2012 Summer Olympics opening ceremony
At the close the larger house was raised to reveal Tim Berners-Lee working at a NeXT Computer, like the one on which he invented the World Wide Web. He tweeted 'This is for everyone', instantly spelled out in LED lights around the stadium. The programme explained "Music connects us with each other and with the most important moments in our lives. One of the things that makes those connections possible is the World Wide Web". Boyle wanted to honour Berners-Lee for having made the World Wide Web free and available to everyone (hence the tweet), rather than seeking a commercial profit from it.
Technological and industrial history of 21st-century Canada
The Internet has also become an important source of information, marked by the popularity of such sites as Wikipedia and Google Earth. Wikipedia, an on-line encyclopedia, was established in the US in 2001 by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger and presently has over 5,000,000 articles in English and a large number in other languages. Many articles have been contributed to both the English and French language versions of Wikipedia by Canadians, and many of these relate to important aspects of Canadian life. There are thousands of Canadians who use the service every day in both English and French. Google Earth, a virtual globe, is an on-line feature offered by Google since 2005. It provides aerial views of the Earth and is viewed by thousands of web users, many of which are Canadian, every day. Another Internet information service, the telephone directory Canada 411.ca, has become very popular since introduced in recent years. This has led to the delivery of the residential paper telephone book, introduced to Canada in 1878, being cancelled in major cities in 2010.