Swatch’s Internet time system divides the day into 1000 beats, ignoring time zones and using a different meridian. It was seen as a marketing gimmick and not widely adopted. Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) is another internet time system used by many computer systems to avoid confusion about time zones.
Internet time is a phrase that has at least two possible meanings. The most common is a system devised by a watch company that divides the day into 1000 units and attempts to remove the concept of a time zone. The phrase can also refer to the Coordinated Universal Time system.
The most prominent release of the time on the Internet was a proposal from the Swiss watch company Swatch. While presented as a serious concept, it was seen by many as a marketing gimmick. No official organization has adopted the system, although it has been used as the official time system of an online “virtual country” designed and used by children.
Swatch’s Internet time system has three main differences from normal time systems. Most importantly, instead of using hours, minutes and seconds, it simply divides the day into 1000 equal units known as beats. Each beat lasted one minute and 26.4 seconds in the standard time. The time was displayed as a three-digit number preceded by the @ sign. For example, 6:750 Standard Time will be listed as @XNUMX in the Swatch system.
The other big change with Swatch’s internet time system was that it didn’t recognize time zones. Instead, every user in the world would recognize the same time. This would require local adjustments as, for example, @500 would be half day in one part of the world and half night in the other.
The Swatch system also used a different meridian from most time systems, with the line not coincidentally passing through the company’s office in Biel, Switzerland, rather than the traditional meridian in Greenwich, England. This meant that @500 would mark the highest point of the sun passing over Biel, and the equivalent of an hour before it did in Greenwich.
Internet time can also refer to Coordinated Universal Time, known as UTC. This is the time system used by many computer systems and is often used to avoid confusion about systems operating in different time zones. UTC corresponds to Greenwich Mean Time, which means that noon in UTC occurs at the same time as noon in GMT, 7 am in New York and 4 pm in Los Angeles. However, the two are different in technical terms: UTC is maintained with a leap second system, with which an extra second can be added at the end of June or December to compensate for the fact that the rotation of the Earth is gradually slowing down.
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