowdhury said.

Chowdhury said it is less likely to impact smartphones because the price sensitivity is little less, but added, "I would say is that in longer term if Rupee remains depreciated then there might be an upside benefit for Indian handset manufacturers with respect to exporting to other emerging markets."

One cannot expect these manufacturers to resist price increases because the increase can be absorbed for some time as the margins are not very high, he added.

Lava International Co-founder and Director SN Rai said the situation is affecting the margins of everybody as most of the manufacturers import the components.

"We will watch the situation for a fortnight and if the situations persists, we don't have a choice but to pass the cost to the consumer," he added.

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Google finalizing $1.3 billion Waze deal: Source

SAN FRANCISCO: Google is finalizing a deal to acquire online mapping company Waze for $1.3 billion, according to a source familiar with the matter. 

The deal is expected to be announced this week, though it was unlikely to occur on Monday, another source told Reuters. 

"Negotiations are nearly final. There are a couple of details being worked out," the second source said. The source described the remaining details as "logistics" rather than significant sticking points. 

Google and Waze declined to comment. 

The deal with Google comes after discussions between Waze and social networking company Facebook Inc fell apart last month, according to a report in the technology blog AllThingsDigital. Waze was unwilling to relocate its Israeli-based engineering team to Facebook's U.S. headquarters, according to the report. 

Maps and navigation services have become a key asset for technology companies as consumers increasingly adopt smartphones and other mobile devices. Waze uses satellite signals from members' smartphones to generate maps and traffic data, which it then shares with other users, offering real-time traffic info. 

Google's existing maps service is among the most popular, which could raise antitrust issues for the deal. 

The 4-year-old Waze, which has 47 million users, has raised $67 million in funding to date from firms including Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Blue Run Ventures and semiconductor company Qualcomm. 

Waze began looking to raise additional funding toward the end of last year, according to a third source close to the company. As the fund raising process got underway, Waze received interest from several companies about an acquisition, and it switched gears to focus its efforts on an acquisition, the source said. 

There had been media reports earlier this year that Apple Inc was in talks to acquire Waze. News of the deal with Google was first reported by Israeli financial newspaper Globes on Sunday. 

Waze Chief Executive Noam Bardin and a small staff now operate out of their US headquarters in Palo Alto, California, while about 90 employees are based in home country Israel.

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Rural India selling cows, buffaloes on OLX, Quikr

Black 'Murrah' buffalo with short and tightly curled horns for Rs 80,000 and herd of 10 'Holstein Friesians' cows at Rs 6 lakh on the click of the mouse the Indian online classifieds are moving beyond usual items such as mobiles, cars and real estate with increasing internet penetration in smaller towns. 

Online classifieds players Quikr and OLX are finding good traction for their business from semi urban and rural areas in states like West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Orissa, Assam and Uttar Pradesh. 

"While the main metros continue to be top contributors to our site, the rapidly increasing internet usage in tier 2 and 3 towns has also boosted our growth tremendously. Today Tier 2 and 3 cities account for over 50% of our traffic," Quikr CEO Pranay Chulet told PTI. 

OLX, which has a majority of users mainly from metros, is also finding that small town traffic on its site is growing. 

"We do notice positive trends from Tier 2 cities as well. These include cities like Jaipur, Surat, Cochin," OLX CEO Amarjit Batra said. 

With these sites offering platform to users to buy and sell a wide range of products, it is not surprising that enterprising farmers are using them to sell their pets and animals as well. 

"People are now witnessing responses to ads even for pets and animals like cows and buffaloes, which have been listed for sale on OLX from rural or semi urban areas," Batra said, adding such trends were prevalent globally. 

Buying and selling of such dairy animals is already a practice in rural India and the availability of this platform has further catalysed the trading of dairy farming animals ensuring better reach and responses compared to other traditional platforms, he added. 

Expressing similar views, Chulet said:"People are very passionate about their pets and that reflects in the kinds of ads/replies we find for adoption of various pets on our site. 

We also have rural users putting up their animals for sale even though we have never actively promoted it." 

With a variety of users across different sections, these online classified sites are witnessing a range of products being sold and purchased. 

"Users have listed exceptional and unique products for sale that are not available anywhere. People have been posting ads for their Bombardier jets, Bhagwad Gita lockets as well as antique Rolls Royce on OLX," Batra said. 

On the rapid pace of growth of online classifieds in India, he said: "All of it is due to the increasing internet penetration and awareness of this space due to heavy marketing spends by most companies." 

Chulet is also expecting to increase the number of transactions as internet penetration rise. 

"We believe our platform will continue to see a lot of traction in the years to come as more and more Indians get comfortable with online buying and selling," he said. 

Still at a nascent stage, the sites are currently working on a hybrid model that includes paid listings and advertising on the website to generate revenue.

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Intex to launch 20 smartphones in 3 months

MUMBAI: Intex Technologies today said it expects to sell 20 lakh smartphones this fiscal as it expands its portfolio by launching 20 new devices in the next quarter. 

"The smartphone penetration is growing and is encouraging for handset companies like us to innovate and bring offerings that combine latest technologies and features at affordable prices," Intex Technologies GM (mobility division) Sanjay Kumar Kalirona said. 

The IT hardware maker aims to "sell two million Aqua smartphones in 2013-14." 

"We launched our smartphone range in September last year and have seen very good response. Last month, we sold seven lakh handsets of which, Aqua contributed over one lakh," he said. 

Intex has launched 12 mid-segment smartphones under the Aqua range and plans to launch 20 more during the next quarter, Kalirona added. 

The company today launched a new smartphone -- Aqua I5, priced at Rs 11,690. Powered by 1.2 GHz quad-core processor, the phone comes with five-inch qHD capacitive touchscreen and runs on Android 4.2 (Jelly Bean) operating system. 

It also sports a 12MP rear auto focus camera with flash light and 2MP front camera. It supports 3G video calling and has a 4GB in-built (expandable up to 32GB). 

The company will also promote the device through a television commercial, which will feature actor-director Farhan Akhtar, whom the company has recently signed as brand ambassador for its mobility division. 

According to CyberMedia Research (CMR), more than 221 million handsets were shipped to India in 2012. 

Though smartphones comprised a small chunk of the overall handset market at about 7%, the high-end category grew at a robust 35.7% to 15.2 million devices in 2012 from 11.2 million units in 2011.

Samsung was the category leader, followed by Nokia (13.3%) and Sony (8.2%), CMR said.

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IBM unveils Big Data, cloud enhancemen​ts

PUNE: IBM has announced enhancements across its systems portfolio that are designed to help organizations adopt cloud computing as they build toward software defined environments (SDE).

Enhancements to IBM's smarter storage line of flash, disk and tape systems gives clients faster access to business critical information and big data insights, the company said, adding that the new high-performance computing solutions bring HPC capabilities to mainstream servers to help more clients crunch their ever-mounting volumes of data faster. 

New capabilities added to the IBM PureSystems family expert integrated systems are designed to help clients reduce the security risks often faced when deploying cloud solutions, as well as enable quick recovery and restoration after disasters. A new mobile solution based on IBM worklight server on PureSystems for both power and x86 was created to accelerate clients' access to millions of mobile users by allowing mobile applications to be deployed in as little as 30 minutes. 

"Cloud computing and big data analytics are playing key roles in helping organizations lower operating expenses, improve efficiencies, and increase productivity," said Ajay Mittal, director, systems and technology group, IBM India/ South Asia. "But they're also enabling greater and faster access to business insights, which is fundamentally transforming the ways in which organizations, public and private, are interacting with, learning from, and supporting their customers," he said. 

In addition to rolling out its new IBM FlashSystem family of all-flash appliances today, the company announced enhancements to its storage portfolio that will help more clients achieve faster and continuous access to business-critical information. For example, IBM added support for 4TB drives to its Storwize V7000 and XIV advanced storage systems for 33 percent more capacity in the same space, and new capabilities to XIV that let clients send large volumes of data between systems through the cloud without performance degradation.

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Coke Enterprises shares slide after warning

Coca-Cola Enterprises Inc shares fell after the company warned that persistent economic weakness in Europe, bad weather, a sharp excise tax increase in France and fierce competition in Britain have dampened its outlook for the second quarter.

Shares of the European bottler of Coca-Cola drinks fell 3 percent in morning trade to $36.06 on the New York Stock Exchange after it said those factors have been "unexpectedly persistent". 

"Though we expect some of these challenges to abate as we move through the year, we will better understand the full-year impact of these factors as we move deeper into the prime summer selling season," said Chief Executive John Brock in a statement.

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Reliance Communications loses 12% in three sessions; should you buy?

MUMBAI: The stock of Reliance CommunicationsBSE -6.35 % (Rcom) was under selling pressure on Tuesday after the securities research arm of Standard & Chartered downgraded the stock's rating to underperform. It closed the day 6.4% lower after falling by as much as 9% intraday. 

The stock of the pan-India telecom operator has lost 12.4% since Friday after it announced a telecom tower infrastructure deal worth Rs 12,000 crore with Reliance Jio. It traded at Rs 104 at the end of trading session on Tuesday, down from its 52-week high of Rs 119 on June 7, 2013. 

Under the latest agreement, Jio will use upto 45,000 towers of Rcom to launch fourth generation (4G) telecom services. This follows a pact signed between the two companies in April 2013 to utilise intercity optic fibre network of Rcom. Given the increasing synergies between the two companies, does it make sense for investors to add Rcom to their portfolio at a time when the stock is showing weakness? 

Before taking fresh bets, investors need to understand that the benefits of the recent deals with Jio are largely long term in nature. These agreements will help Rcom to improve the efficiency of its existing infrastructure, which should result in higher operating cash flow. However, the rate of improvement is difficult to ascertain at this stage. This puts a question mark on the effectiveness of these arrangements in bringing down Rcom's gross debt of over Rs 40,146 crore. 

Some analysts have retained their "neutral" rating citing the long term nature of the agreement. The current stock price of Rcom seems to have factored in the gains from the deal. Motilal Oswal Securities estimates revenue increase of over Rs 800 crore every year and a target stock price of Rs 111. 

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Opinion: Murthy is to Infosys as Mistry is to Tata

In 2012, long after NR Narayana Murthy had stepped down from Infosys and the Bangalore-headquartered firm was busy implementing its ill-fated Infosys 3.0 strategy, the CEO of a leading company made a very interesting point to this writer in a private conversation. The CEO knew both Murthy and Nandan Nilekani and was well-connected with top leaders in the technology industry.

The problem, he said, is not that Infosys missed the leadership skills of Narayana Murthy or a Nandan Nilekani, but that it lacked a great brand ambassador, a person of stature who can open doors and turn casual meetings with overseas clients into business opportunities. "Nandan can chat up a Bank of America CEO at an event and tell his team to follow it up the next day for a sales pitch," he said.

The CEO stopped short of saying the obvious: Infosys was paying dearly for the lack of charisma.

This should be remembered when assessing NRN's return to head Infosys. The decision has been panned by media and corporate governance experts. Murthy has been criticised for relying on the founders-becoming-CEOs-by-rotation policy, widely believed to have been behind the current crisis.

NRN has also been blasted for inducting his son Rohan Murty as his executive assistant with critics smelling the possibility of a backdoor entry into top management for Murthy Jr. Infosys shares rose sharply on Monday after the announcement but have since shed gains as the enormity of the challenge facing Murthy sinked in.

But what if the critics are off target? Murthy is returning to the firm he and his friends founded to set things right after a chaotic three-year reign during which the stock crashed and rivals gained market share. This is neither unusual nor wrong.

His return should also be examined in the context of the challenges facing Indian promoters: leadership and succession planning. When do promoters who have built the company to a massive scale let go? Should the boards of these companies replace them with professional managers when they decide to hang up their boots? Counter-intuitively, one may also ask if the founding family should let go at all. After all, they have a bigger stake than anybody else in ensuring growth and prosperity, and who is to say that the incoming professional manager will do a better job.

These questions are important in the Indian context as many successful family-owned companies dominate the landscape and the issue of succession is important. Management gobbledygook would have us believe professional managers are somehow more important or successful than family members. That is largely untrue. If the history of India Inc post-liberalisation is a guide, family-owned companies that have kept family members in top positions, while hiring bright managers, haven't been unsuccessful.

Ratan Tata answered the question to some extent last year when the Tata Sons board appointed Cyrus Mistry, the son of shareholder Pallonji Mistry, as chairman of the conglomerate. Tata chose family over an outside professional - the decision is not as surprising or bad as it seemed at that time.

The signal that Tata was sending was very clear. Mistry, as the family representative and part-owner, is responsible for strategy and for holding CEOs accountable. Managers are there to deliver performance, implement strategy, etc. The owner can fire the CEO is if things go wrong.

It is important in the Indian context to realise that the owner or his representative has to stay in the company for things to work. His or her skin in the game matters. It provides the necessary urgency, impetus to decision-making. Warren Buffett, the Oracle of Omaha, said recently that his son Howard would become the non-executive chairman someday. Not because he had great insights into Berkshire but to ensure Berkshire had the right CEO.

That was what went wrong with Infosys' rotating CEO strategy. KV Kamath, an outside manager, was brought in to oversee the work of two founder-CEOs. It was an unequal relationship. Kamath would have found it difficult to take tough decisions when things went wrong, which, in this case, happened right from the beginning.

Murthy, on the other hand, will helm Infosys almost as promoters of family-run companies do: he will attempt to revive his company. There's more right than wrong in that strategy.

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Buyer‘s guide: Sub-Rs 30,000 DSLR camera

I am looking to buy a DSLR camera for under 30,000. I will be a first-time DSLR user, so please suggest options with user-friendly features.

— Aniket, Royston Vaz, Dr V Desai

Buying a DSLR is a first step towards better photographs, but the quality of pictures you take also depends on the type of lens you have at your disposal. It is, therefore, always better to invest in brands that have a large catalogue in case you decide to look beyond the stock lens that comes with your digital SLR.

Taking that into consideration, you have two excellent options that fit your budget. One is the 14.2MP Nikon D3100 - a sturdy camera that punches above its weight in low-light conditions, and is capable of pictures that are sharp and with rich colours. Besides, the D3100 — box-packed with an 18-55 mm lens — is capable of Full HD (1920x1080) videos at 24fps.

Most importantly, this device — at 27,000 approx — is equipped with a Guide Mode that provides step-by-step camera settings for those new to photography. Your second option is the 12.2MP Canon 1100D that costs around 26,000. Here, we suggest you opt for the 1100D Double Lens Kit instead. This alternative package sells for around 31,500, and comes with an 18-55 mm lens for everyday shooting, and a 55-250 mm lens for settings in which you require longer zoom (there is no such lens-combo option with Nikon).

The 1100D, however, is only capable of HD videos (1280x720) at 25 or 30fps. In case you can extend your budget, you could opt for the 24.2MP Nikon D3200 (also with Guide Mode), or the 18MP Canon 600D, both of which sell for around 34,000 with a stock 18-55 mm lens. When it comes to videos, these shooters are capable of Full HD output.

The Nikon D3200, however, is a better performer in low-light conditions; has 11 focus points when compared to Canon's nine; and has a better battery life. On the other hand, the 600D comes with a flip-out screen that's great when shooting movies; has a higher-resolution display screen and a larger viewfinder. All four cameras promise you years of satisfying pictures, even as you keep adding lens to your kitty.

Still, before making a buying decision, we suggest you handle all these models at a store; some people prefer the grip that Canon allows, others tend to prefer Nikon. It is important that you find out which one works better for you.

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One in three Americans own tablets: Survey

More than one-third of Americans use a tablet computer, with the highest percentage of users in the 35-44 age group, a survey showed Monday. 

Tablet adoption has doubled over the past year, according to the Pew Internet Life survey of adults in April and May, 

Unlike smartphones, most popular with younger adults ages 18-34, the highest rates of tablet ownership was found among adults in their late 30s and early 40s. 

Approximately 49% of those in the 35-44 own a tablet computer, more than any other age group. Among those 65 or older, the figure was just 18%. 

The survey found half of adults with at least a college degree owned a tablet, significantly more than those at any other education level. And 56% percent of adults living in households making at least $75,000 per year said they have a tablet computer, compared with 20% of those making less than $30,000 per year. 

Research firm IDC said in a recent report that tablet sales globally are expected to grow 58.7% in 2013 to 229.3 million units. 

This would bring tablet shipments above those of portable PCs this year. And IDC said it expects tablet shipments to outpace the entire PC market by 2015.

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CERN scientists searching for world‘s first webpage

For the European physicists who created the World Wide Web, preserving its history is as elusive as unlocking the mysteries of how the universe began. 

The scientists at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, known by its French acronym CERN, are searching for the first webpage. It was at CERN that Tim Berners-Lee invented the Web in 1990 as an unsanctioned project, using a NeXT computer that Apple co-founder Steve Jobs designed in the late 80s during his 12-year exile from the company. 

Dan Noyes oversees CERN's website and has taken on the project to uncover the world's first webpage. He says that no matter how much data they sort through, researchers may never make a clear-cut discovery of the original webpage because of the nature of how data is shared. 

"The concept of the earliest webpage is kind of strange," Noyes said. "It's not like a book. A book exists through time. Data gets overwritten and looped around. To some extent, it is futile." 

In April, CERN restored a 1992 copy of the first-ever website that Berners-Lee created to arrange CERN-related information. It was the earliest copy CERN could find at the time, and Noyes promised then to keep looking. 

After National Public Radio did a story on the search, a professor at University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill came forward with a 1991 version. Paul Jones met Berners-Lee during the British scientist's visit to the US for a conference in 1991, just a year after Berners-Lee invented the Web. Jones said Berners-Lee shared the page with the professor, who has transferred it from server to server through the years. A version remains on the internet today at an archive Jones runs, ibiblio. 

The page Jones received from Berners-Lee is locked in Jones' NeXT computer, behind a password that has long been forgotten. Forensic computer specialists are trying to extract the information to check time stamps and preserve the original coding used to generate the page. 

The webpage preserved by Jones is both familiar and quaint. There are no flashy graphics or video clips. Instead, it is a page of text on a white background with 19 hyperlinks. Some of the links, such as ones leading to information about CERN, have been updated and still work. On the other hand, a link to the phone numbers for CERN staffers is dead. 

Noyes said he'll keep searching for earlier versions of the page. Noyes said his project still has to sort through plenty of old disks and other data submitted following NPR's story. He suspects there will be a couple of pages to pop up that were created months before the version Jones has. 

The internet itself dates back to 1969, when computer scientists gathered in a lab at the University of California, Los Angeles to exchange data between two bulky computers. In the early days, the internet had email, message boards known as Usenet and online communities such as The WELL.

Berners-Lee was looking for ways to control computers remotely at CERN. His innovation was to combine the Internet with another concept that dates to the 1960s: hypertext, which is a way of presenting information nonsequentially. Although he never got the project formally approved, his boss suggested he quietly tinker with it anyway. Berners-Lee began writing the software for the Web in October 1990, got his browser working by mid-November and added editing features in December. He made the program available at CERN by Christmas. 

These days, many people see the internet and the Web as one and the same, even though the Web is just one of the many functions of the internet. Personal email tends to be conducted over web-based systems such as Yahoo and Google's Gmail. Web-based message boards have replaced the need for Usenet. Friendster, Myspace and later Facebook emerged as go-to places on the Web for hanging out. People now use the Web to find dates, watch television shows, catch up on the news, pay bills and play games. Many more services are still being invented. 

In less than a quarter century, the web has turned into an easy way to retrieve data on just about any topic from just about any computer in the world with just the click of a link. It has become the equivalent of millions of libraries at the fingertips of anyone with a Web browser and a network connection. The resources have made it far more difficult for authoritarian regimes to keep information from their citizens. 

Berners-Lee's office was a few corridors down from Noyes at CERN's headquarters in Geneva. Nearby is a plaque honoring him for his innovation. Noyes recently brought his 14-year-old son and showed it to him. 

"For him, it was a concept that doesn't make any sense," Noyes said. "It's no fault of his own, but he can't imagine the world without the Web." 

Attempts to reach Berners-Lee through CERN were unsuccessful. 

That's part of why Noyes believes it is important to round up the World Wide Web's history. He said it represents the best of how science and free governments can make the world a better place. And the quest for the first Web page reminds him of CERN's main goal - seeking answers about the universe using tools such as the $10 billion Large Hadron Collider, where high-energy beams of protons are sent crashing into each other at incredible speeds. 

"We're looking at the origins of the universe. Origins are intrinsically exciting," Noyes said. 

Jones takes pride in his small part in Internet history, too. He understands the pull of trying to find the first Web page even if it doesn't make much sense. After all, even the simplest page created by a blogging novice today is richer and has more depth than those Web pages more than two decades ago. He likens it to why millions of people go to Europe to see original paintings of The Scream or the Mona Lisa when they can see replicas with almost no effort at all. 

"No matter how perfectly you can reproduce something, like The Scream or the Mona Lisa, we have a fetish for the original," Jones said. "The more you see the derivative, the more you want to see the original."

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