What Is The World Wide Web (WWW)? by Charles Salmon

Today, millions of computers are connected by the World Wide Web. This concept of WWW did not exist before three decades. World Wide Web has now connected every computer scattered across various cities in the globe. Without any effort, a person sitting in one corner of the world can access information present in a server which is physically located in another part of the world. Geographic location is not a consideration if you want to access information. World Wide Web technology has made it possible to gather knowledge about anything and everything. The rules of communication were broken by the advent of World Wide Web where a person can acquire knowledge without conversing with any other human being.

The history

The concept of World Wide Web evolved only in 1990. However, people were interested in connecting different computers right from 1945. A device made of microfilms was used to store and organize huge documents. Anybody who knows the way to access the microfilms can read the information in the documents. This idea was further enhanced in 1968 where the new concept of hypertext was introduced. This is the base of WWW. Hypertext enables linking and organizing documents in an effortless way. Irrespective of the size of the documents, they can be linked and organized within a small amount of time.

The basic step to World Wide Web was put forward by DARPA in 1972 when the agency did a project to connect various research centers. This project was done to centralize document control and facilitate information sharing. The content of the documents is separated from presentation enabling document retrieval in an easier way. This idea was further developed by Tim Berners-Lee from CERN laboratory in 1989. In 1990, he proposed a hypertext system and introduced the term World Wide Web. When the idea was proposed, nobody ever imagined that WWW would become a great success. In 1992, CERN introduced the first portable web browser using which documents were retrieved easily without the use of complex coding techniques.

World Wide Web evolution

The modern World Wide Web has many features including applications, data, API, multimedia, social platform and much more. This technology is improving everyday making more and more additions to the data and services that can be shared. HTML is the hypertext programming language which is used even today to generate web pages. As with any technology, web technology has also seen many changes from the past decade.

Web1.0 was the first web technology which enabled reading of documents. The user was presented with the document he wanted but he cannot make changes or feed any data. The content published on internet is readable only by the humans. Web 2.0 revolutionized internet allowing user interactions. The user can now enter details which the machine can read and manipulate. The need for offline communication reduced with the use of emails. The latest development in the World Wide Web is the Web 3.0 technology which is called the semantic web. This is in the developing phase where there is no centralized data control. It is an open schema using artificial intelligence to mimic human behavior.

Trading Forex - is NZD ready for a rally? by Mike P. Kulej

Over last few years we have witnessed historic drop in US dollar. Many currencies found themselves in a prolonged up trend, some of them reaching dizzying levels. Most notable has been Euro, which moved into all time high of over 1.6000. Canadian dollar also visited never before seen levels. Most remaining major currencies staged very impressive runs of their own. One of them was New Zealand dollar.

NZD, also known as "Kiwi" experienced perhaps the most telling rally of them all. Between 2001 and early 2008 it moved 0.4000 to 0.8200, effectively doubling in value against USD. We don't see something like this often, certainly not among currencies of major, established economies. Very impressive.

Earlier this year USD started to regain some strength. While eventually dollar gained ground on all currencies, NZD was the first one to exhibit weakness and turn. This happened in spite of having the highest interest rates in the developed world. According to some, they were the leading reason in Kiwi's earlier rise. By the time Reserve Bank of New Zealand cut rates for the first time in 5 years, NZD-USD had already lost 700 pips. That was in July.

Since then NZD experience continued fall. Being one of the so called "commodities currencies", it got under pressure when raw materials prices started to fall. After that economic news from coming from Auckland went from bad to worse: rising inflation and unemployment, huge slow down in house sales, loss of consumer confidence, etc,. List can go on and on.

By the time RBNZ was cutting rates again on September 11th, New Zealand dollar fell over 1700 to just under 0.6500. In a rather surprising move, the rates were lowered by 0.50% as opposed to expected 0.25%. Much to the surprise of trading public, this action failed to cause farther drop in NZD. There was a slide lasting couple of hours followed by a sharp rebound.

Is the worst over? While economy of New Zealand has not improved, news from other countries became much worse. It appears there is a world wide economic slow down, if not all out recession. From now on, most of the central banks are expected to be cutting rates. This means, that Kiwi will likely maintain large interest rate differential, making it an attractive instrument for investors seeking above average rates.

Looks like the recent low of 0.6500, will hold for some time. On technical bases, we can expected rally from current levels to perhaps as high as 0.7500. It is very unlikely we will see a very fast, strong move, but rather measured, steady appreciation in NZD-USD, lasting perhaps 6 months or so. Incidentally, that is not going to just against US dollar, but rather broader Kiwi strength.

It must be pointed out, that very long term charts, monthly, are still pointing to lower levels . That is in a little distant future. For now we can expect good size NZD rally, lasting long enough to present decent trading opportunity. In all likely hood, it has already started.

Mike P. Kulej is a Chief Forex Strategist for Spectrum Forex LLC. He specializes in mechanical trading systems as explained on www.spectrumforex.com . Spectrum Forex LLC offers numerous services to individual traders. He also publishes trading blog www.fxmadness.com . With questions and comments e-mail him at kulej@spectrumforex.com.