Prince "invented Internet 170 years ago"

A RUSSIAN WEB SITE has claimed that the Internet and in particular blogging, was invented by a Russian Prince in 1837.

According to Lenta.ru , Prince Vladimir Odoevsky, 1803-1869, penned science fiction yarns that tried to imagine what his country would look like in 2,500 years.

Odoevsky's novel "Year 4338", has just been re-discovered by Lenta.ru> In it the perceptive prince says that in that year there would be a kind of connection between houses that would allow people to communicate quickly.

"Houses are connected by means of magnetic telegraphs that allow people who live far from each other to communicate," Odoevsky wrote.

He said that every household would publish a kind of daily journal or newsletter and distribute it among selected acquaintances. The book tells how the Russian Prime Minister would invite the rich and famous to swanky parties using his blog.

Blogging will replace common correspondence, predicts the Prince. Such journals usually provide information about the hosts' good or bad health, family news, different thoughts and comments, small inventions, invitations to receptions. Of course, the wealthy could not bother doing the blogging themselves. They were far too busy. So the job of bloggy would be carried out by the Butler, Jeeves.

"It is done very simply: receiving an order from the masters, he makes a notice of what they tell him, then make copies by camera obscura and sends them to the acquaintances," Prince Vladimir wrote.

On the bleaker side, the book predicts that there will be a threat of the earth colliding with a comet and Russians planning to fire rockets at it to prevent the collision. All a bit like Nostradamus or Jules Verne, the only problem is that Prince Vladimir thought it would take 2500 years for his predictions to come true. Mind you it might have taken that long with Russia under the Tsars. More here. µ