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 façade 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.
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