More on the Internet’s 40th birthday

Yesterday I posted an article about the 40th birthday of the Internet, which was ‘born’ on October 29th, 1969. A couple more interesting items have come to light today.

The Daily Mail has published pictures of the computer used to send those first Arpanet messages, and interviewed Prof. Leonard Kleinrock, one of the ‘founding fathers’ of the Internet. Here’s the computer in question, with Prof. Kleinrock:

There’s more at the link. Very interesting reading.

Then, the Defence Advanced Research Project Agency, or DARPA, has launched a competition with a $40,000 first (and only) prize, to commemorate the Internet’s 40th birthday. They explain:

To mark the 40th anniversary of the Internet, DARPA has announced the DARPA Network Challenge, a competition that will explore the role the Internet and social networking plays in the timely communication, wide area team-building and urgent mobilization required to solve broad scope, time-critical problems.

The challenge is to be the first to submit the locations of ten moored, 8 foot, red weather balloons located at ten fixed locations in the continental United States. Balloons will be in readily accessible locations and visible from nearby roadways.

HOW TO COMPETE

1. Register on this web site on December 1.
2. Find other people interested in helping you solve the DARPA Network Challenge.
3. Starting December 5, submit locations to the web site immediately after you find them.
4. For updates, follow us on Twitter.

PRIZE

A $40,000 cash prize will be awarded to the first entrant to submit the latitude and longitude of all ten balloons.

SCHEDULE

Announcement – October 29, 2009
Registration Opens – December 1, 2009
Balloons Launched – December 5, 2009
Submission Deadline – December 14, 2009

Official rules for the competition (in .PDF format) may be found here. Good luck to any readers who decide to enter – and don’t forget to share the prize with your humble host here if you win!

Peter