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Internet Time. No Time Zones - No Geographical Borders - Just your desktop... Internet time is a standard created by Swatch. How long is a Swatch .beat? In short, we have divided up the virtual and real day into 1000 .beats. One Swatch beat is the equivalent of 1 minute 26.4 seconds. That means that 12 noon in the old time system is the equivalent of @500 Swatch .beats. Okay, so how can a surfer in New York, or a passenger on a transatlantic flight know when it is @500 Swatch .beats in Central Europe for example? How can the New York surfer make a date for a chat with his cyber friend in Rome? Easy, Internet Time is the same all over the world. How is this possible? We are not just creating a new way of measuring time, we are also creating a new meridian in Biel, Switzerland, home of Swatch. Biel MeanTime (BMT) is the universal reference for Internet Time. A day in Internet Time begins at midnight BMT (@000 Swatch .beats) (Central European Wintertime). The meridian is marked for all to see on the facade of the Swatch International Headquarters on Jakob-Staempfli Street, Biel, Switzerland. So, it is the same time all over the world, be it night or day, the era of time zones has disappeared. The BMT meridian was inaugurated on 23 October 1998 in the presence of Nicholas Negroponte, founder and director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology`s Media Laboratory. iTime is a simple Windows application which will make the Windows tray clock alternate between your local time and Internet Time. |
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