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鈥淭HE geeks are winning!鈥� So said Vinton Cerf as he and four others who helped create the internet and the web shared the UK鈥檚 inaugural 鈥� billed as the new 鈥淣obel prize for technology鈥�.
鈥淧eople have won Nobels for the physics of the laser, for instance, but people who did the engineering development of it have had no major award available to them until now,鈥� says Robert Kahn, one of the winners. The 拢1 million prize is awarded for an 鈥渙utstanding advance in engineering that creates significant benefit to humanity鈥�.
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Kahn, his US Department of Defense colleague Cerf and Louis Pouzin were honoured for developing key tools to transmit data on the internet, Tim Berners-Lee for creating the web itself, and Marc Andreessen for the first browser, NCSA Mosaic.