Adobe, profs working on web time-machine app

A collaborative effort between Adobe and the University of Washington intends to offer a new web archiving and search app called Zoetrope, which would allow users to search past versions of the web as well as what is out there at the moment. "Your browser is really just a window into the Web as it exists today," says Eytan …

[spam]

Difficulties

Unfortunately this won't be as easy as it might have been 4 or 5 years ago.

The proliferation of Ajax makes caching old versions of content difficult/next to impossible - in another couple of years this initiative may be just as broken as Internet Archive

[EdWeb]

Is that not....

...what WayBackMachine does? Or am I being fick?

Mine's the 70's sheepskin, a la Motty-style.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why?

Why do I need this?

Isn't all the information people need now online? There is even a lot of trash too. It will be gathering more and more trash such a project. Yes, I am one of those people that clean their e-mail inbox from time to time to be sure only things that are going to be useful in the future are kept there (in this regard, by the way, one can say I'm anti-Google policy).

[David Viner]

If you want to look into the internet's past...

...then look here:

http://www.vcn.bc.ca/help/guides/turnip.html

That page hasn't changed since 1996.

[Alan]

True, but

Well thats true , just as javascript opening locations have lead to the braking of the Internet Archive. But that was somewhat due to the naive indexing of the IA, writing routines to take into account javascript and Ajax paths would not be implausible.

[Anonymous Coward]

Recursive cache

Does it need to keep a cache of itself to prove that at some point something was added to the cache which someone needs to access to prove that at some point something was added to the cache which someone need to access to prove that....

Perhaps the need the Google container ships for server storage; warming the seas all year round. 23 degrees of Bournemouth beach in mid winter would be interesting surfing... until the proliferation of Somali warlords and their fast striking pirates sieze the data centers for a high ransom....

[Anonymous Coward]

@EdWeb: Well, since you /did/ ask, ...

... you're being fick. HTH.

Read the article again, and this time pay attention to the bit where it talks about what WayBackMachine (aka "The Internet Archive") does, and why this new one is different.