
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, November 5, 1995                   TAG: 9511030028
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: F-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: CAMBRIDGE, MASS.                                LENGTH: Short

CONSORTIUM DEVELOPS NEW WEB STANDARDS

Whether it has been radar, solar energy, architecture or business theory, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has never been far from the leading edge of scientific thought.

So there was little surprise last year when the school's Laboratory for Computer Science brought Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, from the European physics lab CERN and planted itself in the middle of the technical debate that is driving the fate of the global data network and, to a growing extent, the computer industry.

The lab helped form the World Wide Web Consortium, also known as the W3 Consortium, and has attracted more than 90 companies to participate. It is structured in the same way as an industry group the MIT lab led in 1988 that developed X Windows, software that made Unix-based computers easier.

The consortium is developing new standards and technology for the Web.

``We're repeating the honeymoon of X,'' said Michael Dertouzos, director of the lab.

by CNB